Anyone vaguely familiar with the life of Christ knows that he did not shy away from asking his listeners questions. These questions played a pedagogical function, causing his listeners to reflect on what he had been teaching them. For instance, when he wanted to get his listeners to reflect on God’s care for his sheep, the Lord asked them –

“What do you think?”1

And when he wanted to get his listeners to reflect on who it is that does or not does do the will of God, the Lord Christ asked them –

“What do you think?”2

When he wanted Peter to reflect on what taxing Christ and his disciples implied, Jesus asked him –

“What do you think, Simon?”3

Jesus, knowing the Pharisees’ position on the identity of the Messiah as being merely the son of David, got his listeners to think about what the Scriptures explicitly and implicitly teach about the Son of David by asking them –

“What do you say about the Christ? Whose son is he?”4

And upon receiving their answer, went on to ask –

“How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord…?5

“If David calls him Lord, how is he his son?”6

Unlike many people today, Christ encouraged men to think for themselves about what they were being told, as well as about the implications of their words. Although he is to be trusted immediately, without question, Christ nevertheless encouraged men to think about his teaching, to mull it over, and to think about whether or not they were willing to follow him. For instance, in the Gospel of Luke we read –

Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.7

Note that thinking is directly tied to not merely decisions respecting the here and now, but to eternity as well. We find Christ doing something similar in John 6, where after he declared that only those who eat his flesh and drink his blood have life in them, asked the disgruntled disciples –

“Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?”8

Christ was getting the disciples to reflect on the nature of their relationship to him. He was getting them to think about the most important information they would ever receive, and to do so without the aid of the experts of their time – viz. the Pharisees.

In the next part of this article series, we will delve into the Scriptures respecting this matter.

[Continued in Pt. 2]

1 Matt 18:12.

2 Matt 21:28.

3 Matt 17:25.

4 Matt 22:41.

5 Matt 22:43.

6 Matt 22:45.

7 Luke 14:25-33. (emphasis added)

8 John 6:61b-62.

In his book A Genealogy of Morals, philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche makes a distinction between what he calls noble morality and slave morality. Morality, he argues, began with superior men marking out traits and abilities that were not common to all but only the smaller class of kings, warriors, artists, musicians. Inferior men, however, were mentally and physically incapable of what the nobles were capable of doing. Consequently, they resented their superiors and sought revenge against them. They enacted revenge by inverting good and evil, thereby condemning all that they were incapable of being and doing as evil. As Nietzsche explains –

The slave-revolt in morality begins by resentment itself becoming creative and giving birth to values — the resentment of such beings, as real reaction, the reaction of deeds, is impossible to, and as nothing but an imaginary vengeance will serve to indemnify. Whereas, on the one hand, all noble morality takes its rise from a triumphant Yea-saying to one's self, slave-morality will, on the other hand, from the very beginning, say No to something “exterior,” “different,” “not-self;” this No being its creative deed. This re-version of the value-positing eye — this necessary glance outwards instead of backwards upon itself —is part of resentment. Slave-morality, in order to arise, needs, in the first place, an opposite and outer world; it needs, physiologically speaking, external irritants, in order to act at all; — its action is, throughout, reaction.1

[…]

...let people ask themselves, from the standpoint of resentment morality as to who is “evil?” Answering in all severity: just the “good” one of the opposite morality, even the noble man, the powerful and the ruling one, —but reversely colored, reversely interpreted, reversely looked at through the venom-eye of resentment.2

Ironically, however, Dave Robinson notes it is also the case that –

…Nietzsche has often been adopted as the great-grandfather of…recent postmodern beliefs. Indeed, many postmodernist philosophers, like Derrida and Foucault, have written essays that forcefully make this claim.3

This is ironic because it is precisely the work of Derrida and Foucault that serves as the philosophical foundation for critical race theory, a theoretical framework that, essentially, inverts Nietzsche’s theory of morality. Rather than being “supermen” of a “higher” and “nobler spirit” than what Nietzsche kindly referred to as “the nonbred human being[s], the mishmash human being[s], the chandala [i.e. “untouchables”],”4 Nietzsche’s children have dedicated themselves to condemning the ideas and behaviors of privileged and non-oppressed social groups. They have sought to obtain power by the very means Nietzsche identifies as decadent and vile – condemning the ideas and actions of those in power precisely because one is incapable of producing them.

Foucault’s Emblem: Sympathy for the “Oppressed”

As Foucault scholar Johanna Oksala explains, “Foucault began from a relentless hatred of bourgeois society and culture and with a spontaneous sympathy for marginal groups such as the mad, homosexuals, and prisoners.”5 Hence Gary Gutting, in part, characterizes Michel Foucault as

…fiercely independent and committed from the beginning to his own and others’ freedom. His hatred of oppression flared out in the midst of the most complex and erudite discussions. He saw even his most esoteric intellectual work as contributing to a ‘toolbox’ for those opposing various tyrannies. And he had the effect he desired: he was a hero of the anti-psychiatry movement, of prison reform, of gay liberation…6

This sympathy for “the oppressed” in the history of Western Civilization also extended into flesh and blood political activism for a period of time in his life, further distancing himself from his philosophical forefather Nietzsche. For as Guy Eglat informs us –

Nietzsche’s attack on the idea of equality and its political manifestations in democratic ideology was relentless. Throughout his corpus, Nietzsche can be found attacking, again and again, the notion of “human dignity,” the idea that all human beings enjoy equal rights (“a symptom of a disease”), and the basic idea and value of the moral equality of all.7

How, then, could Foucault – a radical defender of what Nietzsche despised (viz. the unwashed masses) – be inspired by Nietzsche? Eglat argues that Foucault was influenced by the critical methodologies created and employed by Nietzsche throughout his writing.

Foucault was greatly taken by Nietzsche’s emphasis on the historical nature of human existence and on how central notions of how we think about and relate to ourselves and others—notions such as sanity and madness, sexuality, normality and abnormality—are constructed by various social institutions at different times and under different conditions. He was also arguably influenced by Nietzsche’s emphasis on power as a central explanatory concept by means of which we can conceptualize the working of the various institutional elements that in any given historical context produce the practices and theories that shape our self-understandings (though Nietzsche was more focused on the psychology, rather than the sociology, of power).8

Thus, Foucault abstracted these ways of reading and analyzing ideas from Nietzsche, while rejecting the German philosopher’s anti-democratic, anti-equality, anti-advocacy-on-behalf-of-the-weak ideas.

Derrida’s Departure

Derrida was not an activist, but he shares in common with Foucault the same desire to, at the very least, problematize the distinction between a number of binary concepts employed freely and repeatedly in Nietzsche’s writing. Nietzsche’s corpus is rife with binary oppositions that form the basis of his thinking. In his earliest major publication, The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche argued that all of life is a struggle between two primal forces – the Dionysian and the Apollonian. The Dionysian was irrational, disordered, chaotic, sensuous, earthly; the Apollonian was rational, ordered, harmonious, intellectual, cerebral. Similarly, in his book A Genealogy of Morals, as has been mentioned above, Nietzsche argued that moral thinking occurs between two irreconcilable personality types – the master and the slave, or the nobleman and the plebeian. These distinctions, we must note, were not divorced from their concrete political forms.

As Paul Patton explains, Derrida thought “that philosophy is by nature a form of political activity.”9 Yet he did not begin writing about politics explicitly until much later in his career as an academic. Patton writes –

Derrida’s overtly political philosophy developed alongside his involvement in the campaign against apartheid, his defence of imprisoned intellectuals and writers and his increasingly forceful public positions on issues such as the treatment of illegal immigrants, the politics of reconciliation, the death penalty, terrorism and the behaviour of rogue states. He developed detailed analyses of ethico-political concepts such as hospitality, forgiveness, friendship, justice, democracy, equality and sovereignty. He collaborated with his former critic Jürgen Habermas in defence of a certain idea of Europe. He affirmed his support for Enlightenment ideal of equality and the rule of law, as well as for changes to the international political system aimed at diminishing the power of state sovereignty in favour of a more cosmopolitan global order.10

Thus, while indebted to Nietzsche and his progeny (in particular, the Nazi philosopher Martin Heidegger11), Derrida nonetheless did not follow “the Madman’s”12 thinking in its entirety. Rather, he departed from his predecessor in search of a radical form of democracy of the kind that Nietzsche utterly despised.13

Resentful Offspring are, Nonetheless, Offspring

It seems to be that like the prodigal son, the postmodernists took their father’s inheritance, ran off with it, and wasted it on riotous philosophizing. They wound up in the same pen as the utilitarian hedonists feeding on the “pig philosophy” of democracy and liberalism, and subsequently inspiring the radicalism of the critical race theorists, social justice warriors, and neo-Marxists now advocating for the deconstruction of the very social concepts that Nietzsche sought to valorize, viz. individualism, freedom, responsibility, meritocracy, and so on. Have they, then, lost all connection to their father?

In a word, no. Their surface level concerns are, of course, diametrically opposed to one another. This much is obvious. However, their underlying presupposition is the same. Irrespective of the postmodernists’ attempts to rid themselves of anything vaguely resembling the Logos of God, an omnipotent and omnipresent and omniscient and transcendent mind responsible for the unity of all creation and its history, they nevertheless consistently wound up affirming with Nietzsche that all human relations are reducible to inter- and intra-human relations of power. For these children of the madman, what drives the history of the universe is not a divinely orchestrated concatenation of interrelated events that will culminate in the glorification of the Triune God as he exerts his perfect and just rule over all that he has made, but an indefatigable “will to power” that has only one goal in mind – its own perpetuation.

Is it any wonder we are seeing these offspring doing all that they can — from irrationally arguing their case to setting buildings ablaze and toppling national monuments — to exercise, and thereby obtain even more, power?

Were Nietzsche around to see the antics of his resentful children, he would likely chastise them for trying to exercise power over their superiors via an inversion of all that Nietzsche thought was noble, good, and superior. His resentful offspring have made a cottage industry of identifying themselves as oppressed for the sake of obtaining socio-economic-political power. But Nietzsche could not honestly deny that they are, in many ways, his spitting image

---

1 A Genealogy of Morals, Trans. William A. Hausemann (New York: Macmillan, 1897), 35.

2 ibid., 40.

3 Nietzsche and Postmodern Philosophy (Cambridge: Icon Books, 1999), 34.

4 Twilight of the Idols, Trans. Richard Polt (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1997), 40.

5 “Michel Foucault,” Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Apr. 02, 2003, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/foucault/, Accessed June 15, 2020.

6 Foucault: A Very Short Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 2.

7 “Why Friedrich Nietzsche Is the Darling of the Far Left and the Far Right,” Tablet Magazine, May 07, 2017, https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/nietzsche-left-right, Accessed June 15, 2020.

8 ibid.

9 “Derrida, Politics and Democracy to Come,” in Philosophy Compass 2/6 (2007), 766.

10 ibid. (emphasis added)

11 See Faye, Emmanuel. “Nazi Foundations in Heidegger’s Work,” in South Central Review Volume 23, Number 1 (Spring: 2006), 55-66.

12 This was Nietzsche’s description of himself.

13 As Daniel W. Conway explains in his book Nietzsche and the Political:

Nietzsche is no champion of democracy, but he believes that demotic interests are best served in hierarchical political regimes devoted to the breeding and production of exemplary human beings. All members of a thriving community are, and should be, elevated by the “immoral” exploits of its highest exemplars. While this elevation is least visible (and least appreciated) within the demotic stratum of a hierarchical society, he nevertheless insists, like J.S.Mill, that some attenuated benefits of perfectionism trickle down to everyone.

– Nietzsche & the Political (New York: Routledge, 1997), 36.

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By Right of Conquest: Or, With Cortez in Mexico is the first book I just finished reading by the prolific Victorian author and war correspondent, George Alfred Henty. Not only has it become my favorite novel, it also catapulted Henty towards the top of my favorite authors. It’s disappointing that Henty is not as popular today as he should be, especially amongst Christians, though some homeschooling circles and publishers have caught on to his amazing, vast body of work. For those not familiar with him, a historical novel by Lew Wallace (who shares a similar background with Henty) that resembles Henty’s style happens to be “the most influential Christian book written in the nineteenth century,” Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, similar to Henty’s Beric the Briton: A Story of the Roman Invasion and For the Temple: A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem—except that Henty authored over 120 of them, spanning multiple continents, times, cultures, societies, and places, from the shimmering sands and conquests of ancient Egypt; to Rome during the Punic Wars with Hannibal, as well as the time of Christ and fall of Jerusalem; to the Middle Ages with barbarians, knights and crusaders; to the times of Reformation and Renaissance with Protestants (including the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of the Huguenots), explorers, and conquistadors; to wars of religion, rebellion, restoration, and succession; to the French Revolution and American wars of independence and slavery; and to the countless exploits of the British empire throughout the world!

In By Right of Conquest, Henty brilliantly weaves fictional English characters with proto-Protestant sympathies to Wycliffe into the colliding worlds of the Aztecs and of Hernán Cortés and the Catholic Spaniards. He does so in a believable and historically accurate manner, requiring no suspension of disbelief: “Indeed, a writer of fiction would scarcely have dared to invent so improbable a story” (Preface). This story has it all—adventure, survival, success, failure, controversy, true religion, false religion, conquest, treachery, deception, intrigue, espionage, love, hate, honor, bravery, courage, war. Henty’s storytelling is so immersive that it thrusts the reader right into the situations that the characters encounter, challenging him to think—What would you do? Would you conceal your religious conviction for the one triune God to avoid becoming a human sacrifice, or do you allow the Aztecs to think you’re a god, and consequently offer human sacrifices on your behalf? Do you join the Aztecs in buffeting the abusive foreign invaders, or the ambitious Spanish conquistadors against all odds to overpower the despotic Aztec nation, in hopes of one day sailing back home?

Henty also presents lively discussions about the Papacy’s megalomaniacal claim to owning undiscovered territories:

"I do not say nay to that," Roger assented; "but I do not see why Spain and Portugal should claim all the Indies, East and West, and keep all others from going there."

"But the pope has given the Indies to them," Dorothy said.

"I don't see that they were the pope's to give," Roger replied. "That might do for the king, and his minister Wolsey, and the bishops; but when in time all the people have read, as we do, Master Wycliffe's Bible, they will come to see that there is no warrant for the authority the pope claims; and then we may, perhaps, take our share of these new discoveries."

"Hush, Roger! You should not speak so loud about the Bible. You know that though there are many who read it, it is not a thing to be spoken of openly; and that it would bring us all into sore trouble, were anyone to hear us speak so freely as you have done. There has been burning of Lollards, and they say that Wolsey is determined to root out all the followers of Wycliffe."

It is an ingenious way of presenting fact in fiction from a Protestant perspective, for, as historian William Prescott recounts,

It should be remembered that religious infidelity, at this period, and till a much later, was regarded—no matter whether founded on ignorance or education, whether hereditary or acquired, heretical or pagan—as a sin to be punished with fire and fagot in this world, and eternal suffering in the next. This doctrine, monstrous as it is, was the creed of the Romish, in other words, of the Christian Church,—the basis of the Inquisition, and of those other species of religious persecutions which have stained the annals, at some time or other, of nearly every nation in Christendom.[216] Under this code, the territory of the heathen, wherever found, was regarded as a sort of religious waif, which, in default of a legal proprietor, was claimed and taken possession of by the Holy See, and as such was freely given away by the head of the Church, to any temporal potentate whom he pleased, that would assume the burden of conquest.[217] Thus, [pope] Alexander the Sixth generously granted a large portion of the Western hemisphere to the Spaniards, and of the Eastern to the Portuguese. These lofty pretensions of the successors of the humble fisherman of Galilee, far from being nominal, were acknowledged and appealed to as conclusive in controversies between nations.[218] (History of the Conquest of Mexico, Vol. 2, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/59820/59820-h/59820-h.htm#FNanchor_215_215)

Henty moreover mentions a great temple that a monarch of Tezcuco had erected to the “Unknown God”:

Thus Tezcuco became the center of the education, science, and art of Anahuac, and was at this time the head of the three allied kingdoms. Nezahualcoyotl greatly encouraged agriculture, as well as all the productive arts. The royal palace and the edifices of the nobles were magnificent buildings, and were upon an enormous scale, the Spaniards acknowledging that they surpassed any buildings in their own country.

Not satisfied with receiving the reports of his numerous officers, the monarch went frequently in disguise among his people, listening to their complaints, and severely punishing wrongdoers. Being filled with deep religious feeling, he openly confessed his faith in a God far greater than the idols of wood and stone worshiped by his subjects, and built a great temple which he dedicated to the Unknown God.

……..

“I believe,” Roger said, “that your Majesty's grandfather erected a temple here to the Unknown God. It is the Unknown God—unknown to you, but known to us—that the white peoples across the sea worship. He is a good and gentle and loving God, and would abhor sacrifices of blood.”

In many ways, this parallels the account of the altar dedicated to the “unknown god” which Paul the Apostle had addressed to the “men of Athens” on the Areopagus in Acts 17:

So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. (vv. 22ff., ESV)

This made me wonder: Did Henty embellish the story of the unknown god as a literary device, or is it historically authentic? According to William Prescott, the historian that Henty primarily drew from, the truth really is stranger than fiction:

It would be incredible that a man of the enlarged mind and endowments of Nezahualcoyotl should acquiesce in the sordid superstitions of his countrymen, and still more in the sanguinary rites borrowed by them from the Aztecs. In truth, his humane temper shrunk from these cruel ceremonies, and he strenuously endeavored to recall his people to the more pure and simple worship of the ancient Toltecs. A circumstance produced a temporary change in his conduct.

He had been married some years to the wife he had so unrighteously obtained, but was not blessed with issue. The priests represented that it was owing to his neglect of the gods of his country, and that his only remedy was to propitiate them by human sacrifice. The king reluctantly consented, and the altars once more smoked with the blood of slaughtered captives. But it was all in vain; and he indignantly exclaimed, “These idols of wood and stone can neither hear nor feel; much less could they make the heavens, and the earth, and man, the lord of it. These must be the work of the all-powerful, unknown God, Creator of the universe, on whom alone I must rely for consolation and support.”[325]

He then withdrew to his rural palace of Tezcotzinco, where he remained forty days, fasting and praying at stated hours, and offering up no other sacrifice than the sweet incense of copal, and aromatic herbs and gums. At the expiration of this time, he is said to have been comforted by a vision assuring him of the success of his petition. At all events, such proved to be the fact; and this was followed by the cheering intelligence of the triumph of his arms in a quarter where he had lately experienced some humiliating reverses.[326]

Greatly strengthened in his former religious convictions, he now openly professed his faith, and was more earnest to wean his subjects from their degrading superstitions and to substitute nobler and more spiritual conceptions of the Deity. He built a temple in the usual pyramidal form, and on the summit a tower nine stories high, to represent the nine heavens; a tenth was surmounted by a roof painted black, and profusely gilded with stars, on the outside, and incrusted with metals and precious stones within. He dedicated this to “the unknown God, the Cause of causes”[327] It seems probable, from the emblem on the tower, as well as from the complexion of his verses, as we shall see, that he mingled with his reverence for the Supreme the astral worship which existed among the Toltecs.[328] Various musical instruments were placed on the top of the tower, and the sound of them, accompanied by the ringing of a sonorous metal struck by a mallet, summoned the worshippers to prayers, at regular seasons.[329] No image was allowed in the edifice, as unsuited to the “invisible God;” and the people were expressly prohibited from profaning the altars with blood, or any other sacrifices than that of the perfume of flowers and sweet-scented gums. (History of the Conquest of Mexico, Vol. 1, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/59755/59755-h/59755-h.htm#page_208)

Reading Henty therefore is a great way to learn history; but more than that, it’s a great way to learn Christian virtue—especially manliness—exemplified and applied in virtually every society and circumstance. His stories are a fine remedy for the lack of manhood that plagues modern society.

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Because Henty’s novels are in the public domain, most of them are freely available in ebook and audio formats. I started listening to the LibriVox version of By Right of Conquest, but it became difficult to follow along due to the narrator’s insipid voice. About halfway through I switched to Jim Hodges’ narration, which was more animated and better overall, but didn’t like his pronunciations of Mexican and Aztec names and places (the LibriVox pronunciations were better). An additional frustration was that Hodges made Cortez’s voice sound like a wimpy English butler rather than a bold and daring Spanish conquistador; something like Antonio Banderas would seem more appropriate. And yet, even with these annoyances, the story was nevertheless captivating to the finis.

And while Henty’s novels are enthralling, it may be difficult for younger children to follow along with 300- to 400-page tomes. Heirloom Audio, however, revised and condensed a handful of Henty’s historical adventures into roughly two-hour theatrical audio presentations that are wildly entertaining for younger audiences. They are nice introductions, like elaborate trailers or commercials, to the unabridged novels, which are still far superior. (See reviews of Beric the Briton, Under Drake’s Flag, In the Reign of Terror.)

Henty’s stories both delight and instruct readers in history and manly virtue, and make excellent additions to any library, history study, homeschool curriculum, and personal enrichment. Tolle, lege!

In Matthew 24, the disciples of God ask him –

“...what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”1

Christ then details the events which will signal his second advent, and states that

“Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”2

The Gospel will be proclaimed as a testimony to all nations, but before this there will be a great time of tribulation. The situation will be dire. It will be so dire, in fact, that the love of many will grow cold. Christians will not fall away from Christ, for he promises that no man – and that includes ourselves – can pluck us out of his omnipotent hand.3 However, Christians can grow cold. Consider John Gill’s commentary on this passage –

And because iniquity shall abound... Meaning, either the malice and wickedness of outrageous persecutors, which should greatly increase; or the treachery and hatred of the apostates; or the errors and heresies of false teachers; or the wickedness that prevailed in the lives and conversations of some, that were called Christians: for each of these seem to be hinted at in the context, and may be all included, as making up the abounding iniquity here spoken of; the consequence of which would be,

the love of many shall wax cold. This would be the case of many, but not of all; for in the midst of this abounding iniquity, there were some, the ardour of whose love to Christ, to his Gospel, and to the saints, did not abate: but then there were many, whose zeal for Christ, through the violence of persecution, was greatly damped; and through the treachery of false brethren, were shy of the saints themselves, not knowing who to trust; and through the principles of the false teachers, the power of godliness, and the vital heat of religion, were almost lost; and through a love of the world, and of carnal ease and pleasure, love to the saints was grown very chill, and greatly left; as the instances of Demas, and those that forsook the Apostle Paul, at his first answer before Nero, show. This might be true of such, who were real believers in Christ; who might fall under great decays, through the prevalence of iniquity; since it does not say their love shall be lost, but wax cold.4

Just prior to the Lord Jesus’ return, things will get so bad that some Christians will grow cold in their love, losing their zeal for evangelism, as well as their desire for fellowship with the saints. Yet this causal relationship between the increase of wickedness and a decrease in love is not unique to the time period just before our Lord returns to judge the quick and the dead. Rather, it is a constant reality we often forget about, at least until time unfolds and we are face to face with it again.

Today, we are facing riots in every major city, where the smoke of burning police vehicles and historical landmarks rushes to blind us to the coronapoclypse myth’s decaying corpse. Cacophonous sloganeering deafens us to the sound of our economy collapsing, pastors caving to the wicked whims of Caesar, and “men” of God capitulating to the demands of the gender-fluid. The world and the flesh and the devil unremittingly call us to lay down our powerful spiritual weapons5 and pick up the carnal weapons they’ve forged against the true Triune God – scientism, critical race theory, statism, nihilism, hedonism, moralism. Indeed, as David declares –

On every side the wicked prowl,

as vileness is exalted among the children of man.6

We are being directed at every turn to be spiritually quarantined, lest we become infected with unbelief and suffer despair, hopelessness, and embitterment.

But if we do not come into contact with these things, how will we build immunity against them? How will we develop spiritual antibodies if we cave and abdicate our calling in Christ?

Counterintuitively, it is precisely these spiritual attacks on us that God uses to conform us more and more to the image of his beloved Son. James 1:2-4 states as much, declaring –

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Not only this, but these attacks also serve to humble us and draw attention away from us, while simultaneously underscoring the truth of the Gospel and the power of God. As Paul declares in 2nd Cor 4:7-18 –

…we have this treasure [viz. The Gospel of reconciliation] in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you.

Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, “I believed, and so I spoke,” we also believe, and so we also speak, knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

What is, on the one hand, distressing and painful to see and hear, is yet, on the other hand, the very means whereby we grow in Christ and become better equipped to face future trials that may be even worse. Therefore,

...let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.7

We will reap a harvest of confidence in our Lord’s Sovereign direction of all that ever has happened, is happening, and will happen. And we will be further equipped to love our brothers and sisters in Christ who will experience what we have already experienced and, by the grace of our God, have overcome.

Press on, brethren.

Press on.

Soli Deo Gloria.

1 Matt 24:3b.

2 vv.9-14.

3 cf. John 10:27-30.

4 Emphasis added.

5 cf. Eph 6:10-18 & 2nd Cor 10:3-6.

6 Ps 12:8.

7 Gal 6:9.

The so-called corona virus (CV) pandemic has taken the world by storm.  Like many people, this author had never so much as heard the term “corona virus” until about three or four months ago.  But writing now in early May 2020, it seems as if it’s been with us forever. 

One of the barriers to thinking clearly about the CV pandemic and resulting lock down of the economy was the remarkable speed at which it all occurred.  It seemed that one day all was well, and the next that governors across the country were ordering their citizens to “shelter in place.”  It was almost as if the entire nation were sucker punched at once.  One day we were going about our business, working our jobs as we always had, and the next we were working from home or not working at all.  Who could ever have imagined such a thing as recently as the beginning of this year? 

The official narrative is that the virus is an unexpected event, originating in China.  Despite the Chinese leadership’s heroic efforts to contain it, the virus managed to spread throughout all the world.  Here in the US, Anthony Fauci is officially hailed as a hero and governors who locked down their states are thought to have taken bold action to save the nation from an even higher death count than has been reported.  They are heroes.  And the more severely they locked down their states, the more heroic they are.    

Although the rapidity at which the crisis emerged and my unfamiliarity with pandemics made analysis difficult at first, the whole CV pandemic always seemed more than a bit suspect to me.  And the longer it has gone on and the more information that has come out, the more my original suspicions have been confirmed.  Below are thirteen reason why I doubt CV narrative.

1.      Quarantining the healthy: The foolish and unbiblical policy of quarantining the healthy makes it obvious that our policymakers either do not know what they are talking about or have evil intentions.  The Bible does permit governments to quarantine the sick.  This can be seen in Leviticus chapter 13 where we read about the detailed process the priests used to determine if a man had leprosy.  It was only after the priest had declared him leprous that an individual was put outside the camp.  But there was no provision in the Mosaic law to lock up healthy people in their dwellings to prevent the spread of leprosy.  Israel as a nation was never locked down.  Applying quarantines only to the sick is an extension of the biblical view of criminal justice.  The Bible’s approach to criminal justice is one of crime punishment, not crime prevention.  In the Bible, a man was punished only after going through due process and being found guilty. There was no bureaucracy in place to punish the innocent with onerous regulations aimed at preventing crime.  Quarantining the healthy is a form of punishing the innocent and it needs to stop. 

2.      The remarkable attack on religious liberty:  It was just three weeks ago that Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear threatened Christians who attended Easter services in Kentucky with having their license plates recorded by local officials and put in quarantine (house arrest) for fourteen days.  Never has this author seen such an arrogant and sinful stance by an American governor toward Christians whose only “offense” was to obey the Biblical injunction to gather on the first day of the week to worship.    

3.      Soviet-style censorship of free speech:  In addition to the free exercise of religion, the US Constitution guarantees the right of free speech.  Yet the major social media companies have taken it upon themselves to censor content that contradicts the official narrative.  For example, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki stated in a recent CNN interview that “Anything that goes against WHO recommendations [on the CV] would be a violation of our policy and so remove is another really important part of our policy.” Likewise, Facebook says that in light of WHO’s declaring COVID-19 a global public health emergency, it will be, “taking aggressive steps to stop misinformation and harmful content from spreading.” Some will say that this is not a violation of free speech, since these YouTube and Facebook are private companies.  But the line between social media companies and the government is blurry.  For example, law professor Jonathan Turley wrote a post earlier this year titled “The Death of Free Speech: Zuckerberg Asks Governments For Instructions On ‘What Discourse Should Be Allowed.” The Atlantic published an article by Harvard Law School professor Jack Goldsmith and University of Arizona law professor Andrew Keane Woods that the Hill described as calling for Chinese style censorship of the internet. 

4.      The destruction of economic liberty:  Government officials in the United States have forced businesses to close and put, so far, about 30 million people out of work.  This is the largest spike in unemployment in the history of our nation.  Yet the people that have been responsible for making and implementing and enforcing these policies have themselves remained conspicuously employed.  Anthony Fauci has not lost his job.  Neither has Deborah Birx or any of the dozens of governors who have locked down their states.  These actions have created extreme economic hardship for a significant part of the population, while those who are the cause of the suffering are insulated from the repercussions of their actions. 

5.      Destruction of personal liberty:  It’s shocking just how much many of the CV pandemic peddlers seem to love totalitarianism.   See, for example, Tucker Carlson’s report on Peter Walker, a former employee of the McKinsey consulting firm in China.  One clip shows Carlson raising concerns about China’s oppression of its citizens and Peter Walker responding by saying, “look at the results.”  Extraordinary.  An American business leader responding to China’s oppression of its own citizens by saying, “look at the results.”  Who would have thought we’d ever hear such a thing? The Atlantic ran a story at the end of March saying “Get Used to It:  This Lockdown Won’t Be the Last,” telling Americans that they have a future of multiple lock downs to look forward to.  All for our own good, of course. 

6.      Money printing by the Federal Reserve:  In response to the economic shut down, the Federal Reserve (the Fed) has engaged in a surge of money printing the likes of which have never been seen before.  According to this chart from the St. Louis Fed, the Fed’s balance sheet has increased by about $2.4 trillion just since February 19.  When we say that the Fed’s balance sheet has increased by $2.4 trillion, this is just a polite way of saying that the Fed has created $2.4 trillion out of nothing in the space of a little over two months.  To put that in perspective, it took the Fed about a century to create $3 trillion dollars.  That they’ve managed to do nearly that in just over two months without anyone saying much about it is remarkable to say the least.  And don’t for a minute thing the Fed’s done.  According to the very mainstream Marketwatch, the Fed could grow its balance sheet to $10 trillion by early 2021.  This unprecedented increase in the supply of money coupled with an unprecedented decrease in economic output will result in more dollars chasing fewer goods, implying unprecedented consumer price inflation.  Put in Biblical terms, this is theft.  And not only theft, but theft on a scale that is hard to comprehend.  Yet we’re told by elite propaganda outlets such as the New York Times that the expanding debt, which is made possible by the Fed’s expanding its balance sheet, is a good thing.   In truth, such policies by the Fed are both sinful and destructive of our nation.  That massive debt expansion and money printing are sold to the American people by their leaders as positively necessary for dealing the CV pandemic is good reason to suspect the entire narrative is bogus.

7.      The strange involvement of Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infections Diseases with the Wuhan Institute of Virology:  According to the New York Post, Dr. Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infection Diseases (NIAID) gave $7.4 million to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the lab from which the CV supposedly was released.  The New York Post article dated 4/20/2020 goes on to state that the National Institute of Health, which oversees NIAID, just shut off funding to the lab the prior week.  The financial connection between Fauci’s NIAID and the Wuhan lab is, to say the least, interesting.  Perhaps more information is forthcoming on this issue.

8.      Anthony Fauci’s Jesuit connections:  It’s remarkable how often one finds Jesuits, or men trained by the Jesuits, at the center of important events.  Jay Powell, the current Chairman of the Federal Reserve, went to law school at Jesuit Georgetown University.  Recently appointed Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh attended high school at Georgetown Preparatory School, a Jesuit boys college prep school. As of the summer of 2018, Kavanaugh was a volunteer tutor and served on the board of Washington Jesuit Academy.  This bring us to Dr. Anthony Fauci.  As Berean Beacon reports, Anthony Fauci attended Jesuit schools from Our Lady of Guadalupe Grammar School in Brooklyn all the way up through his undergraduate degree from College of the Holy Cross.  Says Berean Beacon, “Today, Dr. Anthony Fauci, is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a position he has held since 1984.  This Jesuit trained deep state operative has been intimately involved in public affairs and policy for the past six presidential administrations.  And now the world stands at the precipice of forced vaccination at the hands of a conglomerate of church, state and science so falsely called.”  

9.      Bill Gates: The more one learns about Bill Gates, the more suspect he becomes.  The Microsoft billionaire has inserted himself in the response to the pandemic to a degree that is truly remarkable and, therefore, his actions require scrutiny.  What do we find when we look into Gates?  He’s a vaccine nut.  As a recent article by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Children’s Health Defense website tells us, “Vaccines, for Bill Gates, are a strategic philanthropy that feed his many vaccine-related businesses (including Microsoft’s ambition to control a global vaccination ID enterprise) and give him dictatorial control of global health policy.  This has prompted some people to say that Bill Gates wants to microchip you, which various fact checking websites have had a field day refuting.  But not so fast. As this report from Target Liberty tells us, Bill Gates doesn’t want to microchip you, he just wants to give you a digital tattoo to prove you’ve had all your shots.  Well, that makes me feel so much better! 

10.  Quarantining the Healthy:  The Bible teaches that there is a place for quarantining individuals who have dangerous diseases.  But if you read what the Scriptures say about quarantining, it is all about isolating the sick, not locking down the healthy.  Yet we’re told by all right-thinking people that to be safe, we must lock healthy individuals in their homes.  This inversion of the Biblical principles of quarantining is prima facie evidence that those who are running the response to CV are at best confused in their thinking.  Another possibility is that they are actively malevolent and intend to use the CV pandemic to attack Americans’ civil rights. 

11.  Worldwide, synchronized media hype:  It’s been fascinating to see the worldwide media hype surrounding the CV pandemic.  Commenting on this phenomenon during a recent interview on the Ron Paul Liberty Report, Denis Rancourt made the point that this hype appeared to be “coordinated.”   He went on to say, “I believe that there is a network that does influence the main editors of the main papers in the great number of countries and then that sets the scene so the word is given out when they want something like this [the CV hype] to just flood the mainstream media.”    

12.  Empty hospitals:  We were told that hospitals across the country would be swamped beyond capacity, but that seems not to have been the case.  In fact, far from being at overcapacity, many hospitals are laying off doctors and nurses due to lack of business.  The Washington Post, for example, reported on April 9, 2020 that “Cash-starved hospitals and doctor groups cut staff amid pandemic.”  That certainly isn’t what we were led to believe would be happening.  Military.com reports that a Seattle field hospital set up in that city closed after three days during which it saw not one single patient.  Reuters ran a story on May 1 with the headline “Little-used Navy hospital ship Comfort leaves New York after treating COVID-19 patients.” Of course, pubic officials never will admit that they were wrong. Their strategy will be to say that it was their lock down and enforcement of social distancing that accounted for the much lower than anticipated incidence of COVID-19.  But their attacks on liberty and the destructive spending by Congress and money printing by the Fed, all which evils were necessitated by the lock down, strongly suggest that their approach was not the correct one.  

13.  Suspect attribution of cause of death:  The Guardian ran a story on April 15 with the headline “New York City coronavirus death toll jumps past 10,000 in revised count.”  As it turns out, the NYC added 3,778 people to the death toll who weren’t tested but were presumed to have died of the disease.  That seems more like guesswork than anything else.  Just last week, Project Veritas ran a story saying that funeral directors in NYC were indicating that COVID-19 death statistics were being padded by falsely attributing cause of death the COVID-19.

What shall we make of all this?  It seems to me that there are two main possibilities.  First, our leaders – by leaders I’m referring not only to political leaders but to thought and business leaders as well – are simply confused.  They really do think that cracking down on free speech, locking healthy people in their homes, forcibly closing business, putting tens of millions of people out of work and having the Fed print oceans of bogus money really is the best way to deal with the CV.  Second, they know the whole lock down social distancing thing is absurd and are simply doing this as a way of conditioning people to even more stringent lock downs and social controls in the future, perhaps culminating in some sort of world government dystopian tyranny of the sort one reads about in the book of Revelation. In my opinion, the latter is a more likely scenario than the former.

This is not to say that all politicians, business leaders, journalists and academics who support the lock downs are aware of some great master plan.  But the remarkable amount of worldwide coordination going on suggests that there is some organizing agent behind the scenes.  It is possible that I could be wrong about this.  It is my opinion.  You may have a different view. Perhaps additional study will make things clearer.  But whether the lock downs and attacks on personal liberty and economic freedom just happen to have the appearance of coordination, or whether there is, in fact, a conspiracy to take away our liberties and our property, it is imperative for Christians to stand up and speak out, rebuking from the Word of God those who would encroach on our Constitution and our freedom. 

It may sound strange to some to think that the Bible can be used to fight for freedom.  But in truth, it is the Bible and the Bible alone, the sword of the Spirit as Paul calls it, that is our only sure weapon in in our fight against tyranny.            

“But we will certainly do whatever has gone out of our own mouth, to burn incense to the queen of heaven and pour out drink offerings to her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem.  For then we had plenty of food, were well-off, and saw no trouble.”

-          Jeremiah 44:17

In his book Logic, Gordon Clark noted a number of informal logical fallacies.  On page 17, he mentioned, among others, a fallacy called in Latin post hoc ergo propter hoc, or as we would say it in English, “after this, therefore because of this.” This logical error, hereafter the post hoc fallacy, involves asserting that, because event B took place after event A, that A is what caused B. 

Now it’s true that there can be a cause and effect relationship between an earlier event and a late event.  In Jeremiah 44, the prophet, speaking for God, states, “You have seen all the calamity that I have brought on Jerusalem…because of their wickedness which they have committed to provoke Me to anger.”  God makes it entirely clear in this passage that the prior disobedience of the people of Judah was the cause of his bringing judgment on Jerusalem.  We don’t have to guess at why the Babylonians leveled Jerusalem and burned the temple in 586 BC, God tells us explicitly both the cause and the effect. 

Later in chapter 44, we get the reaction from the people to whom Jeremiah was prophesying.  As it turned out, they didn’t much care for his sermon. Part of their response to Jeremiah was a classic case of post hoc fallacy.  See if you can spot it.

But we will certainly do whatever has gone out of our own mouth, to burn incense to the queen of heaven and pour out drink offerings to her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem.  For then we had plenty of food, were well-off, and saw no trouble. But since we stopped burning incense to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offering to her, we have lacked everything and have been consumed by the sword and by famine (Jeremiah 44:17-18).

Did I say, see if you can spot it?  Reading this passage further, it seems to me that there are two post hoc fallacies to be found.  In the first place, the people argue that their burning incense and pouring out drink offerings were the cause of their prosperity when they were in the land, when, in fact, it was God’s grace that provided for them.  Second, they attributed their current state of exile to their worshipping the queen of heaven, when, in fact, the cause of their exile was God’s punishing them for their disobedience.  

I bring up the preceding Biblical example of post hoc fallacy to introduce the main point of this post, which is to refute the linkage, put forward by mainstream financial reporters, the outbreak of the Corona virus in China is reason for the recent stock market sell off and spike in the price of gold. 

Stocks Down, Gold Up – Obviously, It’s Coronavirus!

A quick look at two headlines from Friday on CNBC will give you a good sense of just how hard the mainstream financial media is pushing the coronavirus-as-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it meme.

In the first place, CNBC wants you to believe that Friday’s, and the week’s, stock selloff was due to coronavirus.  “Dow drops more than 200 points, posts losing week as coronavirus fears resurface,” was how they put it.  Similar headlines could be found earlier in the week as well.  Now some may argue, “the headline doesn’t explicitly say, “Coronavirus causes 200-point drop in the stock market. It merely says that stocks went down as coronavirus fears went up.”  Technically, that’s true.  CNBC doesn’t make an explicit causal link between coronavirus and stocks going down.  But the intent, in my opinion, of headlines of this sort is to plant the seed in the reader’s mind that there is a cause and effect relationship at work.  Just read through the article to see what I mean.

On the same day as the headline above, CNBC ran another headline, this one reading, “Gold surges 1.5% on growing coronavirus concerns.”  Not only does coronavirus have the ability to drive down stocks, but it can cause gold to spike as well. 

In both cases, sinking stock and rising gold, CNBC is asking its readers to accept coronavirus as the cause.    First came coronavirus, then stocks went down and gold went up.  Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.

Now, am I saying that coronavirus could have no effect on stocks or gold?  After all, it appears that the illness has caused significant economic disruption in the world’s second largest economy.  Could not such a disruption cause stocks to go down and at the same time cause gold – gold is considered a “risk off” asset, one that does well when “risk on” assets such as stocks are doing poorly – to go up? Yes, it could.   

But while coronavirus could cause stocks to go down and gold to go up, it is not, in my view, the primary reason for these events.

To illustrate what I mean, consider that case of an overly indebted man who has a personal financial crisis due to an unexpected car repair bill.  The man has been living beyond his means for years, but has successfully shuffled his debts around, staying just one step ahead of bankruptcy.  Now ask yourself, was the unexpected car repair the reason this fellow suddenly found himself in financial dire straits, or was it the years of profligate living?  I would argue that it was the years of profligacy that were the real cause.  The unexpected car repair bill was just the thing the happened to expose the underlying problem, one that had been building for a long time before his car suddenly had mechanical problems.

In like fashion, the West’s financial system has been deteriorating for years, while at the same time stocks are hitting record highs and safety assets such as gold and silver are, comparatively speaking, performing very poorly.  In the opinion of this author, this is an artificial situation.  Stocks, in fact, should be much lower, while gold and silver should be much higher.  A better explanation for the current stock market troubles and breakout in the gold price is required. 

 It’s the Fed! It’s the Fed! It’s the Fed!

I mentioned above that the current valuation of the stock market is artificial, that is to say, it is not based on market forces.  Stocks aren’t the only asset in a bubble, either.  At the same time, we have a stock market bubble, we also have a bond market bubble and a housing bubble.  There are so many assets in bubble territory – by bubble, I simply mean the assets in question are overvalued - that some financial observers are calling it the “everything bubble.” 

In the late 90’s we had the tech bubble.  Any stocks with .com in their name immediately shot up to stratospheric valuations, only to come crashing down in 2000.  In the 00’s, we had the housing bubble, when real estate zoomed up in value, only to tank in 2008 during the financial crisis.  In fact, the 2008 crisis was closely related to the popping of the housing bubble.     Now we have the everything bubble, with stocks, bonds and real estate all at record valuations. 

So how is it possible to have so many markets in bubble territory?  The root cause of the everything bubble is the same as that of the .com and housing bubbles – it’s the Fed. 

Ever since the 2008 crises, the Fed, together with the Plunge Protection Team (PPT) and the Exchange Stabilization Fund (ESF), has used its enormous power and influence, not only to prop up favored markets, but to suppress those out of favor.  It has done this through money printing – quantitative easing, or QE – market manipulation – some of the Fed’s manipulations are overt, such as cutting interest rates, while some of them are covert and speculative; for example, a recent headline in ZeroHedge reported that then Fed Chairman Janet Yellen said in 2017 that the Fed “might be able to help the U.S. economy in a future downturn if it could buy stocks and corporate bonds”; what are the odds this is already going on in secret? -  and good old fashioned propaganda. 

So what’s the problem with market rigging?  There are several, one of the most pernicious of which is this:  Once you start rigging, you can’t stop.  Market rigging, you see, is a lot like telling a lie.  Just as you can’t tell only one lie, so too you can’t just rig one market.  Rather, you have to rig all markets. 

If you want to create the (false) perception that the economy is doing great, you have to push up stocks and housing.  The most effective way to push up stocks and housing is to artificially support the bond market.  The Fed, by purchasing bonds through QE, artificially raises the price of bonds, which has the effect of artificially lowering bond yields.  When bond yields are held down, this pushes cash into the stock market where it can find a better return than it can in the bond market.  Lowering bond yields also lowers the interest rate of home loans, making it easier for people to borrow more money to buy a house.  More money flowing into the housing market means higher housing prices. 

At the bottom of all this is Fed money printing.  If the Fed did not have the ability to create money out of nothing and then to use that newly created (counterfeited) money to purchase US Treasuries (and quite possibly other assets), stocks, bonds and real estate would all be much lower.

But as was mentioned above, once the Fed started on its program of market manipulation – the Fed’s market manipulation began in earnest with the 2008 crisis, but it had been going on for at least 20 years before that – it found it could not stop. 

Market rigging, you see, is a bit like having the proverbial tiger by the tail - Once you grab it, you can’t let go or you get eaten.  Likewise, once the Fed started rigging markets, it found it couldn’t stop.    

This is not for lack of trying.  Beginning in December 2015, the Fed started to inch up interest rates up from 0%.  This program went on through December 2018, at which point the markets crashed.  This prompted Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin to convene an emergency meeting of the PPT  on December 24, 2018.  Remarkably, when markets reopened the day after Christmas, the Dow shot up a record 1,100 points.  But if you think this was the PPT’s doing, you’re a conspiracy theorist. 

Almost immediately after the December 2018 market crash, Fed Chairman Jay Powell announced the reversal of the Fed’s policy of raising interest rates as well as an end to its Quantitative Tightening (QT) program of selling long dated US Treasuries.

Today the Fed once again is in full QE mode and, very likely, will be lowering interest rates in March.

As Proverbs tells us, “Treasures of wickedness profit nothing,” and, “Wealth gained by dishonesty will be diminished.”  In like fashion, while all the Fed’s machinations so far have been successful at propping up stocks and housing, these artificially inflated markets are very unstable and susceptible to crashing.  All it takes is for some unexpected event, a virus outbreak for example, to undo them. 

It’s not the cornovirus that’s the cause of our current bout of financial instability, it’s the Fed.

 Gold and Silver Suppressed

As mentioned above there are any number of financial assets that are now in bubble territory.  But two that decidedly are not are gold and especially silver. This is not an accident.  Just as the powers-that-shouldn’t be artificially inflate the value of favored assets, so too do they suppress the value of assets they don’t like, precious metals.  Gregory Mannarino, a trader and YouTuber whose work I follow, refers to these monetary metals as being in an “inverse bubble.”  That is to say, he believes their value is being artificially held down, and by the same people who seek to artificially inflate stocks, bonds and real estate. 

But just as artificially inflated bubbles in stocks, bonds and real estate are unstable, so too are inverse bubbles in gold and silver. 

Rather than seeing gold going up due to coronavirus, a more likely explanation is that the rise in gold is due to Fed money printing.  Gold started a major bull run as priced in US dollars around the end of May 2019, long before anyone had even heard of coronavirus.  Not only was this in response to the Fed’s actions to that point, but many observers think the smart money anticipated the Fed’s bailout of the banks via its program of supporting the Repo Market, which began in September and  is still ongoing.  

So Why Are They Pushing the Coronavirus Meme? 

If it’s true what I’ve said, that the problems in the stock market and the rise in gold are due, not to the coronavirus, but to the activities of the Fed, why is the media pushing the coronavirus meme? 

The answer:  The mainstream media’s main job is not to inform you, but to misinform you.

You see, fellow deplorables, we’re not supposed to know the secrets of the high priests at the Fed.  They are our betters.  They are our masters.  Our job, like ordinary Roman Catholics before the Reformation, is to accept what our masters at the Fed and in the media say, with implicit faith.  That is to say, our job is to take what they tell us at face value and never, ever ask uncomfortable questions. 

The masters of the universe have an unspoken rule: Whenever there’s an economic problem, a fall guy is needed.  The Fed must never be blamed.

Back in the 70’s there was a terrible bout of inflation that was the result of President Nixon pulling the plug on the Bretton Woods accord in 1971.  Even as a young boy, I remember hearing all the excuses for rising prices.  It was the oil sheiks of OPEC.  It was frost in the orange groves in Florida.  It was droughts, hurricanes and hailstorms. 

Anything but the truth, Fed money printing.

Think about that famous scene in the Wizard of Oz, where Toto goes and pulls back the curtain hiding the “Wizard” in his control booth.  “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain,” bellows the Wizard, trying desperately to keep Dorothy and friends from discovering that the Wizards was no Wizard at all, but just a man with a lot of special effects at hand.

That’s exactly the way we’re treated. 

And it doesn’t matter what your political persuasion is, either.

You could be the bluest of blue Bernie Bros who hangs on every word Rachel Maddow speaks.  Watch her program for years if you will.  Listen to all of Bernie’s stump speeches several times over.  You’ll hear them talk about income and wealth inequality, but you’ll never once hear them pin it on the real culprit, the Fed.

You could be the reddest of red staters, owning multiple MAGA hats and never missing a minute of Sean Hannity.  Yet you’ll never once hear him talk about the role the Fed plays in creating price inflation and how its policies have caused stagnant wages and reduced living standards for the very people Donald Trump claims to represent, ordinary working Americans.    

Even if you’re a middle of the roader and stick to mainstream network news, it’s the same sorry state of affairs.  Watch the evening news for decades on end if you will, but you’ll never learn a thing about how the Fed creates money from nothing and hands it out to its friends and how you pay for it.

These omissions are not by accident.  They are by design. 

The powers that shouldn’t be are quite happy that people are ignorant of the games the Fed plays and they want to make sure people stay that way.

Flooding the airwaves with false explanations of financial market activity is how they keep people in the dark. 

It’s not the coronavirus.  It’s the money printing.

It’s the Fed.     

It’s the Fed.

It’s the Fed.

All the days wherein the plague shall be in him he shall be defiled; he is unclean:  he shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his habitation be.

-          Leviticus 13:46

"We haven't faced an enemy like we are facing today in 102 years - we are at war. In the time of war, we must make sacrifices, and I thank all of our Ohio citizens for what they are doing and what they aren't doing. You are making a huge difference, and this difference will save lives," said Governor DeWine. "Right now, we are in a crucial time in this battle. What we do now will slow this invader so that our healthcare system will have time to treat those who have contracted COVID-19 and also have time to treat those who have other medical problems. Time is of the essence." Thus reads the announcement on the Ohio.gov website where the state’s Stay At Home Order is also listed. 

Clearly, Governor DeWine takes the coronavirus [the Ohio.gov website calls it COVID-19] outbreak very seriously.  Note the repeated use of military terminology in the quote above.  We are told that “We haven’t faced an enemy like we are facing today in 102 years” [apparently, this is a reference to the 1918 outbreak of the Spanish Flu]…“we are at war”…“In time of war”…”we are in a crucial time in this battle”…”What we do now will slow this invader.”

With all this military terminology, one wonders when the Governor plans to institute a draft.  Then on second thought, in a way, he already has.  As the website notes, beginning March 23, 2020 at 11:59 p.m. Ohioans are under a Stay At Home Order.  This order is effective until 11:59 p.m. on April 6, 2020 “unless the order is rescinded or modified.”  This order applies to everyone, and as of this writing on March 29, no recension or modification of this order has been announced.  So in a way, all Ohioans already have been drafted into the Governor’s war. 

One question that seems not to have been asked in the wake of Governor DeWine’s announcement is, on what authority does he give this order?  Reading through the order, one finds that it contains provisions that shutter a not insignificant portion of the businesses within the state.  What is the legal basis for the Governor’s order?

One possible answer is that Ohio has adopted some form of “Medical Martial Law” legislation that was propagated in the wake of the Swine Flu pandemic in 2009.  Researcher James Corbett produced a video back in 2009 related to the Swine Flu pandemic which he titled Medical Martial Law and which dealt with the legislative response that followed the outbreak of that pandemic.  In his video, Corbett states that something called “The Model State Emergency Health Powers Act” was drafted by the Center for Law and the Public’s Health at Georgetown University (Jesuits) and Johns Hopkins University.  According to the website of The Centers for Law & the Public’s Health, the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act (MSEHPA) “grants public health powers to state and local public health authorities to ensure a strong, effective, and timely planning, prevention, and response mechanisms to public health emergencies (including bioterrorism) while also respecting individual rights.” 

The website boasts that forty-four states have adopted MSEHPA in whole or in part, but, curiously, Ohio is not listed among them.  Neither was I able to find anything on other websites linking MSEHPA to Ohio.  That being the case, this model legislation, as dangerous as it is, apparently is not the basis for the Governor’s actions.

According to the language in the Order itself, the basis for the Order is R.C. [Revised Code] 3701.13 which allows the Director of the Ohio Department of Health to “make special orders…for preventing the spread of contagious or infectious diseases.”  

That said, although he doesn’t come out and say it directly, Governor DeWine and Dr. Amy Acton (Ohio’s Director of Health) seem eager for the public to see the Stay At Home Order as some form of Medical Martial Law.  This can be seen from the Governor’s own words, laden as they are with military terminology.        

Are Quarantines Biblical?

As Christians, we must always ask ourselves “What do the Scriptures say?” when thinking through the circumstances we come across in our lives.  This includes the words and actions of civil magistrates.  In this case, let us start by asking this question, are quarantines biblical? 

The short answer to this question is, yes, they are.  We know this from the Law of Moses which details procedures for placing in quarantine those diagnosed with certain illnesses or those who have become ceremonially unclean for some reason.  There are many such passages in the Old Testament Law.  Here is one example:

And the LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron saying, “When a man has on the skin of his body a swelling, a scab, or a bright spot, and it becomes on the skin of his body like a leprous sore, then he shall be brought to Aaron the priest or to one of his sons the priests. The priest shall examine the sore on the skin of the body; and if the hair on the sore has turned white, and the sore appears to be deeper than the skin of his body, it is a leprous sore. Then the priest shall examine him, and pronounce him unclean. But if the bright spot is white on the skin of his body, and does not appear to be deeper than the skin, and its hair has not turned white, then the priest shall isolate the one who has the sore seven days. And the priest shall examine him on the seventh day; and indeed if the sore appears to be as it was, and the sore has not spread on the skin, then the priest shall isolate him another seven days. Then the priest shall examine him again on the seventh day; and indeed if the sore has faded, and the sore has not spread on the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him clean; it is only a scab, and he shall wash his clothes and be clean. But if the scab should at all spread over the skin, after he has been seen by the priest for his cleansing, he shall be seen by the priest again. And if the priest sees that the scab has indeed spread on the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him unclean. It is leprosy” (Leviticus 13:1-8).

Individuals who were unclean were pronounced unclean by the priest and were required to dwell outside the camp.

“Now the leper on whom the sore is, his clothes shall be torn and his head bare; and he shall cover his mustache, and cry, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ He shall be unclean.  All the days he has the sore he shall be unclean.  He is unclean, and he shall dwell alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp” (Leviticus 13:45-46).

It’s worth noting that Jesus himself gave implied support to the Levitical quarantine laws in the account of his healing the ten lepers in Samaria.  Luke tells us in 17:11-19 that, upon being implored by ten lepers to heal them, Jesus told them to go and show themselves to the priests, which was in accordance with the laws concerning leprosy set forth in Leviticus chapter 13. 

There are other examples of quarantines in Scripture, but the citations above are enough to show that quarantines themselves are not in conflict with the Bible’s teachings.

Is Ohio’s Stay At Home Order Biblical?

Although we have shown that quarantines have Biblical support, this does not necessarily mean that all quarantines meet the standards of Scripture.  So let’s ask another question, is Ohio’s stay at home order biblical? 

In the opinion of this author, the answer is no.  Not because quarantines themselves are wrong, but because Ohio’s Stay At Home Order, which is a type of quarantine, applies too broadly.  In an attempt to slow the spread of coronavirus, the Governor and Health Director have drafted an order that applies to all individuals regardless of whether they exhibit symptoms of coronavirus or have even been tested for the disease. 

One way of illustrating my point is to look at the Bible’s view of criminal justice.  Ask yourself this question, is the Bible’s stance on criminal justice one of crime punishment or crime prevention?  The correct answer is crime punishment. Although I do not have the reference handy, this point was brought up in a lecture by John Robbins, and my remarks on the Bible’s view of criminal justice are drawn from his comments. 

According to Robbins, the Bible focuses on crime punishment.  In the Law of Moses there are many clear statements concerning the civil law.  There were commandments on what people were to do and not to do as well as civil punishments for those who violated the law.  Worth noting, although all violations of the Law of God were sinful, not all were crimes. Put another way, some sins were also crimes.  The way you can tell the difference is whether there are civil penalties – e.g. restitution in the case of theft, death in cases of murder - attached to them.  Those violations of the law that did not have civil penalties, while sinful, were not crimes. 

But while there were laws set forth for the punishment of crimes in ancient Israel, there was no bureaucratic regulatory body set up to punish the innocent by burdening them with regulations designed to prevent crime.  For example, murder was prohibited in the Ten Commandments but there was no government Sword Control Administration that, in the name of preventing murder, required people to register their swords with the government or prevented people from owning them.

If a man was accused or murder, the Law provided for due process for the accused.  If found guilty, the law also provided for the punishment of the guilty individual.  That was all. 

Israel’s quarantine laws were similar.  To be quarantined, one first had to show himself to a priest for examination.  The Law laid out in great detail the process the priest was to go through, and it was only after all the steps in the process had been followed that a man could be declared unclean and quarantined outside the camp.  There were no general quarantines announced in the name of preventing disease.  Only those who were determined to be infected after the priest had followed due process were quarantined.       

The Dangers of Ignoring Due Process

Due process is a bulwark against arbitrary government.  Going back to the Biblical laws concerning leprosy.  Suppose for a moment that the priestly examination process did not exist or was circumvented.  One can easily see how the leprosy statue could become a political weapon.  All one would have to do to have his enemy put outside the camp would be to accuse him of having leprosy, present him to a priest that was a little shady or on the take, and have him declared unclean.

In like fashion, there are those who today are greatly concerned, this author among them, that giving governments the power to shut down private businesses and essentially put people under house arrest who have never received due process to show that they are ill or are carriers of a communicable disease represents a step toward tyranny.  

Now some may argue that the Governor has no intention of being a tyrant and has only the best motives.  Even so, there is a problem.  Going back to the Biblical example of identifying lepers, even if someone accused his neighbor of having leprosy, not having hated him in times past, and even if the priests were honest and not greedy for a bribe, lack of due process in examining possible lepers would almost certainly result in people being put outside the camp who did not deserve to be so treated.  This would represent a gross injustice to them and possible financial and social ruin for the rest of the family as well. 

Although I do not have estimates of how many people have been put out of work or owners who have had their businesses restricted or closed by the Governor’s Order, the number must be significant.  According to the order,

All places of public amusement, whether   indoors or outdoors, including, but not limited to, locations with amusement rides, carnivals, amusement parks, water parks, aquariums, zoos, museums, arcades, fairs, children's play centers, playgrounds, funplexes, theme parks, bowling alleys, movie and other theaters, concert and music halls, and country clubs or social clubs shall be closed.

Even businesses that are allowed to remain open have had restrictions placed on them.  For example, I had to pay a visit to my local computer store.  Upon arrival, I found on the door of the establishment that the store was prohibited from allowing more than thirty customers in the store at once.  This meant that the store had to pay associates to organize incoming customers in a way that would comply with this order rather than going about their normal duties.  Most likely, the store’s sales are being negatively impacted.  Further, customers were forced to bear the cost of waiting in line and of delays in completing their purchases. 

Now you may argue that this is a minor inconvenience, but multiply this statewide and the cost of complying with this new regulation is probably not small.     

Not Just an Ohio Problem

I have written in some detail about Medical Martial Law as it has been applied in the State of Ohio, because it’s where I live.  Many other states have similar or even more restrictive laws concerning the coronavirus outbreak. 

Just this weekend, President Donald Trump let it be known that he was thinking about imposing a quarantine on the states of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.  Politico reports that the measure would have been “an enforceable quarantine.” While it’s not clear what is meant by “enforceable quarantine,” it appears to mean severely restricting movement in and out of these states.  New York Governor Andrew Cuomo seemed to take it that way, asserting that the idea amounted to a “declaration of war on states.”

Outside the U.S. things aren’t any better.  Several countries in Europe have been locked down as has been Australia.

Closing Thoughts

The focus of this post has been to discuss one aspect of the governmental response to coronavirus that has received little attention from pundits, namely, it is an attempt to answer the question, what do the Scriptures say about quarantines? 

In the opinion of this author, there is a strong case to be made from the Bible that quarantines are permitted.  But this is not to say that all quarantines meet with biblical guidelines.  As the biblical approach to criminal justice is one of crime punishment, not crime prevention, so too the biblical standard for quarantine is disease “punishment” not disease prevention.   As one does not regulate society to prevent crime, thus punishing the innocent, so too one does not quarantine everyone, including the healthy, to prevent the spread of disease.  Just as in biblical criminal justice, punishment is meted out only after due process is given to the accused, so too the biblical approach to quarantine is to isolate only those individuals who have been found to carry the disease.  If it is unjust to punish the innocent along with the guilty, so too is it unjust to quarantine the healthy along with the sick.  Yet governments to a large degree have opted to do just this, quarantine the healthy along with the sick.  This is unjust.

And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.  For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.

• John 3:19-20

The words from John at the top of this post are readily recognized by Christians as coming from Jesus’ dialogue with Nicodemus, the Pharisee who came to inquire of him one night.  The immediate application of Jesus’ words is, of course, to himself as the light who came into the world and was rejected of men, for they loved evil and feared lest their deeds should be exposed.

But while Christ said these words in the context of explaining his person and purpose for coming in the flesh to Nicodemus, his comments have a wider application.  They are a specific case of a broader principle we see in Scripture, that of the Christian principle of openness and honesty.  Those who love the truth do what they do in the open.  They let their light shine before men that others may see their goods works and glorify their Father in heaven.  On the other hand, those who practice evil, those who have something to hide, they do their work in the dark, fearing to be seen by men.

One application of the principle of openness and light is the Christian idea of government as a servant of the people, not as their master.  When the disciples argued about who was the greatest, Jesus explained the Christian concept of leadership, which was radically different from the model the world offered.  Christ explained that the rulers of the Gentiles “exercised lordship” (lorded it over) them, but such was not to be the case among his followers.  Following Jesus example, those who would be first in the Kingdom of Heaven were to be servants of all.

With Jesus words in mind, it should come as no surprise that one of the side effects of the 16th century Reformation was a significant change for the better in civil government.  Writing in Christ and Civilization, John Robbins noted,

The revolution first accomplished in the churches could not be confined to them, but quickly spread to civil governments.  Not only was there a reduction in the power of churches in Protestant societies, but a reduction in the size and scope of civil government as well.  For example, Steven Ozment reports that “when the Reformation was consolidated in Rostock in 1534, it brought not only an end to the privileges of the clergy but also a government agreement to reduce its own number by about one-third,” and to submit to a detailed annual accounting (122).  Karl Holl, Professor of Church History at the University of Berlin (1906-1926), wrote, “…it was the Reformation that first set a rigid limit to the absolute power of the State.”

Now let those words sink in for just a moment.  If you’re like me and long to see the seemingly impossible, a return to limited, honest government, what took place at Rostock in 1534, the reduction of civil government by a third and its agreeing to submit to an annual accounting, appears as something not far from a miracle.

But just as the Christian Reformation brought about a “rigid limit to the absolute power of the State” in the 16th century, so too has the abandonment of Reformation doctrine in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries led to the recrudescence of big, unaccountable government.

The current presidential election cycle in the U.S. has produced no end to the calls for bigger government.  Indeed, on the Democratic side the candidates have spent months fighting it out to determine who can give away more public loot the fastest.  For the first time in my lifetime, among progressive Democrats there have been open calls for socialism.

The Republicans talk a better game on this point.  President Trump, for example, publicly stated that American would never be a socialist country to loud applause.  Very well, let us hope he is right.  But since that speech, the president has added another branch to the military and praised a major infrastructure bill in his latest State of the Union address just a few weeks ago.  Indeed, at the end of January Politico reported that “The federal deficit under President Donald Trump will top $1 trillion this year” and project an average deficit of $1.3 trillion over the next ten years.  In the opinion of this writer, the actual deficits likely will be much larger.

And while government – federal, state and local - keeps getting larger and larger and more and more intrudes into our lives, regardless of whether the Republicans or the Democrats are in power, it also is becoming steadily more secretive.

While not the only example of secret government, the Federal Reserve could certainly be put forth as Exhibit A in this regard. Technically not part of the federal government – although chartered by the Federal Reserve Act, it is privately owned - the Fed, America’s central bank, has been shrouded in darkness even before it was officially voted into existence on Christmas Eve, 1913.  In the first chapter of The Creature from Jeykyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve, author G. Edward Griffin describes the 1910 secret meeting on Jekyll Island, Georgia, where powerful senators and financiers met to draw up plans for the Federal Reserve.  It was, in Griffin’s words, “a classic conspiracy.”

Over the years, the Fed has jealously maintained it secretive nature.  One writer captured the mysterious nature of it quite well in the title of his book on the Fed, Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country.

Over the years various attempts have been made to open the Fed’s books and reveal the temple’s secrets, but to date they have come up short.  The last time Congress tried to pass a bill to increase Congressional scrutiny of the Fed, then Fed Chairman Janet Yellen wrote a three page letter to then Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi complaining that the proposal would “severely impair the Federal Reserve’s ability to carry out its mandate to foster maximum employment and stable prices.”  Nothing ever came of that bill.

When overnight repo rates suddenly spiked from around 2% to 10%, the Fed immediately swung into action to tamp rates back down.  This intervention, which was originally supposed to last a few days or a few weeks at most, is still going on nearly five months later.

One odd thing about it:  There has never been a clear, official explanation concerning the reason the overnight rates spiked as they did.

Back in October 2019, presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren wrote a letter to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin asking “why they [the Fed’s nightly bailouts of the repo market] were necessary.”  The letter made the news cycle for a day or two, then disappeared into the ether.  It seems that the powers-that-be sat Warren down and explained to her how things are, that one does not tug on Superman’s cape, even, and perhaps especially, a presidential candidate.

The Fed, it’s still shrouded in secrecy after all these years.

Just to be clear, this is not an endorsement of Elizabeth Warren’s presidential candidacy, but she was not wrong to ask for an explanation of the Fed’s actions.  Curiously, though, she went to the Secretary of the Treasury with her question, not to Jerome Powell, Chairman of the Fed.  The reason for her choice of action is unclear to this author.

To date, there still has been no adequate, official explanation why the Fed is bailing out the repo market in increasingly large amounts each night.  The official word is, move along folks, nothing to see here.

This has left truth seeking financial analysts to speculate about just what’s on fire to cause the spike in overnight lending rates an the now five months old bailout. One common suspect is Deutsche Bank (DB), the largest bank in Europe, which has been on fire for a number of years and almost certainly should have collapsed by now.  That it is still standing is evidence that DB is secretly being bailed out.  Given the Fed’s actions in 2008, it is not at all unreasonable to suspect that its bailout of the repo market is in some way related to keeping DB alive.

A Better Way

As was mentioned earlier in this post, Jesus’ words comparing the world’s approach to government – “the rulers of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them” – to the Christian approach to government, those who seek to lead are to serve, has a much wider application than just he church.

At the time of the Reformation, we began to see this put into action, as both the size and scope of government were reduced, and governments were subjected to an annual accounting.

But in the decadent 20th and 21st centuries, we have witnessed a reversal of the gains made during the 16th century.  Governments have grown ever larger, and governors have come to see themselves, not as the servants of the people, but as a privileged class to whom ordinary people must give obeisance.

In many nations throughout the West there is an increasing sense that government of the people, by the people and for the people - these words, by the way, known to most Americans as part of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, were not original with Lincoln, he was quoting John Wycliff who in 1384 wrote in the prologue of this translation of the Bible, “The Bible is for the Government of the People, by the People, and for the People -  has become a forgotten concept.

There is good reason for people to believe this.

But if Western nations are ever to recover some semblance of their lost liberties, that change will not come through the political process.  It will have to come through the pulpit.

Jesus said, “Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.” Jesus’ primary reference here was spiritual freedom, but it is not a stretch to see in his statement political and economic implications as well.

It was the Reformation’s teaching of Justification by Faith Alone that first brought spiritual, and later, political and economic freedom to the nations it touched.  And it is the disappearance of Reformation doctrine in those same nations that has led to their increasing slide into political authoritarianism.

Quite possibly the most egregious example of the enslavement of once free nations in Europe and North America is the erection of a system of secretive central banking in those same nations over the past century or so.

Ron Paul tells us that we need to audit and then end the Fed.  To this I can only say amen.

But for that to happen, the American people have a lot of repenting to do.

19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe-and shudder!

This is one of the most misunderstood verses in the Bible and the confusion which surrounds it is so pervasive that it is difficult to fully express the magnitude of its impact on the church. It is frequently cited to argue that belief, defined as knowledge with assent or understanding with assent, in the gospel is not enough to save, but that one must also have trust or commitment. This is inferred from the simple fact that the demons believe and perish. 

To illustrate this view let’s consider the writings of William Webster in his book The Church Of Rome at the Bar of History. 

For faith to be truly biblical, it must involve more than just the assent of the mind to objective truth about God, Christ, and salvation… Faith is foundational to true Christianity and it involves knowledge, assent, trust, and commitment. 

...the Epistle of James warns us against a faith which is empty and vain; that is one that acknowledges the objective facts of God, Christ, and salvation to be true but negates or neglects the other essential element of trust and commitment. The demons believe in that sense, but they perish (James 2:19). Intellectual assent alone is empty, James argues.[i]

Webster argues that according to James, intellectual assent is empty and vain. It is not enough to acknowledge the objective facts of God, Christ, and Salvation to be true because we must also have the additional and “essential elements of trust and commitment.” He then refers to James 2:19 and concludes that the demons believe in that sense but they perish. Likewise R.C. Sproul stated 

“According to James, even if I am aware of the work of Jesus, convinced intellectually that Jesus is the Son of God, that he died on the cross for my sins, and that he rose from the dead, I would at that point qualify to be a demon.”[ii]

Webster’s and Spoul’s understanding of this verse is partly influenced by the Latin threefold definition of faith, which is noticia (knowledge), assensus (assent), and fiducia (trust). The vast majority of English speaking Reformed theologians use the threefold definition of faith. The third element fiducia is most commonly translated as trust, but it has also variously been translated as commitment, obedience, repentance, resting, transformation, etc. This understanding of faith is deeply rooted in the Reformed tradition, but it has also been vigorously put forth by the proponents of Lordship Salvation in an effort to combat the antinomianism of the free grace movement. The view that one can be saved by belief alone, defined as knowledge and assent or understanding with assent, is often denigrated as easy-believism, and we are told that mere intellectual assent is insufficient to save. Doug Barnes argues that “salvation is by faith alone in Christ alone, but ‘faith alone’ is not ‘belief alone,’” and therefore he concludes that “belief alone is not enough.”[iii] 

None of these men have understood James’ point, and their use of the Latin definition of faith has led them to eisegete a wrong view into this text. Unfortunately this has resulted in multiple problems which can be challenging to sift through. Therefore we will deal with this in three parts. First we will address the improper use of the Latin definition. Then we will show the invalid conclusions of the views already expressed and we will walk out their logical implication. Finally, we will explain what James actually meant. 

The Latin Definition

This Latin definition of faith as noticia (knowledge or understanding), assensus (assent) and fiducia (trust) may seem appropriate for several reasons. First, from a cursory reading, it would appear that James says that belief alone is not enough to save. Obviously the demons know and assent to the truth but they perish. Secondly, it is right to advocate for a personal trust in Christ. One cannot be saved unless they trust in Jesus. So what’s the problem then? Why would we disagree with what Sproul, Webster, and Barnes said?

Their arguments rest on the notion that belief is different from faith because it lacks trust. They therefore define belief as noticia (knowledge or understanding) with assensus (assent) and they define faith as noticia (knowledge or understanding), assensus (assent) and fiducia (trust or commitment). The problem is that the Bible was not written in Latin. The New Testament was written in Greek and both of the words faith and belief are translated from the same Greek word pistis. This is why Luke Miner has pointed out that “these are not two different concepts in Greek but one (“faith” and “belief” are just alternate translations of the Greek word πιστiς). That these are interchangeable concepts is suggested by the fact that Bible translations will commonly use ‘faith’ in place of ‘belief’ or ‘have faith’ in place of ‘believe.’”[iv]

If the words faith and belief are translated from the same Greek word throughout the New Testament then there is no Biblical precedent for defining them differently when we arrive at James 2:19. This means that faith and belief are both defined as understanding with assent. This is what Gordon Clark argued for in his definition of faith. In What Is Saving Faith? he explained that “Faith, by definition, is assent to understood propositions. Not all cases of assent, even assent to Biblical propositions, are saving faith, but all saving faith is assent to one or more Biblical propositions.”[v] 

This of course leaves a lingering question: What about the third essential element of fiducia (trust)? How can we say that we are saved by faith alone if it is defined only as noticia (knowledge or understanding) and assensus (assent)? Didn’t we already admit that fiducia (trust) was necessary for salvation? It appears contradictory to say that one must have trust to be saved and that we are saved by faith or belief alone which are defined only as understanding with assent. John Robbins however explained that “Belief, that is to say, faith (there is only one word in the New Testament for belief, pistis) and trust are the same; they are synonyms. If you believe what a person says, you trust him. If you trust a person, you believe what he says. If you have faith in him, you believe what he says and trust his words.”[vi] In other words, trust is synonymous with belief and this is why it is wrong to suggest that one can believe and not trust. To argue that we need trust in addition to belief is simply redundant. This is why Clark argued that adding fiducia to faith is a tautology:

The crux of the difficulty with the popular analysis of faith into noticia (understanding), assensus (assent), and fiducia (trust), is that fiducia comes from the same root as fides (faith). Hence this popular analysis reduces to the obviously absurd definition that faith consists of understanding, assent, and faith. Something better than this tautology must be found.[vii]

Fiducia (trust) is frequently put forth as an extra “psychological” element that many Protestants add to faith which Clark and Robbins tirelessly refuted as confused, meaningless, and redundant. To conclude from this verse that belief is more than understanding with assent and therefore trust is necessary in addition to belief is logically invalid. This will lead us into the next section as we expose the invalid conclusion and their logical implications. 

The Invalid Inference 

Notice that neither Sproul nor Webster actually quote James; but rather simply refer to this verse and then make an inference. They have inferred that belief in the gospel is insufficient to save because James says, “Even the demons believe and tremble!” Therefore something else is required. One must not only understand and assent, but also trust in the gospel in order to be saved. As we have already shown, this is confused, meaningless, redundant and unbiblical, but now we will show that it is logically invalid as well. 

The reason their inferences are invalid and wrong is because James says nothing about demons acknowledging the “objective facts of God, Christ, and salvation to be true” as Webster stated. Nor does he say anything about the demons believing that Jesus "died on the cross for [their] sins, and that he rose from the dead” as Sproul stated. One could argue that they are putting their own words into James' mouth. Here again is what James actually says: "You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe-and shudder!" 

As Dr. John Robbins pointed out, “James mentions only belief in one God - monotheism. Since belief in one God is belief in one true proposition, James says, ‘You do well.’ But monotheism is not saving belief because it is not about Jesus Christ and his work.”[viii] Dr. Gordon Clark also corrected this wrong inference: “[The] argument here is that since the devils assent and true believers also assent, something other than assent is needed for saving faith. This is a logical blunder. The text says the devils believe in monotheism.”[ix]

This of course is invalid because James says nothing about demons believing the gospel. But James does say however that they do believe. If then, one hopes to establish on the basis of this verse that the difference between those who are saved and those who are not saved rests in the necessary element of trust in addition to belief, then we are faced with three logically invalid conclusions. To show this, let’s accept, for the sake of argument that the demons are lost because they believe but do not trust, and therefore in order to be saved we must not only believe, but we must also trust.  This logical blunder, which results from inferring something that isn’t there in the text, leads to three invalid conclusions. 1) Intellectual assent is different from trust. 2) Belief alone in the gospel is insufficient to save. 3) The demonic faith, or belief, lacks trust. 

Assent and Trust

Immediately after citing James 2:19 in which lost demons are said to believe, Webster concludes “Intellectual assent alone is empty.” Clark however, pointed out that, “It is illogical to conclude that belief is not assent just because belief in monotheism does not save.”[x] James nowhere distinguishes the type of faith or belief between Christians and lost demons but rather the difference is the propositions which are believed. The proposition that the demons are said to believe is that there is one God, and it is clear from the fact that they tremble that they trust in the truthfulness of this proposition. When the demons encountered Jesus they “cried out, ‘What have you to do with us, O Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?’" (Matthew 8:29) The demons cried out and asked if he was there to torment them because they believed or trusted that he could torment them. They do not trust him for salvation because it is not offered to them but they do trust that he can torment them. Therefore one cannot logically infer that the demons mentioned by James lack trust in the truthfulness of the proposition they are said to believe. This is why John Robbins pointed out that “to use the words believe and trust interchangeably is good English and sound theology because they are synonyms.”[xi]

Belief Alone is Insufficient

Let’s first remember the words of Doug Barnes when he asserted “faith alone is not belief alone” and then concluded that “Belief alone is not enough.” After giving Mr. Barnes a much needed rebuke for poor scholarship John Robbins offered a very simple and sound refutation of his conclusion:

It follows, does it not, that when Christ said, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life,” that he was misleading Nicodemus? And when the Apostle Paul said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved” he was misleading the jailer? One might quote scores of similar verses, but these two will do to show how far Barnes is from Christian soteriology. According to the Scriptures, belief of the Gospel, and only belief of the Gospel, saves.[xii]

The Scriptural refutations of Barnes’ position are enough to settle the matter but let’s provide the logical refutation for good measure. This view that belief is not enough would logically imply that some who believe the gospel are not saved, to which Robbins responded: “If faith consists of three elements – knowledge, assent (or belief), and trust – and if a person does not have faith unless all three elements are present, then unregenerate persons may understand and believe-assent to–the truth. In fact, those who advocate the three-element view insist that unregenerate persons may understand and believe the truth – their prime example of such persons is demons. But if unregenerate persons may believe the truth, then the natural man can indeed receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are not foolishness unto him, contrary to 1 Corinthians 2 and dozens of other verses. Belief – and the whole of salvation – is not a gift of God. Natural men can do their own believing, thank you very much. The three-element view of faith leads straight to a contradiction – faithless believers – and therefore must be false.”[xiii]

Demonic Belief Lacks Trust 

The views espoused by Webster, Sproul, and Barnes would logically imply that if demons had trust then they too would be saved. To conclude that belief, understanding and assenting to the propositions of the gospel, is not enough to save, from the fact that this does not save the demons, and that a third element of trust is required, logically implies that if the demons had this third element of trust, then they too would be saved. But that simply is not the case and therefore the whole argument falls apart. The reason the demons are not saved is because they have no savior. It is not because they don’t have the right kind of faith. It is invalid to deduce from this verse that belief (assenting to understood propositions) in the gospel is insufficient to save because James says nothing about demons believing the gospel. We have to remember that it is a basic rule of logical deduction that the content in the conclusion must be derived from one or more of the premises. Since verse 19 makes no mention of the demons assenting to understood propositions of the gospel we cannot logically deduce that understanding with assent to the propositions of the gospel is insufficient to save. 

All of these conclusions are logically absurd. Therefore, the difference cannot be in a belief that is distinct from faith or trust. There are multiple reasons to reject this understanding of James 2:19, which is influenced by the imposition of a Latin definition and suggests that belief alone is insufficient to save. 

1. The Bible was not written in Latin and the words faith and belief are both translated from the same Greek word pistis. There is therefore no Biblical precedent for defining them differently when we arrive at James 2:19.

2. Belief and faith are synonymous with trust and it is therefore wrong to suggest that one can believe and not trust.

3. Fiducia comes from the same root as fides (faith). Hence this popular analysis reduces to the obviously absurd definition that faith consists of understanding, assent, and faith. This is a tautology. 

4. It is an invalid inference to conclude that belief in the gospel is not sufficient to save because James says the demons believe in monotheism. 

5. This leads to an absurd contradiction that some who believe the Gospel will perish.

6. To argue that understanding and assent are not enough to save because it doesn’t save the demons, and that one needs the extra element of trust, logically implies that if the demons had this then they too would be saved.

What James Actually Meant 

Why then does James bring up their belief that God is one and reference the demons? We have to remember the context of the passage and the broader context of the letter of James. This letter was written by James, the brother of Jesus (Matt. 13:55) and leader of the Jerusalem church (Acts 15). It was written around A.D. 40–45 to Jewish Christians living outside Palestine. James is speaking to Jewish converts and the immediate context of this passage shows that he is addressing a specific type of hypocrisy - religious hypocrisy. 

Both Paul and James confront different issues with members from the same congregation of Jewish converts in Jerusalem. In the book of Galatians Paul confronts the Judaizes over the issue of legalism and he identifies them as the circumcision party that came from James in Gal 2:12. This was the same group that he and Barnabas contended with over the gospel in Acts 15, and it is the same group he anathematized in Galatians 1:6-9. James, however, is confronting the issue of antinomianism with members from the same congregation in Jerusalem. At first this may seem odd because we tend to think of legalism and antinomianism as antithetical to one another. But they are not so much antithetical to each other as they are antithetical to the gospel. Apart from the light of the gospel, legalism will produce antinomianism and vice versa. 

This is because the natural man who rejects the gospel must attempt to establish his own righteousness by the law, and therefore become a legalist. But because he is unable to keep the law, and yet is self-righteous, he is an antinomian. This is why Jesus refers to the legalists who profess their good works to him at the last judgement as “workers of lawlessness” (Matthew 7:21-23). 

The antinomianism James now confronts is made manifest by a form of religious hypocrisy amongst the members of this Jewish congregation. Therefore he references The Shema when he acknowledges, “You believe that God is one.” 

The Shema was the most important prayer in Israel and it served as the centerpiece of the morning and evening Jewish prayer services. “The first verse encapsulates the monotheistic essence of Judaism: ‘Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is one’ (Hebrew: שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהוָה אֶחָֽד׃), found in Deuteronomy 6:4. Observant Jews consider The Shema to be the most important part of the prayer service in Judaism.”[xiv] These Jewish converts would have immediately recognized James’ reference and they would have understood his point. 

He was not saying that belief alone, understanding with assent, in the gospel is not enough to save, as some modern English speaking Christians tend to think. Instead, he was confronting their religious hypocrisy, and the sting of comparing their piety to that of the demons would have been understood as a clear indictment against them. It could even be said that the demons had a more proper response than these hypocrites because at least they trembled. 

This is the key to understanding James’ point in this verse. Religious hypocrites that are in the visible church will tend to believe some measure of truth revealed in scripture. They therefore have a form of religious piety but not a transformed life, because in spite of the fact that they believe certain propositions to be true they do not believe the gospel. There is a type of religious faith which does not produce works because it is not a faith gifted by God and regeneration has not taken place. The difference however is not in the type of faith or belief, but in the propositions believed. 

Sean Gerety draws out further valuable insight from the demons' trembling that helps us to understand the nature of religious hypocrisy in the visible church. Not only can false converts or religious hypocrites believe true propositions revealed in scripture, but they can also experience heartfelt passion or emotion from these beliefs. Gerety writes, 

Another overlooked aspect of James is not only what the demons believe (God is one), but their reaction in response to this belief (trembling). James is teaching us that not only is belief in God and monotheism not enough to make someone a Christian, but the sincerity and “heartfelt” nature of that belief also isn’t something which saves a person — nor should we be fooled by such displays. Of course, this would put most Televangelists out of business. You might say James is providing an interesting refutation of the Kierkegaardian idea of “infinite passion” and the idea that it is the “passion” or conviction one brings to the objects of their beliefs that saves and not the propositions believed.[xv]

Gerety’s insight is extremely valuable in helping us to understand the nature and deception of false converts. Many people are deceived into thinking they are genuine believers precisely because they believe some measure of truth and they often display heartfelt emotions. Unfortunately this insight is lost on most theologians today because they have not taken the time to understand James. What’s worse is that they have insisted on perpetuating false notions of faith, and eisegete their wrong views into the text. This, no doubt, has plagued the church with much confusion. 

[i] Webster, William, The Church of Rome at the Bar of History, by William Webster, Banner of Truth Trust, 1996, pp. 133–134.

[ii] Robbins, John W. “R. C. Sproul on Saving Faith.” Trinity Foundation, 2007, trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=238.

[iii] Barnes, Doug. “Gordon Clark and Sandemanianism.” Banner of Truth USA, 10 Jan. 2005, banneroftruth.org/us/resources/articles/2005/gordon-clark-and-sandemanianism/ 

[iv] Miner, Luke. “What Is It to Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ?” Trinity Foundation. Accessed February 14, 2020. http://trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=330.

[v] Gordon H. Clark, What Is Saving Faith? (Unicoi, TN: The Trinity Foundation, 2004), p. 88, http://www.trinitylectures.org/what-is-saving-faith-p-60.html. Emphasis ours. This book combines Faith and Saving Faith and The Johannine Logos into one volume.

[vi] Robbins, John W. “R. C. Sproul on Saving Faith.” Trinity Foundation, 2007, trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=238.

[vii] Gordon H. Clark, "Saving Faith", The Trinity Review (Dec 1979), http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=10

[viii] Robbins, John W. “R. C. Sproul on Saving Faith.” Trinity Foundation, 2007, trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=238.

[ix]  Gordon H. Clark, What Is Saving Faith? (Unicoi, TN: The Trinity Foundation, 2004), p. 152

[x]  Clark, What Is Saving Faith?, p. 153.

[xi]  Robbins, John W. “R. C. Sproul on Saving Faith.” Trinity Foundation, 2007, trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=238.

[xii] Barnes, Doug. “Gordon Clark and Sandemanianism.” Banner of Truth USA, 10 Jan. 2005, banneroftruth.org/us/resources/articles/2005/gordon-clark-and-sandemanianism/.

[xiii] Robbins, John. “The Church.” Trinity Foundation. Accessed February 14, 2020. http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=83

[xiv]  “Shema Yisrael.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, January 20, 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shema_Yisrael.

[xv] Gerety, Sean. “Demonic Theology.” God's Hammer, May 1, 2009. https://godshammer.wordpress.com/2007/09/17/demonic-theology/?fbclid=IwAR1otzI0WaDJqDqv9Ue_uuSIQaB_NvL8h57NSLOC73ymG5zcy7YbeuGBlX8.

“There’s a historic battle going on now across the West, in Europe, America and elsewhere. It is globalism against populism.  And you may loath populism, but I tell you a funny thing, it’s becoming very popular.”

• Nigel Farage

As of January 31, 2020, Great Britain is no longer part of the European Union (EU).  Britain’s success in parting ways with the EU, what is commonly called Brexit, short for British Exit from the EU, is the culmination of nearly 30 years of work by Britons opposed to the Maastricht Treaty, which the was signed by the U.K.’s conservative government in 1992, making Great Britain part of the EU.

In June 2016, a referendum was held asking voters whether they wanted to remain in the EU or leave.  Despite a great deal of opposition from the establishment, the vote went 52% in favor of Brexit, with 48% electing to remain in the EU.

Although interests dedicated to keeping Britain in the EU worked hard to subvert Brexit, the resounding victory of the conservatives under the leadership of Boris Johnson on December 12, 2019, effectively guaranteed the success of Brexit.

In this post, I don’t intend to get into the weeds of the political process that brought about Brexit.  Neither do I intend to write much about the principle figures who supported Brexit or opposed it.  My aim here is to step back and to view Brexit in its larger historical context, that of conflict between the Protestant Westphalian World Order and the New World Order globalism of the Roman Catholic Church-State (RCCS).

Though very little attention has been paid to the religious aspect of Brexit by mainstream journalism, and though it may seem strange to some to speak of any relationship between the 16th century Protestant Reformation and the 21st century Brexit, this author holds that, not only is there a relationship between the Reformation and Brexit, but that the relationship is a close one.  Indeed, it is not an overstatement to put the relationship in these terms:  No Protestant Reformation, no Brexit.  It’s that simple.

Globalism:  Protestants Oppose, Catholics Embrace            

On January 12, 2017, the Washington Post ran an article titled “Catholics like the European Union more than Protestants do. This is why,” in which political scientists Brent Nelsen and James Guth note the split between Protestants and Roman Catholic over the EU and explain the reasons for this phenomenon.

After commenting that there’s a great deal of skepticism about the role of religion in European politics, Brent Nelsen observed,

But in 2001, we started looking at Eurobarometer data, and it’s very clear that Catholics, controlling for all other factors, favor the E.U. more than do Protestants.  These attitudes were forged in the Reformation, with the development of two different approaches to governance in Europe. Catholics see Europe as a single cultural whole that ought to be governed in some coordinated way. Protestants, on the other hand, have seen the nation state as a bulwark against Catholic hegemony, and they have been very reluctant to give it up, even as religion has become less important.

This is an excellent summary of the very distinct views of international relations held by Protestants and Romanists.  Later in the article, Nelsen expands on this idea,

Catholicism has always been a universal religion.  It was the successor to the Roman Empire, and in Catholic theology and ideology, there’s always been an emphasis on the unity of Christendom. Even today, even though the pope doesn’t claim secular authority, there’s still supranational governance within the Roman Catholic Church. So Catholics have always been very comfortable, even if subconsciously, with the notion of supranational governance.

After the Reformation, Protestants, on the other hand, attempted to carve out areas of religious liberty and caught on to the notion of the nation state. They didn’t invent the concept — it was invented by both sides as they came out of the religious wars of the 17th century — but the Protestants saw the nation state as very important for guaranteeing their liberty. For people in the Nordic states and the United Kingdom, the continent was the source of instability and of hegemony, and that’s part of why they developed a strong commitment to the nation and to national sovereignty — this was really the main vehicle for defense against, first, expanding Catholic control in the 16th and 17th centuries, and then, later on, Napoleon and Hitler.

We can summarize Nelsen’s comments thus: The Roman Catholic Church-State, as successor to the Roman Empire, believes in globalism, in empire building and in a top-down structure of world government, whereas Protestants view these ideas as tyrannical and see the nation-state as a bulwark against them and as a guarantor of personal liberty.

What Saith the Scriptures?

So who’s right in this conflict?  Are Romanists calling for world government – it’s remarkable to this author that, despite the many, open, and aggressive calls for world government by popes and other high officials of the Roman Catholic Church-State, so little note is made of Rome’s push for globalism;  this is true both among members of the mainstream media and the independent, alternate media; it’s as if reporters and pundits all have veils over their hearts when writing about Rome – in the right, or are Protestants who view the nation state as a bulwark against tyranny?

Very obviously, the Protestants have it right.  So where are the Scriptural proofs?  While this author does not claim to exhaust in this brief post all the Bible has to say in support of independent nation states and in opposition to globalist tyranny, it is possible to hit the highlights.

Empires are Monuments to Sinful Man’s Pride  

The Tower of Babel is one early example of man’s sinful attempt to build a world empire as a monument to his own pride.  After the flood, the Lord commanded Noah and his sons, much in the same way as he had Adam, to “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.”  But Noah’s descendants did not obey, preferring instead to stay in one place and to erect a monument to their own pride.  As Genesis 11 recounts, the Lord responded and put an end to their enterprise.  He confused their language and “scattered them [the people] over the face of all the earth.”

In his address on Mars Hill, the Apostle Paul sheds further light on God’s reason for doing what he did to Babel.  According to Paul, confusing their language and scattering them across the face of the earth appears to have been an act of God’s mercy.  Paul explains, “And He has made form one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him” (Acts 17:26-27).

Now “nations” (Greek ethnos) here has a different, though related, meaning to the modern term “nation state.”  Nations, in Paul’s usage, were what we today would call “people groups.”  That is, a nation was a collection of individuals sharing a common ancestry, language and culture.  A nation state, as we use that term today, although not identical to the what Paul meant by “nations”, is a closely related idea.  A nation state, as it’s come to be understood, is the political expression of a particular people group.

To prove this, simply think about the nation states of the modern world.  They have, historically, represented people with a common ancestry, language and culture.  This is not to says that there can be no distinctions among people within a nation state.  But, practically speaking, it appears that there are limits to how much diversity can exist within a nation state before that nation state itself ceases to exist.

If it’s true that God approves of nations in the people groups sense of the term, and it is, it also appears that he likewise approves of the political expression of people groups, what we have come to call the nation state.  This can be seen in the radical reorganization of international relations that occurred in the century following the Protestant Reformation.

The Westphalian World Order  

The Thirty Years’ War and the Treaty of Westphalia that settled it, are among the most important, most positive, and yet among the most forgotten by-products of the Reformation.

So forgotten are the Thirty Year’s War and the Treaty of Westphalia, that probably a large percentage of the American people has never even heard of them, let alone could tell you anything about them.  But if you explain the ideas of the Treaty of Westphalia to them, not only will people generally agree with them, but they likely will say that it’s just common sense.

The Thirty Year’s War took place from 1618-1648 and was a battle between the Catholic and Protestant states of the Holy Roman Empire.  Despite the guarantee of religious freedom within the Holy Roman Empire as a result of the Peace of Augsburg, Emperor Ferdinand II attempted to force citizens of the empire to follow Roman Catholic teaching. The Protestants refused to go along, and the long war, the first pan-European war, one that resulted in more than 8 million casualties, followed.  In short, the good guys won, the papal forces were defeated, and the world has never been the same since.

In a nutshell, the Westphalian World Order is the principle of Mind Your Own Business (MYOB) applied to individual countries.  It may surprise many people, but MYOB is a Christian principle.  For example, in 2 Thessalonians, Paul writes, “For we hear that there are some who walk among you in a disorderly manner, not working at all, but are busybodies.  Now those who are such we command and exhort through our Lord Jesus Christ that they work in quietness and eat their own bread” (2 Thes. 11-12).

Just as there are people who sinfully want to mind everyone else’s business, so too are there national leaders that sinfully want to mind everyone else’s business.  Such was the case of Rome in the pre-Reformation period.  During the Thirty Years’ War, Rome and her proxies were fighting to continue their long-held traditions of murder, theft and extortion, but received, as it were, a mortal wound from the Protestants.

But Rome, though substantially weakened, never gave up her globalist ambitions.  Today, Rome is an institution recovering from that mortal wound.

The European Union as the Fourth Reich

Students of the Second World War are doubtless familiar with the term The Third Reich (German, Die Dritte Reich), which is what the Nazis called Germany under Hitler’s regime.  The German word “Reich” can be translated as “empire, kingdom, or realm.”

Now calling Nazi Germany the Third Reich implies that there was a First and Second Reich.  So what were these?  In his book Mystery, Babylon The Great I.A.

Sadler identified the Holy Roman Empire as the First Reich (111) and the unified Germany from 1870 – 1918 as the Second Reich (214-216).  The Third Reich was, of course, Nazi Germany which lasted from 1933-1945.

Sadler draws a number of parallels between the Hitler’s Third Reich and the EU, which he calls the Fourth Reich.  To wit,

• The EU’s attempt to create “a collectivist European State, with a single economy and currency are remarkably similar to the Nazi plan in 1942 of a united Europe under the control of Germany,

• The fall of communism in eastern Europe brought about a unified Germany and the eastward expansion of the EU and NATO. A unified Germany has become the dominant force in central Europe, “revealing a disturbing parallel with the growth of the Third Reich” (264).

• Czechoslovakia was split in two with the Czech Republic becoming aligned closely with Germany, mirroring Germany’s occupation of the Sudetenland in 1938,

• “Austria then joined the European Union mirroring the Anschluss with Germany in 1938” (264).

Sadler concludes, “Today, through the Maastricht Treaty, national independence has been virtually abolished in favour of a European superstate, bearing an uncanny resemblance to Hitler’s Third Reich.”-

Reichs Under the Control of Rome

Though separated by time – the Holy Roman Empire got its start in the 9th century under Charlemagne – the four Reichs have this in common, they were/are all collectivist empires heavily influenced, indeed one could argue, under the control of, the Roman Catholic Church-State.

• The Holy Roman Emperor was crowned by the pope.

• Sadler notes that during the years of the Second Reich, “the Vatican progressively aligned itself with Germany, ensuring the balance of policies shifted away from those of Protestant Prussia towards that of a pro-Romanist German Empire, which forged an alliance with the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Austria-Hungary had long been a bastion of the Jesuits and the Church of Rome in Central and Eastern Europe” (214).

• The Third Reich famously signed a concordat with Rome. For details, see Hitler’s Pope, The Secret History of Pius XII by Robert Cornwell.

• The Fourth Reich, the EU, has been widely supported by the Roman Catholic Church-State. Indeed, the EU got its start with the Treaty of Rome in 1957, and the popes of Rome have consistently supported the EU.

Many have argued, and this author is in agreement with them, that the EU, properly understood is really the reincarnation of the Holy Roman Empire.  As Sadler notes, the full name of the First Reich was “Sacrum Romanum Imperium Nationis Germanicae”, The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation (111).  Although there were many non-German nations that were part of the Holy Roman Empire, the core of the Empire’s economic and political power was Germany, and the Emperor was crowned by the pope.

[caption id="attachment_5345" align="alignnone" width="718"] Pope Francis and German Chancellor Angela Merkel shake hands on the occasion of their private audience, at the Vatican, Saturday, June 17, 2017. (L'Osservatore Romano/Pool Photo via AP)[/caption]

In like fashion, the core of the EU’s economic and political power is Germany, and the current Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, though nominally Lutheran, is a close ally of the Holy See.

Brexit in Context, A Protestant Victory

With all this history in mind, Brexit can be seen in a new light.  In the opinion of this author, one could argue that Brexit really ought to be seen as the culmination of a sort of second Thirty Years’ War.  Worth noting, is that it took nearly the same amount of time for Nigel Farage and others to bring about Brexit – 27 years – as it did for the Allies to defeat the Catholic forces of the Holy Roman Empire.

In support of this, the idea that Brexit can be seen as a sort of second Thirty Years’ War, let us return to the Washington Post article referenced above.   In response to the question, “Did religion play a part in the Brexit vote?” author James Guth responded,

Yes. If you look at the 2014 European Parliamentary Election Study, in the run-up to the Brexit vote, it’s clear that in the United Kingdom, Catholics were supportive of the E.U., as were minority religions — Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists — whereas Evangelical Protestants were the most critical of the E.U. And a lot of the surveys that were done just before and after the Brexit vote, even though they weren’t very good at identifying different religious groups, found pretty consistently that the more Protestant you were, the more critical you were of the E.U. That may have made the difference: If those Protestants had voted the way the average citizen of the United Kingdom had, Brexit wouldn’t have passed (emphasis added).

When asked, “Is Catholic support for the E.U. a result of explicit church guidance? Or is it simply an implicit cultural value?” James Guth had this very interesting response,

It’s both. The Catholic Church has explicitly supported European integration since World War II. Every pope since the end of World War II has been very supportive of the E.U. In 2014, Pope Francis gave a talk at the European Parliament about the need for the E.U. to rediscover its vision. Catholics are getting cues from the top, even if they’re subtle ones.

It’s the same story with Protestants. In the United Kingdom, you have Evangelical pastors who, on the Sunday before the Brexit referendum, were talking about how leaving the E.U. was the better Christian choice. I was at a conference in Oxford a couple of years ago, and on Sunday, I attended an Evangelical Anglican congregation. The greeter who met us at the door asked me what I was there for, and I explained that I was giving a paper on religion and European identity. He said, “Well, I think you’ve come to the wrong place. We don’t have any Europeans in this congregation.” People are getting cues like this all the time, from the clergy, from others in the congregation. It’s a pervasive cultural force, even if it’s becoming weaker (emphasis added).

Given the history of Roman Catholic attempts to reestablish its hegemony in Europe through support of the EU, and beyond through various globalist initiatives, the Brexiteers successful campaign to pull Britain out of the EU must be seen as a resounding win, not only for Great Britain, but also for all men everywhere who oppose tyranny and love liberty.

Closing Thoughts

“The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those who exercise authority over them are called ‘benefactors,’” said Jesus to his disciples, who were disputing among themselves about who was the greatest.  Jesus reminded his disciples that it was the unbelieving pagan rulers who oppressed the people while seeking the praise of men.  Jesus went on to tell them, “But not so among you,” and continued by teaching them the principle of servant-leadership.  It is from this that we get the Christian idea of government as servant.

The application of Christ’s words to our present topic is easy to see.  The secular rulers and popes of our day act with the same high-handed disregard for personal liberty as the ancient emperors and rulers Jesus used in his example.  They pretend to be for the people, but their policies are actually destructive of the best interests of the very people they claim to represent.  Nevertheless, they wish to be seen as benefactors and love to be lauded as such.  This haughty spirit can be seen in the popes of Rome by their support for the EU and in the bureaucratic minions who carry out the EU’s marching orders.

In the opinion of this author, the original vote for Brexit in 2016, the election of Donald Trump that same year, the resounding victory of the Tories and Boris Johnson in 2019, and now the successful completion of Brexit should be seen as God’s grace to the people of Great Britain and the United States.  This is not to suggest that everything about Brexit, Boris Johnson and Donald Trump is perfect and above reproach.

But warts and all, what the people of the Great Britain and the United States actually received, is so far superior compared to what they might have received, and perhaps even deserved to receive, that this author cannot help but see God’s gracious and providential hand at work.

In America, we dodged a real bullet in 2016, coming close to electing globalist Hillary Clinton.  Had she become president, she and her globalist advisors would have quickly gone about the business of importing millions more welfare migrants and creating a permanent socialist, Democratic electoral majority.  It would have been the end of America as we know it.

Had the Brexit vote gone the other way in 2016, had the Labour Party and Jerremy Corbyn carried the election in December 2019, Britain likewise would have been in a very different, and much worse, position.

This author tends to be rather pessimistic by nature, always waiting around for the next disaster.  One could even argue that’s justified given the rapid downgrade in society so evident all around.

But all the bad news should not blind Christians to God’s grace, in their own lives and in broader society.  God is still very much in charge, and always has been.  There is not one thing in all of history that takes place but that he has brought it about both for his own glory and for the good of his own people, who were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world.

The bottom line is this, Antichrist took a good beating from Brexit, and in that Christians can rejoice.

Let us take encouragement from this win, trusting in God to grant us wisdom and strength day by day.

Q. 62.  What is the visible church?

A. The visible church is a society made up of all such as in all ages and places of the world do profess the true religion, and of their children.

            - Westminster Larger Catechism

Last week it was announced that the U.S. State Department had adopted a new rule governing the issuance of category B nonimmigrant visas.  The rule, which took effect on Friday, Jan. 24, is aimed at reducing birth tourism.  Birth tourism is the practice of expectant mothers traveling to the United States to give birth on U.S. soil for the purpose of acquiring American citizenship for their children.

For those of us who have advocated for reform of America’s disastrous immigration laws in a way that protects the legitimate interest of American citizens, this was a welcomed, if limited, victory.  It is a welcomed victory in that, in the words of the State Department document outlining the ruling, “This rule will help prevent operators in the birth tourism industry from profiting off treating U.S. citizenship as a commodity, sometimes through potentially criminal acts…”  It is a limited victory in that it leaves open the larger, more important question, of birthright citizenship.  Specifically, the question of to whom birthright citizenship properly applies.

In the opinion of this author, birthright citizenship properly applies only to children born to parents, either both, or at least one of them, possessing American citizenship.  The notion that a child can rightfully acquire American citizenship by virtue of being born on American soil, regardless of the citizenship status of the parents, is foreign both to the Bible and, in the view of this author, to the Constitution.  

Why the Rule Change?

The Public Notice from the Department of State lays out the reasoning behind the rule change, citing concerns about national security and criminal activity associated with the birth tourism industry (Public Notice, page 1)– yes, to the surprise of many Americans there is such a thing as the birth tourism industry.  Further down in the Notice, one finds other good reasons to end the practice of birth tourism.  For example, many times the birth tourists stick American taxpayers with their hospital bills, and this despite their having large sums of money available to pay for the medical procedures.  The notice also cites the defrauding of “property owners when leasing the apartments and houses used in their birth tourism schemes” (Notice, 11).

But for all the problems caused by birth tourism, there was no language that formally prohibited this activity in the regulations that covered visa issuance.

What has Changed? 

Category B nonimmigrant visas historically have been used by individuals engaged in birth tourism.  Such visas are issued by the U.S. to allow foreigners to travel to the United States for the purpose of pleasure, defined or the purpose of visa issuance as, “legitimate activities of a recreational character, including tourism, amusement, visits with friends or relatives, rest, medical treatment, and activities of a fraternal, social, or services nature” (Notice, 2).

The State Department has updated their rules to include language stating, “that the term pleasure…does not include travel for the primary purpose of obtaining United States citizenship for a child by giving birth in the United States” (Notice, 2-3).

In addition to explicitly prohibiting visa issuance for the primary purpose of giving birth in the United States, the new language governing nonimmigrant B visas requires that someone coming to the U.S. for medical treatment, “has the means and intent to pay for the medical treatment and all incidental expenses, including transportation and living expenses” (Notice, 3). 

The White House Statement    

NPR reports that White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham issued a statement calling birth tourism a burden on hospital resources.  She added, “It [the State Department rule change] will also defend American taxpayers from having their hard-earned dollars siphoned away to finance the direct and downstream costs associated with birth tourism.” 

NPR goes on to note that birthright citizenship – birthright citizenship as currently practiced in the U.S. allows that any child (with a few exceptions) born on U.S. soil is deemed an American citizen, regardless of the citizenship of the parents – became an issue in 2015, with then candidate Donald Trump calling for the elimination of it.  Trump also revived talk about birthright citizenship just prior to the 2018 mid-term elections and apparently is now bringing back this issue ahead of the 2020 election.

This observer long has been frustrated by the White House’s inaction on reforming birthright citizenship and cautiously sees the State Department’s rule change as perhaps signaling more aggressive action to come on this issue.

Other Views on the Rule Change

As you may expect, not everyone is happy about these new rules.  According to a report by ABC, Shilpa Phadke, a vice president at the Center for American Progress – a liberal policy think-tank – denounced the change.  “This rule is yet another attempt by the administration to control women’s bodies, driven by racist and misogynist assumptions about women born outside the United States.”

This is a strange charge, as this rule change has nothing whatsoever to do with race, neither is it “misogynistic.”  Rather, the rule has everything to do with preventing the abuse of American citizenship, what the State Department Notice correctly called turning American citizenship into a commodity which serves as a source of profit for those engaged in potentially criminal acts. 

As serious as America’s immigration problem is, Phadke’s reaction points to another problem that may be even more serious: the near total inability of liberal and progressive public intellectuals to talk about matters of public policy in terms other than the shrillest language possible.  It’s not enough for Phadke to disagree with the State Department’s rule change and explain the reasons for her disagreement, but as a good cultural Marxist she feels obligated to impugn the character of those who support the rule change by calling them, in effect, a deplorable basket of racists and sexists.  It’s as if no other explanation for the rule change is possible or needed.  It’s as if Phadke and others of her ilk think all they need to do is shriek “racism!” every time they don’t agree with a given policy and their intellectual work is done. 

Progressive intellectuals of Phadke’s ilk not only contribute nothing positive to public discourse, but actually do significant damage to the country.   Their constant shrieking of “racism, sexism and homophobia” have so poisoned the well of public discourse, that it is nearly impossible for American’s to so much as have a civil discussion about important matters of public policy, let alone propose solutions that address the serious problems facing our nation. 

A Biblical View of Birthright Citizenship    

Birth tourism and the current misinterpretation of birthright citizenship by Constitutional lawyers are closely related, but distinct issues.  The current understanding of birthright citizenship holds that any child (with a few exceptions) born on American soil is deemed an Americana citizen, regardless of the citizenship status of the parents. 

It is this misinterpretation of birthright citizenship that has opened the door for birth tourism and all the abuses of American citizenship entailed by it.

One way of helping think through the issue of birthright citizenship is to look at it in the context of what the Bible has to say about government more broadly.

Bible scholars acknowledge three types of government:  family, church and civil.  Each of them has its distinct sphere of authority.  Parents have the power of the rod.  The church has the power of the keys.  And civil government, it has the power of the sword.  Although the three types of government have different areas of authority and their own means of enforcing their rules, there are some common threads connecting them.

One thread is that men are given the authority to rule in all three.  The father is the head of the family.  Church officers are men only.  And despite the feminism that in recent times has come to dominate the thinking even of Christians who should know better, authority in civil government is also reserved for men.

But patriarchy is not the only thing the three forms of government have in common.  The method of how one becomes subject to the authority of a particular government is also similar.  To put this in more familiar language, let us ask this question:  How does one become a family member?  The most common method is by being born into it.  That is to say, one becomes a family member and subject to the jurisdiction of it by natural birth. 

There is another way one can become a family member, adoption.  In this case the parents agree to take in the child of another and treat him as if he were their own child. 

Inclusion in the visible church works in the same way as the family.  Children of at least one believing parent are considered to be part of the visible church in the same manner as natural children of parents are considered part of the family.  Of course, birth to believing parents is not the only way one can become a member of the visible church.  A credible profession of faith allows believing adults to receive baptism and inclusion in the visible church as well. 

The same principle that obtains in the case of family and church government also applies to civil government.  How does one become a citizen of a nation?  By birth or by oath of citizenship.  For example, I have my American citizenship by virtue of being born to two parents, both of whom are themselves American citizens.  It is also possible for those subject to the jurisdiction of other nations to become Americans by taking an oath of allegiance to the Constitution of the United States. 

Notice that in reference to family and church government, there is no Biblical provision for granting inclusion to a child simply by virtue of where he was born.  Think about it.  What if a woman, for some reason, gave birth on your property?  Would her child, simply by that fact, be considered a member of your family?  Of course not.

Let’s consider another scenario.  Suppose an unbelieving woman were for some reason to give birth on the ground of a church.  Would you say her child should receive baptism and be considered a member of the visible church?  Certainly not!  To do that would be to contradict the Westminster Larger Catechism and the teaching of the Scriptures.  For an infant to receive baptism and be considered a member of the visible church, he must have either both, or at least one, believing parent. 

In like fashion, there is no Biblical provision for the children of a non-citizens to be deemed citizens simply because they happened to be born on American soil.  Such children properly are considered citizens of the nation where their parents have their citizenship. 

A proper, Biblical understanding of birthright citizenship, that it applies only to children having at least one citizen parent, is the ultimate and only permanent solution to the problem of birth tourism.

Secular Arguments for and against Birthright Citizenship Reform

In the July 18, 2018 Washington Post, an editorial by former Trump administration official Michael Anton was published titled “Citizenship shouldn’t be a birthright.” Anton looked closely at the language of those who framed the 14th Amendment – the 14th Amendment is cited as the basis for birthright citizenship for all – and concluded, “The notion that simply being born within the geographical limits of the United States automatically confers U.S. citizenship is an absurdity – historically, constitutionally, philosophically and practically.”  Anton is spot on here.

As you probably expect, critics didn’t take long to pounce on Anton’s argument.  And as you probably guessed, they accused him of, wait for it…racism!  Typical of the attacks on Anton is an editorial, also in the Washington Post, published just a few days after Anton’s titled “Michael Anton and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Racist Argument on Birthright Citizenship.” According to author Daniel Drezner, a law professor at Tufts University, if you oppose granting American citizenship to the child of a Mexican mother who sneaks across the border and gives birth at taxpayer expense, or deny citizenship to the child of a Chinese or Russian or Nigerian mother who lied about her intentions for coming to the United States, you’re a racist, plain and simple.  Actually, since the Russians are white Europeans, the fact that birthright citizenship reform applies to them as well creates a bit of a problem for folks who argue, as Drezner and Phadke do, that racism is at the heart of birthright citizenship reform.  But then, contemporary progressives never let logic get in the way of a good opportunity to virtue signal. 

In a follow up piece to his WaPo editorial titled “Birthright Citizenship:  A Response To My Critics,” Anton observed,

I  expected the reaction to a recent op-ed I published calling for the end of birthright citizenship to be cantankerous. I even expected it to be hysterical—from the Left. I did not expect self-described “conservatives” to be just as hysterical as the Left, and to use precisely the same terms. “Nativist.” “Xenophobe.” “Bigot.” “Racist.” “White nationalist.” “White supremacist.”

Here, Anton describes the phenomenon, long noted by some conservatives, that a good number of well-known conservative lights, when push comes to shove, actually sound more like political liberals than conservatives. 

Conservatism as Antichristianity

Why is this?  Why do conservative stalwarts often sound just like the liberals they ostensibly oppose?  The answer is that both liberalism and conservatism are anti-Christian in their basic philosophic assumptions.  This was John Robbins’ argument in his Trinity Review “Conservatism, An Autopsy.”  Robbins wrote,

Conservatism as a political movement displays as much variety of thought as liberalism. Yet both liberalism and conservatism are united in their Antichristianity. Both are “tolerant,” but neither will tolerate Christianity. It is a mistake to think that conservatives and conservatism, as opposed to liberals and liberalism, are neutral on the issue of Christianity. There is and can be no neutrality. The conservatives seem to recognize this, but unfortunately the Christians do not. Many Christians still believe that politics is an endeavor that can be pursued shoulder-to-shoulder with conservatives. They believe that there is common ground upon which both Christians and conservatives can stand and build-or rebuild-a free society.

Given conservatism’s anti-Christian philosophical assumptions, it is unsurprising that conservative writers would side with the liberals they supposedly oppose.  Conservatives, like liberals, deny that the Bible is a textbook for political philosophy and instead think that one can oppose liberalism by appealing to natural law or to tradition or to Roman Catholic thought.

The Roman Church-State on Birthright Citizenship

As you may expect, officials of the Roman Catholic Church-State (RCCS) have at various times made known their opposition to the Biblical doctrine of birthright citizenship.  One example of this is a piece posted on the United States Conference of Catholic Bishop’s (USCCB) website titled “The Catholic Church’s Position on Birthright Citizenship.”  Guess what?  The bishops think the current system is great just the way it is, and any attempt to change it would be very, very bad. 

After the usual boilerplate lies about addressing the “legitimate concerns surrounding immigration law enforcement” – despite its claims, the RCCS could not care less about immigration law enforcement actions that promote the well-being of Americans – the bishops get down to business.  They start with the lie that reforming birthright citizenship to exclude the children of foreign nationals “would render innocent children stateless.”

For example, Article 30 of the Mexican Constitution specifically states that children born to Mexican parents in a foreign country are still considered Mexican citizens.  Since the about a third of Anchor Babies – children born in the US to non-citizen parents – are born to Mexican mothers, this provision in the Mexican Constitution seriously undermines Rome’s argument that by reforming its birthright citizenship laws, the US will leave children stateless. 

Closing Thoughts

With all the bad news on the political and economic fronts, to hear that the State Department has taken a concrete step to make birth tourism harder was a welcome breath of fresh air. 

In the opinion of this author, reforming American birthright citizenship law along Biblical lines is the single most important step the federal government can take to address America’s immigration problem.  Ending birthright citizenship for children born in the US to non-citizens is more important then building the wall, reducing refugee numbers, or even removing people in the country on temporary protected status who have been here for twenty years.  Not that those other things are unimportant.  But they do not rise to the level of properly defining how a one becomes an American citizen. 

As with all matters of right and wrong, political or otherwise, the ultimate standard against which all ideas must be measured is the Word of God, the 66 books of the Bible.  Since it is impossible to derive the birthright citizenship for the children of non-citizens from Scripture, Christians can be confident that calling for reform of our current birthright citizenship laws to eliminate granting citizenship to the children of non-citizens not only is not wrong but is, in reality, a positive good. 

Too often, public debates about immigration consider only what is good for immigrants and ignore completely the question of what is good for American citizens.  Birthright citizenship as is currently practiced in the Untied States represents a gross abuse of the American people and turns that which should be highly valued, American citizenship, into a cheap commodity that easily can be acquired by barely disguised fraud. 

The State Department’s move to make it harder to commit birthright citizenship fraud is a welcome move and a big win for immigration sanity, but more remains to be done.

It’s time for a change.  It’s time to reform American birthright citizenship laws.    

“The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those who exercise authority over them are called ‘benefactors.’ “

-          Luke 22:25

In the event you have a life to live and don’t have hours of free time every day to monitor the latest big plans the master-of-the-universe-types have for the rest of us serfs, peasants, and minions, you may be surprised to hear that the great high holy week of globalism has arrived.  It’s Davos time!

What’s that you say?  You’ve never heard of Davos? Well, you just don’t know what you’re missing.  Davos is a town in Switzerland that once a year plays host to the World Economic Forum (WEF), the exclusive annual January gathering of the world’s great and good where they discuss weighty and important topics that you and I can’t understand and make big plans for how to impose their vision of the future on us. 

The Corporate Line

I admit, I haven’t paid much attention to the run up to this year’s gathering.  What tipped me off this time around, though, was all the climate change hype that kept showing up on CNBC, a financial channel I follow regularly.

For example, one recent headline on CNBC read “Capitalism ‘will fundamentally be in jeopardy’ if business does not act on climate change, Mircosoft CEO Satya Nadella says.”      

This is a new take on climate change.  Generally, what you hear from the mainstream media (MSM) is that it’s capitalism itself that is causing climate change and that it needs to be ended in favor of the sort of Green New Deal Marxist claptrap one hears from the likes various American politicians whose names I won’t mention in this space. 

But here’s a businessman - the CEO of Microsoft no less! – announcing to the world that climate change is an existential threat to capitalism.  Adapt or die, seems to be is message.

The article begins by announcing, “The science is clear that environmental sustainability must factor in a corporation’s growth plans, or the capitalist and economic system the U.S. enjoys ‘will fundamentally be in jeopardy.’ “  Now the piece doesn’t say exactly what “science” is “clear” to the point that it requires the radical re-evaluation of the purpose of a corporation as is proposed in this article, but one supposes Nadella is referring to the report put out by the WEF just in time for the group’s 2020 meeting this week in Davos.

It probably doesn’t come as a surprise to you, but about halfway into the article one comes across the obligatory “Orange Man Bad” reference.  You see, unlike righteous CEO’s such as Nadella who care about the environment, Orange Man, “has tapped the brakes on a number of the country’s climate initiatives, such as pulling the U.S. out of the multilateral 2017 Paris Agreement.”

After plowing through a lot of corporate-speak virtue signaling, about “sustainability” and Microsoft’s new “Climate Innovation Fund” we read,   

Microsoft’s CFO Amy Hood, appearing alongside Nadella later in the interview, said the eco-friendly program along with the company’s $750 million commitment to affordable housing in Seattle, Washington “are good returns on investments.”

Reflecting on this statement, author Tyler Clifford notes, “She stopped short of projecting what the return on investment in these initiatives would be, but explained that it will be measured and the company will hold itself accountable.” 

So the Microsoft CFO won’t offer a projection of the return on investment of these “eco-friendly” programs?  Remarkable.  Her silence on this subject should be a big clue.  Not only will the “eco-friendly” initiatives not be profitable, they almost certainly will destroy shareholder value. 

Now one can feel a certain amount of sympathy for Nadella.  He’s the high-profile CEO of a hugely successful company.  As such, he’s expected to talk the talk and walk the walk of the master of the universe types whose good graces he must court.  My guess, he probably doesn’t believe all the sustainability nonsense he talks about.  It’s just the cost of doing business.

The Davos Globalist Line and Antichrist

While Nadella’s comments aren’t openly globalist, another article on CNBC let the globalism behind the WEF report out of the bag.   

WEF has said it aims to assist governments and international institutions in tracking progress toward the Paris Agreement and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

The Paris Agreement was the destructive treaty, from which President Trump wisely pulled the US.

The UN Sustainable Development Goals, known more formally as The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, is a formula for international socialism and world government, which unsurprisingly has been openly praised by globalist Pope Francis.

Writing in his 2015 encyclical Laudato Si, On Care for Our Common Home, the current occupant of the Office of Antichrist, Pope Francis, openly called for world government as the cure for the so-called environmental crisis.  Worth noting Pope Francis did so by quoting his predecessor Benedict XVI, who himself referenced his predecessor Pope John XXIII (the Vatican II pope).  Wrote Francis,

Given this situation, it is essential to devise stronger and more efficiently organized international institutions, with functionaries who are appointed fairly by agreement among national governments, and empowered to impose sanctions. As Benedict XVI has affirmed in continuity with the social teaching of the Church: “To manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result; to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace; to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration: for all this, there is urgent need of a true world political authority, as my predecessor Blessed John XXIII indicated some years ago”.

So Popes Benedict and Francis agree, there is a need, in fact an urgent need, for “a true world political authority.” Even the secular globalists at Davos aren’t quite that open about their plans to rule the world.  But the Antichrist popes of Rome not only say it, but they nearly shout it from the rooftops.  As Jesus said of the Pharisees, “Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.”

It’s doubtful that the masters-of-the-universe at Davos or the UN or in the Vatican really believe the stated goals of the Paris Agreement, the UN’s Sustainable Development goals or the flowery nonsense about “our Sister, Mother Earth” found in Laudato Si.  More likely, they do believe in the unstated goals of these programs:  unlimited power over humanity.

John Robbins on the Ecologers   

As far back as 1972, John Robbins clearly identified the power lust that lurked behind the environmentalists’ mask.  “The ecologers,” he wrote, “do not wish to have dominion over the Earth and subdue it:  They wish to have dominion over men and subdue them” (“Ecology:  The Abolition of Man,” in Freedom and Capitalism, page 561). 

Closing Thoughts

In Genesis 1, God commanded man to, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”  Some theologians call this gift of dominion the cultural mandate. 

Because of the commandment, Christianity has a radically different view of man’s relationship to the Earth than medieval mystic religions such as Roman Catholicism or modern secular movements such as environmentalism.  Christians hold that the Earth is not divine, it is God’s creation, made by him but separate from him.  Man is not part of nature, but rather has dominion over it.  Further, not only is it not wrong for man to increase in number and to exercise dominion over the Earth, but it is positively sinful form him not to do so.  For to refuse to multiply and to exercise dominion is to go against the express command of God himself, which is the very definition of sin.

The globalists and environmentalists of the 21st century – be they secularists like the Davos crowd, or religious like the Pope – stand all this on its head.  Man no longer has dominion over the Earth.  In their scheme of things, it is the Earth that has dominion over man.  Man must serve the goddess Mother Earth and they, her priests, will prescribe the appropriate sacrifices for us.

As did the rulers of the Gentiles in Jesus day, our globalist taskmasters aim to “exercise lordship” over us, all the while positing themselves as our “benefactors,” who are saving us from the ravages of the climate crisis.

But their program is not about benefiting mankind.  It's a subtle attack on freedom, capitalism and Christianity. 

Let the Lord's people hear his Word, let them stand upon it, and let them reject the globalist's wicked counsel.

On 12/29/2019, the sermon preached by Pastor Joe Rosales was based on Deuteronomy 11:1-25.

The pastor noted that our society is inundated with screens and a false sense of reality, especially children, at an increasingly alarming rate.

The truth is that the Internet, video games, and media in general are often too much for young impressionable minds to handle, especially without close parental supervision. They’re highly addictive, even for adults, and much of the content is inappropriate for youth. They foster impatience, heighten irritability, fuel tempers, destroy self-control, the list goes on and on:

https://www.frictionlessfamilies.com/technology-in-the-family

https://www.drkardaras.com/research.html

Parents need to wake up and stop overexposing their kids to technology and media. (“The Right Kind of Traitor: A Review of Ed Snowden’s Permanent Record,” https://thorncrownministries.com/blog/2019/10/12/Book-Review-Permanent-Record-by-Ed-Snowden)

This, combined with many couples’ desire for more stuff, requiring both the husband and wife to work and neglect their children, brings misery and disappointment. A mother’s calling and purpose and fulfillment is grounded in the home.

Our circumstances shouldn’t dictate our happiness. The apostle Paul attests to this, that while he was in prison, he wrote to the Philippians:

Do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that I may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain or labored in vain. Yes, and if I am being poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. For the same reason you also be glad and rejoice with me. (‭‭Philippians‬ ‭2:14-18‬ ‭NKJV‬‬)

Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. For me to write the same things to you is not tedious, but for you it is safe. ‭‭(Philippians‬ ‭3:1‬ ‭NKJV‬‬)

“Miserable Christians” are therefore a contradiction who reflect Milton’s Satan rather than Paul’s admonitions:

Me miserable! which way shall I flie
Infinite wrauth, and infinite despaire?
Which way I flie is Hell; my self am Hell;

The pastor read from Deuteronomy:

“Therefore you shall love the LORD your God, and keep His charge, His statutes, His judgments, and His commandments always. Know today that I do not speak with your children, who have not known and who have not seen the chastening of the LORD your God, His greatness and His mighty hand and His outstretched arm…but your eyes have seen every great act of the LORD which He did.” ‭‭(Deuteronomy‬ ‭11:1-2‬, 7 NKJV‬‬)

It’s interesting how God said he wasn’t addressing the children in His covenant stipulations. The parents, of course, are charged with instructing their children:

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one! You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.” (Deuteronomy‬ ‭6:4ff. ‭NKJV‬‬)

The pastor also encouraged us to write our new year resolutions down, and to remind ourselves of and meditate on them throughout the year. The first step to take for the new year is to remember and rejoice in the God of our salvation, and in His mighty works.

Grow in the Word, “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen” (II Peter‬ ‭3:18‬ ‭NKJV‬‬).

Be intentional about family worship. Don’t serve God half-heartedly. Be watchful and don’t let the cares of this life hinder your walk with God. “And do not seek what you should eat or what you should drink, nor have an anxious mind. For all these things the nations of the world seek after, and your Father knows that you need these things. But seek the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added to you.” (Luke‬ ‭12:29-31‬ ‭NKJV‬‬)

New Year Resolutions

1. Sleep!

2. Practice family worship consistently

3. Be punctual

4. “Do all things without complaining and disputing”

5. Read the Bible every day

6. Read good books throughout the year

7. Moderate screen time

8. Evangelize

9. Write consistently

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“Therewith [Errour] spewd out of her filthy maw / A floud of poyson horrible and blacke, / Full of great lumpes of flesh and gobbets raw, / Which stunck so vildly, that it forst him slacke / His grasping hold, and from her turne him backe: / Her vomit full of bookes° and papers was, / With loathly frogs and toades, which eyes did lacke, / And creeping sought way in the weedy gras: / Her filthy parbreake all the place defiled has.” (Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene)

Count the costs. It takes sweat. And blood. And tears. And a cramped hand. If you want readers to enjoy your work, you must suffer. The term "writer" is misleading, however. Rewriter is more adequate, for good writing requires rewriting. Great writers are not born great; they are forged by study and practice. Consider the words of ancient Greek rhetorician Isocrates:

In the art of rhetoric, credit is won not by gifts of fortune, but by efforts of study. For those who have been gifted with eloquence by nature and by fortune, are governed in what they say by chance, and not by any standard of what is best, whereas those who have gained this power by study and by the exercise of language never speak without weighting their words, and so are less often in error as to a course of action. (Antidosis, 15.292. See Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students)

So weigh every word, every sentence, every paragraph. Eradicate awkwardness, ambiguity, and bad grammar--unless it's warranted--at all costs. The more rhetorically effective and clearer you are, the more your readers will benefit. Heed therefore to reformer Martin Luther, who penned 60,000 pages, "enough to fill 102 huge volumes of the famous Weimar edition, making him the most prolific religious figure in history, as well as the most written about since Christ" (Merle Severy, "The World of Luther," National Geographic 164.4, Oct. 1983, pp. 429, 445):

So great a rhetorician and theologian ought not only to know, but to act according to, that which Fabius says, "An ambiguous word should be avoided as a rock." Where it happens now and then inadvertently, it may be pardoned: but where it is sought for designedly and purposely, it deserves no pardon whatever, but justly merits the abhorrence of every one. For to what does this hateful double-tongued way of speaking tend? . . . Let him rather be reduced to order . . . by abstaining from that profane and double-tongued vertibility of speech and vain-talking, and by avoiding, as Paul [the apostle] saith, "profane and vain babblings."

For this it was, that even the public laws of the Roman empire condemned this manner of speaking, and punished it thus.—They commanded, "that the words of him who should speak obscurely, when he could speak more plainly, should be interpreted against himself." And Christ also, condemned that wicked servant who excused himself by an evasion; and interpreting his own words against himself, said, "Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant." For if in religion, in laws, and in all weighty matters, we should be allowed to express ourselves ambiguously and insidiously, what could follow but that utter confusion of Babel, where no one could understand another! This would be, to learn the language of eloquence, and in so doing, to lose the language of nature!

Moreover, if this license should prevail . . . what would become of logic, the instructor of teaching rightly? What would become of rhetoric, the faculty of persuading? Nothing would be taught, nothing would be learned, no persuasion could be carried home, no consolation would be given, no fear would be wrought: because, nothing would be spoken or heard that was certain. ("Letter to Nicolas Armsdoff Concerning Erasmus of Rotterdam")

Strive for clarity and conciseness. The Elizabethan era of wordy embellishments is long gone; practice the Paramedic Method instead. Don't refer to yourself in the third person, as the present writer is currently doing to prove his point, as if depersonalizing oneself from one’s writing with the third person actually made one more objective. Nonsense! It's not a sin to be personal with your audience; it’s rather more personable. And let's be done with pretentious academic doublespeak, which mainly serves to bolster scholars' egos because no one else understands them, often not even they do. At the very least define the Latinate jargon and avoid it if possible.

Keep in mind that writers are accountable for what they write. They have a moral responsibility to be clear, understandable, unambiguous, honest. Especially leaders and teachers. But don't take my word for it; take it from one of the best teachers of all time, the apostle Paul:

If I come to you speaking in tongues, how will I benefit you unless I bring you some revelation or knowledge or prophecy or teaching? If even lifeless instruments, such as the flute or the harp, do not give distinct notes, how will anyone know what is played? And if the bugle gives an indistinct sound, who will get ready for battle? So with yourselves, if with your tongue you utter speech that is not intelligible, how will anyone know what is said? For you will be speaking into the air. There are doubtless many different languages in the world, and none is without meaning, but if I do not know the meaning of the language, I will be a foreigner to the speaker and the speaker a foreigner to me. (1 Corinthians 14:6-11)

This includes citing sources properly. "Give credit where credit is due" (Romans 13:7). Christian apologist James White often says that you disrespect not only the authors but your audience as well when you misrepresent sources or don't cite them at all. The straw man and abusive ad hominem fallacies are, after all, still fallacies.

Good writers are careful, voracious readers too. In other words, read! Especially works by good authors. Close, meditative reading helps you become a stylish, idiomatic writer. Examine the author's style and learn from it. Scrutinize your own writing by looking at your work through the eyes of your readers. And read books about writing, such as Strunk and White's Elements of Style, Brians' Common Errors in English, and Trimble's Writing with Style.

And don't forget to write! Every day! Even if it's a paragraph. Even if it's a sentence. It will pay off. "For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little" (Isaiah 28:10).

May the pen be with you.

—Published June 1, 2012

On 12/15/2019, the sermon preached by Pastor Joe Rosales was based on Romans 10:14-21.

We read the account of Christ’s birth:

Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child. So it was, that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. (‭‭Luke‬ ‭2:4-11‬ ‭NKJV‬‬)

The church must remember her first love—Christ: “Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent” (Revelation‬ ‭2:4-5‬ ‭NKJV).

Pastors are called to preach the Word and not be concerned with trends to draw people in. We draw people in with the Truth. On the other extreme, Hyper-Calvinists deny the necessity of preaching the Gospel for men to get saved. But God ordains both the ends and the means, and uses means to achieve His ends:

How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, Who bring glad tidings of good things!” But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “LORD, who has believed our report?” So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. (Romans‬ ‭10:14-17‬ ‭NKJV‬‬)

Don’t expect for a voice from Heaven to come down and automatically convert the elect. In fact, the pastor noted that the preaching of God’s Word is the voice from Heaven! The reformers believed that faithful biblical preaching carries the same weight and authority as the Words of God Himself. Here’s Calvin:

The word goeth out of the mouth of God in such a manner that it likewise “goeth out of the mouth” of men; for God does not speak openly from heaven, but employs men as his instruments ….

When a man climbs up into the pulpit, is it so that he may be seen from afar and that he may have a higher place than the rest? No, no! But so that God may speak to us by the mouth of man and be so gracious to us to show himself here among us and will have a mortal man to be his messenger. (Qtd. in Glen Clary, “John Calvin: Servant of the Word of God,” https://reformedforum.org/john-calvin-servant-of-the-word-of-god/)

It’s also common for churches to stray whenever the founders pass away. If a strong biblical plurality of elders is not installed in the church, it’s only a matter of time till they fall away or close down, as some of the very first church plants in the Book of Revelation attest:

When Christ said, “I will build my church, and the Gates of Hell will not prevail against it,” he was not speaking of any institutional church. The Gates of Hell have prevailed against thousands of institutional churches in the past two millennia. They have become apostate and in most cases have disappeared. The churches to which Paul wrote his letters—Ephesus, Corinth, Thessalonica, Rome, Galatia, Philippi, Colosse—no longer exist as Christian churches. The Gates of Hell prevailed against the Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church, and the Lutheran Church. Christ’s church is not be be confused with any visible organization. (John Robbins, “The Church Irrational,” http://trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=290)

The Apostle Paul lost some of his battles. When Paul preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the synagogues, he was persecuted by the original antichrist, Judaism. We do not know, but tradition says that Paul died a violent death. (Jesus himself was almost murdered on the Sabbath by devout synagogue-going Jews who did not like his sermon; see Luke 4.) Most of the Jews of the first century rejected Christ; only the remnant was saved. The wrath of God, exercised through an unbelieving and unwitting General Titus, ended the apostate Temple cult – the vaunted Second Temple Judaism of the New Perspective on Paul. It was only through the writing of new Scriptures, the divinely inspired New Testament, and the establishment of new institutions – churches to propagate the doctrines of the Scriptures, both Old and New – that the Gospel survived the first century. As a Christian, Paul did not use force (as Saul he had). He lost battles, but he won the war. (Robbins, “Why Heretics Win Battles,” http://trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=207)

§ I. Introduction: We Have One Teacher – the Lord Jesus Christ

It has been said by some putatively Reformed teachers that in order to weigh in on the question of whether or not we are “finally” saved by/through our works one must have the appropriate scholarly credentials. This idea not only contradicts the general spirit of the Reformation, it also flatly contradicts the idea the teaching of Scripture. The Word of God teaches us clearly that the elect of God will be taught by him positively (i.e. taught the system of doctrine revealed in his Word) and negatively (i.e. taught what is not in accordance with the system of doctrine revealed in his Word).

For example, regarding God teaching of his elect people sound doctrine, the Scripture says –

Good and upright is the LORD;
therefore he instructs sinners in the way.
He leads the humble in what is right,
and teaches the humble his way.1

[…]

Who is the man who fears the LORD?
Him will he instruct in the way that he should choose.2

[...]

The friendship of the LORD is for those who fear him,
and he makes known to them his covenant.3

And –

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you with my eye upon you.4

[...]

Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being,
and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.5

[…]

Understand, O dullest of the people!
Fools, when will you be wise?
He who planted the ear, does he not hear?

He who formed the eye, does he not see?
He who disciplines the nations, does he not rebuke?

He who teaches man knowledge—
the LORD—knows the thoughts of man,
that they are but a breath.

Blessed is the man whom you discipline,
O LORD,and whom you teach out of your law,
to give him rest from days of trouble,
until a pit is dug for the wicked.6

And –

Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “I am the LORD your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go.7

And –

Yet among the mature we [viz. the writers of Scripture/the Scriptures] do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

But, as it is written,

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love him”—

these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.

The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.8

The Lord teaches his people the truth. The ordinary way in which he does is by his ordained shepherds. However, that does not change the fact that he is still the one teaching his people. For God reveals that Christians are capable of, and responsible for, judging the doctrinal claims of individuals who claim to be under-shepherds ordained by the Great Shepherd himself. As C.F.W. Walther put the matter: “Sheep Judge Their Shepherds”.

As it is written –

“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.9

[...]

So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them.10

[…]

Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world— to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”11

And –

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.12

And –

I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive.13

And –

Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good.14

And –

I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you. But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie—just as it has taught you, abide in him.15

The truth that God has ordained teachers for the edification of the church, so that she will not be swayed by every wind and wave of false doctrine, does not contradict the truth that God has called every individual Christian to test all things by the Word of God to see whether or not what they are being taught is indeed from him. But those who claim we must eat, sleep, wake, and scribble post it notes in Akkadian, Ugaritic, Hebrew, Koine Greek, and Medieval Latin before we speak about what the Scripture does or does not teach imply that God’s Shepherding of his flock happens solely through the instrumentation of his ordained under-shepherds. And that is not the case.

God is our Shepherd, and as his sheep we can and must differentiate his Voice, as passing through the teaching of sound and faithful expositors of his Word, from the hissing of serpentine men desperately trying to imitate our King.

§ II. The Simplicity of the Gospel

It is not outside of the ability of God’s people to determine whether or not what they are hearing is the Voice of Christ (i.e. sound teaching passing through his servants/ministers) or the voice of devils parading around as angels of light. Now if this is of true of more complex and nuanced doctrines that require in depth systematic studies of the Scriptures and much prayer (e.g. the hypostatic union, the communicatio idiomatum, the ad intra relations of the persons of the Godhead in comparison to the ad extra relations of the persons of the Godhead, and so on), how much more true is it of the simpler doctrines that even a child can understand (e.g. the Gospel)?

The answer should be plain. However, if there are some who are wondering whether or not the Gospel is simple enough for all of God’s people to understand, the following passage from Scripture, given a moment’s reflection, should put their wondering to rest. Listen to the Holy Spirit’s clear statement in Romans 1:16. Through Paul, God declares that –

...the gospel…is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

Take note of the exclusivity of the means whereby humans are saved – the Gospel is the power of God for salvation. Now take note of the universal class of persons for which the Gospel is the power of God for salvation – everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. The Holy Spirit here tells us that –

1. There is only one means whereby sinners are saved, namely the Gospel.
2. Every single person who believes is saved through belief in the Gospel.

If the Gospel were the ineffable and amorphous message some men make it out to be, how could it be the same means of salvation for every person who believes? Would the four year old American boy or girl be able to understand and believe the Gospel, seeing as he or she would not possess a PhD and the ability to read the Reformers in Medieval Latin?

If that were the case, then who could be saved?

The fact of the matter is that the Lord has made the saving message of the Gospel simple. It is so simple that even a child can understand it and believe it, if that child is, of course, effectually called, regenerated, and granted the gift of faith to believe. If a child has the capacity to understand the Gospel message, then he knows what the Gospel message is. And if he knows what the Gospel message is, then he knows that any other message that is not identical in substance to the Gospel is not the Gospel.

The four year old does not need a PhD to weigh in on how men are saved, and this is clearly implied by the teaching of Scripture. Why, then, do some men say that only those with the proper academic credentials are allowed to weigh in on the question of how men are saved, finally or otherwise?

§ III. Categorical Clarity

The foregoing discussion may seem a bit over the top and, for some, unnecessary. So let’s simplify the matter further by discussing the nature of salvation as a gift. According to Ephesians 2:8, salvation is the gift of God. And according to Paul, a gift is that for which we have not done any work. He explains this in Rom 4:4-6 –

Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works…16

A gift is what is received apart from works. Contrariwise, what one receives for having done works is counted as wages, i.e. not a gift. Consequently, if salvation is a gift then it, by logical necessity, cannot be what is received after one has completed a work or set of works. Either salvation is what is given to men apart from any works at all, or it is wages due to the one who works. More concisely, we can put the matter as follows.

1. No gift is received for one’s having completed a work or set of works.
2. Salvation is a gift.
3. Therefore, salvation is not received for one’s having completed any work or set of works.

The second premise here is of utmost importance, for it clearly demonstrates that being granted salvation is not contingent in any way upon our having completed any given work or set of works, for salvation is a gift, not wages due to us for our completion of any work or set of works.

Someone might attempt to object to this by arguing that salvation and final salvation are not the same thing. This is a foolish rejoinder, however, seeing as whether salvation is initial or final is irrelevant, for unless we are equivocating on what we mean by salvation in general, it nevertheless remains the case that salvation is a gift. Initial and final modify not the essence of salvation as a gift but the gift in its different eschatological positions, as it were. Calling salvation “initial” at one point and “final” at another point, in other words, does not change the fact that what is initial and final is still, by definition, a gift and, therefore, not what is granted to men upon their completion of any work or set of works.

This, too, seems simple enough for a child to comprehend.

§ IV. Concluding Remarks

It is distressing to hear professedly Christian academics belittle laymen they think are “uneducated” and “do not know the law.”17 Beyond the fact that such men are apparently incapable of drawing simple deductive inferences from the clear teaching of Scripture, it is distressing because they are, in essence, telling men that only those with academic credentials can understand the means whereby a man comes to possess salvation. And if it is only by the narrow road of studying and becoming an expert in Reformed scholasticism, then who can be saved?

Thanks be to God that the reality is much simpler.

1. Salvation is a gift.

2. As a gift its reception cannot, by definition, be contingent upon the completion of any work or set of works (otherwise it would be wages, as God himself explains in Romans 4:4-6).

3. Salvation is universally granted by God to all who believe/through the instrument of saving faith.

4. Saving faith is assent to the understood propositions comprising the Gospel message.

5. All who believe the Gospel understand how man is saved, viz. by grace alone through faith alone, and not by any of his own works in any way, shape, or form.

To teach that salvation is possessed firstly by faith alone and secondly by works is to simultaneously identify salvation as A and -A, i.e. as a gift received apart from works and as wages due upon the completion of some work or set of works.

Either salvation is a gift, and its reception is not contingent upon our works at all.
Or salvation’s reception is contingent upon our works and, therefore, it is not a gift.

You cannot have it both ways.

Soli Deo Gloria
-h.

---

1 Ps 25:8-9. (emphasis added)
2 Ps 25:12. (emphasis added)
3 Ps 25:14. (emphasis added)
4 Ps 32:8.
5 Ps 51:6.
6 Ps 94:8-13. (emphasis added)
7 Isa 48:17.
8 1st Cor 2:6-16. (emphasis added)
9 John 10:1-5. (emphasis added)
10 John 10:7-8. (emphasis added)
11 John 18:37. (emphasis added)
12 Rom 12:2. (emphasis added)
13 Rom 16:17-18. (emphasis added)
14 1st Thess 5:20-21.
15 1st John 2:26-27. (emphasis added)
16 Emphasis added.
17 cf. John 7:48-49.

On 12/8/2019, the sermon preached by Pastor Joe Rosales was based on Romans 10:11-21.

The pastor explained that is easy to confuse the two natures of Christ, as many ancient heresies attest. It is still a major issue today, because Christology is one of the most difficult doctrines of the Bible. The Creed of Chalcedon provides theological boundaries to keep us from straying, though it doesn’t provide a thorough systematic treatment or crucial definitions, by affirming

one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ; as the prophets from the beginning [have declared] concerning Him, and the Lord Jesus Christ Himself has taught us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers has handed down to us.

Gordon Clark has brilliant contributions to the unresolved Christological problems that the Church still faces in his work on The Incarnation. It’s also important to consider the Reformed Confessions, because “Christ, in the work of mediation, acteth according to both natures, by each nature doing that which is proper to itself; yet by reason of the unity of the person, that which is proper to one nature is sometimes in Scripture, attributed to the person denominated by the other nature.” (John 3:13; Acts 20:28, https://www.arbca.com/1689-chapter8)

Many churches today preach the love of God but completely leave out or deny the wrath of God. There’s no sense of God’s holiness, as there was with the prophet Isaiah, who cursed himself, saying, “Woe is me! For I am pulverized!” (Isa 6:5) when he saw the Lord sitting on His throne (v. 1). The Reformed tradition, however, has always stressed the importance of this doctrine, even to little children:

Q. What does every sin deserve?
A. The anger and judgment of God (Deut. 27:26; Rm. 1:18; 2:2; Gal. 3:10; Eph. 5:6).

The pastor admonished us to not lose sight of what Christmas is truly about—a Savior being born to redeem fallen mankind from the just wrath of God. This is the gospel, the good news, for all who believe. Christians should not replace Christ with Santa Clause or materialism. It is about being justified—declared righteous by faith alone in Christ alone—and about deliverance from sin and judgment. We’re saved from the condemnation and the power of sin.

But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which we preach): that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (‭‭Romans‬ ‭10:8-10‬ ‭NKJV‬‬)

The pastor encouraged us to meditate on two things: That there is nothing good in us, our flesh, and on the greatness of God’s mercy in Christ Jesus: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (I Peter‬ ‭1:3-5‬ ‭NKJV‬‬).

“I will never forget Your precepts, For by them You have given me life. I am Yours, save me; For I have sought Your precepts” (Psalms‬ ‭119:93-94‬ ‭NKJV‬‬).

He closed by highlighting the importance of the doctrine of glorification. What will children who die in the Lord look like in the Resurrection? Using the Reformed principle of deducing doctrine by good and necessary consequence from Scripture, we can see that, in the Resurrection, we will have adult glorified bodies. Adam and Eve were created as adults. Childhood is a transition into adulthood: “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things” (I Corinthians‬ ‭13:11‬ ‭NKJV‬‬). The same is true for those who die in old age. Surely Moses and Elijah did not look like crippled old men when they appeared during Christ’s Transfiguration (Matt. 17:3). Christ will bless us with perfect, mature, glorified bodies when He returns. “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself” (Philippians‬ ‭3:20-21‬ ‭NKJV‬‬).

On 11/28/2019, the Thanksgiving sermon was preached by Pastor Joe Rosales.

The pastor opened the message with the debate regarding the very first Thanksgiving. Traditionally we celebrate the Pilgrims’ Thanksgiving, but there was an earlier Thanksgiving held in El Paso, TX by Catholics led by Spanish explorer Juan de Oñate, in which “a mass was said by the Franciscan missionaries traveling with the expedition” (https://texasalmanac.com/topics/history/timeline/first-thanksgiving). But as Protestants we unapologetically celebrate Thanksgiving with the Puritans, whether they were first or not!

George Washington gave the first national Thanksgiving Proclamation on 3 October 1789:

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor—and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me “to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.” (https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-04-02-0091)

Abraham Lincoln established it as a national holiday during the Civil War:

I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union. (http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/thanks.htm)

The Thanksgiving holiday, however, comes only once a year. It’s occasional. But Christians should always be thankful. The Heidelberg Catechism and Hercules Collins’ Orthodox Catechism distill the Christian life in three words: Guilt, Grace, Gratitude. Christians are called to be a eucharistic—a thanksgiving—people, as James White notes, to “pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks (εὐχαριστεῖτε); for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thessalonians‬ ‭5:17-18‬ ‭NKJV‬‬). We need to take back the true meaning of eucharist from the Antichrist Church of Rome.

The pastor also noted that cheerful brethren generally make everything better and more enjoyable, for “all the days of the afflicted are evil, but he who is of a merry heart has a continual feast” (‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭15:15‬ ‭NKJV‬‬).

Ultimately, God is good. Period. (Etymologically, good in the “Sense of ‘kind, benevolent’ is from late Old English in reference to persons or God.”) And we must be thankful for that, because we were not good, “but God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans‬ ‭5:8‬ ‭NKJV). ‬‬Gordon Clark puts it plainly:

God is neither responsible nor sinful, even though he is the only ultimate cause of everything. He is not sinful because in the first place whatever God does is just and right. It is just and right simply in virtue of the fact that he does it. Justice or righteousness is not a standard external to God to which God is obligated to submit. Righteousness is what God does. Since God caused Judas to betray Christ, this causal act is righteous and not sinful. By definition God cannot sin. At this point it must me particularly pointed out that God’s causing a man to sin is not sin. There is no law, superior to God, which forbids him to decree sinful acts. Sin presupposes a law, for sin is lawlessness. Sin is any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God. But God is “Ex-lex.” (Religion, Reason, and Revelation, in The Works of Gordon Haddon Clark: Christian Philosophy, Vol. 4, pp. 268-69, http://www.trinitylectures.org/christian-philosophy-the-works-of-gordon-haddon-clark-volume-paperback-p-145.html).

The pastor closed with a prayer from William Jay, “For a Day of Thanksgiving—Evening.”

On 11/17/2019 the sermon, “The Christian’s Guide,” preached by elder Albert Hernandez, was based on Psalm 1.

He quotes Ryan Denton:

What Does Man Teach?

1. The Bible Is Not Reliable

But based on what authority is this claim made? Perhaps you say your own. But why assume your authority carries more weight than God’s? You have limited knowledge of every fact in the universe. You are prone to make mistakes. The Bible says your heart “is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9). Perhaps you say the Bible is unreliable because “scholars” told you so. But they also have a limited, mistake-prone understanding of the universe. Not to mention, apart from Christ, they have an axe to grind against God. They are “alienated and hostile in mind” when it comes to God (Colossians 1:21). They passionately desire the Bible to be unreliable and so fabricate ways to twist it to their own agenda and eventual destruction (2 Peter 3:16). Also, who determines which parts are correct and which parts aren’t? The culture? Present feelings? Humans? But these aren’t objective standards, nor are they authoritative. These are all subject to change and are vastly finite in their understanding of the universe. (“The Bible's Apologetic-God Speaks!”, https://www.christinthewild.com/blog/2019/11/14/2zphxrvev3htkp7ft00e084pjxya2e)

The elder refers to Psalm 1 as “the Christian’s Guide,” as many commentators do:

As the book of the Canticles is called the Song of Songs by a Hebraism, it being the most excellent, so this Psalm may not unfitly be entitled, the Psalm of Psalms, for it contains in it the very pith and quintessence of Christianity. What Jerome saith on St. Paul's epistles, the same may I say of this Psalm; it is short as to the composure, but full of length and strength as to the matter. This Psalm carries blessedness in the frontpiece; it begins where we all hope to end: it may well be called a Christian's Guide, for it discovers the quicksands where the wicked sink down in perdition, and the firm ground on which the saints tread to glory. (Thomas Watson's Saints Spiritual Delight, 1660, http://www.biblebb.com/files/SPURGEON/TOD/chstp1.htm)

What does the word blessed mean? “Happy”? It means that and more, explains Spurgeon:

"BLESSED" - see how this Book of Psalms opens with a benediction, even as did the famous Sermon of our Lord upon the Mount! The word translated "blessed" is a very expressive one. The original word is plural, and it is a controverted matter whether it is an adjective or a substantive. Hence we may learn the multiplicity of the blessings which shall rest upon the man whom God hath justified, and the perfection and greatness of the blessedness he shall enjoy. We might read it, "Oh, the blessednesses!" and we may well regard it (as Ainsworth does) as a joyful acclamation of the gracious man's felicity. May the like benediction rest on us! (http://www.biblebb.com/files/SPURGEON/TOD/chstp1.htm)

Yet there are Christians who suffer from depression, especially those who are prone to introspection. The elder also explained that counsel doesn’t just mean advice, but also a way of thinking, a way of life. It’s a mindset: “The wicked in his proud countenance does not seek God; God is in none of his thoughts” (Psalms‬ ‭10:4‬ ‭NKJV‬‬).

Planning your life without God, even in your everyday dealings, is one of the patterns of ungodliness and practical atheism: “Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.”” James‬ ‭4:13-15‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

How mindful are you of the things of God? When you abandon God in your thoughts, you will abandon him in your life. But Christ is the answer, “knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” I Peter‬ ‭1:18-19‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

“I have not departed from the commandment of His lips; I have treasured the words of His mouth More than my necessary food.” ‭‭Job‬ ‭23:12‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

The elder admonishes us to pray this for the local church:

For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. (Colossians‬ ‭1:9-12‬ ‭NKJV‬‬)

Scripture tells us to love people more and need people less: “I have shown you in every way, by laboring like this, that you must support the weak. And remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive’” (Acts‬ ‭20:35‬ ‭NKJV‬‬).

A good admonition for children too is that there’s a time to play, and a time to pray. Everyone is born in Adam, outside of God, “that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” Ephesians‬ ‭2:12-13‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

We should meditate on and interpret the Bible holistically. Many don’t reap the benefits from Scripture because they may read but don’t think! It’s not the one who reads the most books or listens to the most sermons, but the one who meditates the most on them:

My brethren, there is nothing more wanting to make Christians grow in grace now-a-days than meditation. Most of you are painfully negligent in this matter. You remind me of a sermon that one of my quaint old friends in the country once preached from that text—"The slothful man roasteth not that which he took in hunting." He told us that many people who would hunt for a sermon, were too lazy to roast it by meditation. They knew not how to put the jack of memory through it, and then to twist it round by meditation before the fire of piety, and so to cook it and make it fit for your soul's food. So it is with many of you after you have caught the sermon: you allow it to run away. How often do you, through lack of meditation, miss the entire purpose for which the sermon was designed. Unless ye meditate upon the truths we declare unto you, ye will gather little sweetness, ye will acquire little profit, and, certainly, ye will be in no wise established therein to your edification. Can you get the honey from the comb until you squeeze it! You may be refreshed by a few words while you listen to the sermon, but it is the meditation afterwards which extracts the honey, and gets the best and most luscious savor therefrom. Meditation, my friends, is a part of the life-blood of every true Christian, and we ought to abound therein. (Charles Spurgeon, “Meditation on God,” http://www.biblebb.com/files/spurgeon/2690.htm)

After listening to this quote from Spurgeon and reading his sermon, I fell in love with his writings again:

Do not imagine that the meditative man is necessarily lazy; contrariwise, he lays the best foundation for useful works. He is not the best student who reads the most books, but he who meditates the most upon them; he shall not learn most of divinity who hears the greatest number of sermons, but he who meditates the most devoutly upon what he does hear; nor shall he be so profound a scholar who takes down ponderous volumes one after the other, as he who, reading little by little, precept upon precept, and line upon line, digests what he learns, and assimilates each sentiment to his heart by meditation—receiving the word first into his understanding, and afterwards receiving the spirit of the thing into his own soul. When he reads the letters with his eye it is merely mechanical, but that he may read them to his own heart he retires to meditate. Meditation is thus a very excellent employment; it is not the offspring of listlessness or lethargy but it is a satisfactory mode of employing time, and very remunerative to the spirit.

Meditation really is vital, “the lifeblood of every true Christian.” It convinced me to read Spurgeon daily, his Morning and Evening as well as his sermons:

https://www.monergism.com/sermons-charles-spurgeon-4-vol-800-sermons

The elder closed with an admonition from the London Baptist Confession of 1689:

Chapter 19: Of the Law of God

6. Although true believers be not under the law as a covenant of works, to be thereby justified or condemned, yet it is of great use to them as well as to others, in that as a rule of life, informing them of the will of God and their duty, it directs and binds them to walk accordingly; discovering also the sinful pollutions of their natures, hearts, and lives, so as examining themselves thereby, they may come to further conviction of, humiliation for, and hatred against, sin; together with a clearer sight of the need they have of Christ and the perfection of his obedience; it is likewise of use to the regenerate to restrain their corruptions, in that it forbids sin; and the threatenings of it serve to shew what even their sins deserve, and what afflictions in this life they may expect for them, although freed from the curse and unallayed rigour thereof. The promises of it likewise shew them God's approbation of obedience, and what blessings they may expect upon the performance thereof, though not as due to them by the law as a covenant of works; so as man's doing good and refraining from evil, because the law encourageth to the one and deterreth from the other, is no evidence of his being under the law and not under grace. (Romans 6:14; Galatians 2:16; Romans 8:1; Romans 10:4; Romans 3:20; Romans 7:7, etc; Romans 6:12-14; 1 Peter 3:8-13; https://www.arbca.com/1689-chapter19)

On 11/10/2019, the sermon preached by Pastor Joe Rosales continued from Romans 9:14-29.

The doctrine of predestination has always been controversial, especially in our democratic and increasingly socialist nation, which demands equality of outcome for all, so God is obligated to save everyone. Romans 9 disposes of such unbiblical views. And if you have a problem with what Paul wrote, you have a problem with God Himself: “If anyone thinks himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things which I write to you are the commandments of the Lord” (‭‭I Corinthians‬ ‭14:37‬ ‭NKJV‬‬). We should expect objections when explaining the doctrine of election:

What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not! For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.” So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. (Romans‬ ‭9:14-16‬ ‭NKJV‬‬)

So what does it mean that “the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he did not let the children of Israel go”? (Exodus‬ ‭10:20‬ ‭NKJV‬‬) Does it mean that God abandoned pharaoh to his already hardened heart? That God removed his hand of restraint from pharaoh and left him to his destruction? Is it the mere wrath of abandonment? If God actively hardened pharaoh’s heart, would that make him the author of sin? Does not God say that “the king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, Like the rivers of water; He turns it wherever He wishes”? (Proverbs‬ ‭21:1‬ ‭NKJV).‬‬ Does the Potter form jars of dishonor in an indirect manner? Who is the One who forms/makes (Romans 9:21 (Byz): ποιῆσαι) and prepares (Romans 9:22 (Byz): κατηρτισμένα) the vessels of wrath? The clay or the Potter?

But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor? What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles? (Romans‬ ‭9:20-24‬ ‭NKJV‬‬)

According to God, “I form light and I create darkness; I make peace and I create evil; I am Yahweh; I do all these things” (Isaiah‬ ‭45:7‬ ‭LEB‬‬). Gordon Clark explains:

This is a verse that many people do not know is in the Bible. Its sentiment shocks them. They think that God could not have created evil. But this is precisely what the Bible says, and it has a direct bearing on the doctrine of predestination.

Some people who do not wish to extend God’s power over evil things, and particularly over moral evils, try to say that the word evil here means such natural evils as earthquakes and storms. The Scofield Bible notes that the Hebrew word here, ra, is never translated sin. This is true. The editors of that Bible must have looked at every instance of ra in the Old Testament and must have seen that it is never translated sin in the King James Version. But what the note does not say is that it is often translated wickedness, as in Genesis 6:5, “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the Earth.” In fact, ra is translated wickedness at least fifty times in the Old Testament; and it refers to a variety of ugly sins. The Bible therefore explicitly teaches that God creates sin. This may be an unpalatable thought to a good many people. But there it is, and everyone may read it for himself. As this becomes a major point in predestination, and forms one of the main objections to the doctrine, we shall discuss it later. But let no one limit God in his creation. There is nothing independent of him. (Predestination, http://www.trinitylectures.org/predestination-p-128.html)

And Gary Crampton:

Standing on the “rock foundation” of the Word of God as our axiomatic starting point (Matthew 7:24-25), we have an answer to the problem of evil. God, who is altogether holy and can do no wrong, sovereignly decrees evil things to take place for his own good purposes (Isaiah 45:7). Just because He has decreed it, his action is right. As Jerome Zanchius wrote: “The will of God is so the cause of all things, as to be, itself without cause, for nothing can be the cause of that which is the cause of everything. Hence we find every matter resolved ultimately into the mere sovereign pleasure of God. God has no other motive for what He does than ipsa voluntas, His mere will, which will itself is so far from being unrighteous that it is justice itself.”

Sin and evil therefore exist for good reasons: God has decreed them as part of His eternal plan, and they work not only for His own glory, but also for the good of his people. With this Biblical premise in mind, it is easy to answer anti-theists, such as David Hume, who argue that the pervasiveness of evil in the world militates against the existence of the Christian God. (“A Biblical Theodicy,” http://trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=141)

And Clark again:

…God [is] the cause of sin. God is the sole ultimate cause of everything. There is absolutely nothing independent of him. He alone is the eternal being. He alone is omnipotent. He alone is sovereign. Not only is Satan his creature, but every detail of history was eternally in his plan before the world began; and he willed that it should all come to pass. The men and angels predestined to eternal life and those foreordained to everlasting death are particularly and unchangeably designed; and their number is so certain and definite that it cannot be either increased or diminished. Election and reprobation are equally ultimate….

The secondary causes in history are not eliminated by divine causality, but rather they are made certain. And the acts of these secondary causes, whether they be righteous acts or sinful acts, are to be immediately referred to the agents; and it is these agents who are responsible.

God is neither responsible nor sinful, even though he is the only ultimate cause of everything. He is not sinful because in the first place whatever God does is just and right. It is just and right simply in virtue of the fact that he does it. Justice or righteousness is not a standard external to God to which God is obligated to submit. Righteousness is what God does. Since God caused Judas to betray Christ, this causal act is righteous and not sinful. By definition God cannot sin. At this point it must me particularly pointed out that God’s causing a man to sin is not sin. There is no law, superior to God, which forbids him to decree sinful acts. Sin presupposes a law, for sin is lawlessness. Sin is any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God. But God is “Ex-lex.” (Religion, Reason, and Revelation, in The Works of Gordon Haddon Clark: Christian Philosophy, Vol. 4, pp. 267, 268-69, http://www.trinitylectures.org/christian-philosophy-the-works-of-gordon-haddon-clark-volume-paperback-p-145.html).

“The LORD has made all for Himself, Yes, even the wicked for the day of doom” (Proverbs‬ ‭16:4‬ ‭NKJV‬‬).