Despair is not for us.

Christ is King and our hope of salvation has always been in Christ.  Trust His plan.

The Day of the Lord

1 Now, brothers and sisters, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, 

2 for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. 

3 While people are saying, “Peace and safety,” destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. 

4 But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief. 

5 You are all children of the light and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. 

6 So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be awake and sober. 

7 For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night. 

8 But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet. 

9 For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. 

10 He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him. 

11 Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.

Final Instructions

12 Now we ask you, brothers and sisters, to acknowledge those who work hard among you, who care for you in the Lord and who admonish you. 

13 Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other. 

14 And we urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. 

15 Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else. 

16 Rejoice always, 

17 pray continually, 

18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. 

19 Do not quench the Spirit. 

20 Do not treat prophecies with contempt 

21 but test them all; hold on to what is good, 

22 reject every kind of evil. 

23 May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

24 The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it. 

25 Brothers and sisters, pray for us. 

26 Greet all God’s people with a holy kiss. 

27 I charge you before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers and sisters. 

28 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

Thessalonians Chapter 5

The governed vs the ruled

Are you being governed, or ruled? 

Karl Manke, a 78-year-old barber in Owosso, Michigan, who has been cutting hair for 59 years, can rest a little easier. Charges for violating local health orders and defying Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s COVID mandates were dropped last Friday.

Manke gained national attention and notoriety as a “folk hero” among many who saw that Whitmer’s edicts went far beyond the law. When she shut down the state initially, Manke complied. But after she unilaterally extended her mandates beyond April 30 without gaining approval from the legislature to do so, Manke reopened his barbershop, saying at the time, “I feel the governor is not my mother, never has been.”

When reminded that he was violating Whitmer’s mandates, Manke said, “I could care less. If they want to put me in jail, put me in jail.… I will be governed … but not ruled. This is a police state action.”

Be careful of what what stands you take and be sure you're not fighting on the wrong side, however keep confidence.  We know what side ultimately wins.

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.  For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority?  Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. 

Romans 13:1-4a

Let them govern but never let them rule you.  The state exists to punish evildoers, not to exert tyrannical influence.

 

France outlaws homeschool

In a supposed effort to curtail "Islamist separatism" French president Emmanuel Macron is moving to ban homeschooling and independent schools.  

The new law would come into force in the school year 2021–2022 for all children aged between 3 and 16. It was already under Macron’s presidency that education became compulsory for tots of infant school age. With a comfortable majority at the National Assembly, the ruling La République en Marche party, which Macron led to victory in 2017, is expected to validate the draft law the government will present in accordance with the president’s wishes.

Macron’s announcements were part of a series of measures aimed at fighting what he calls “separatism,” a strange expression he uses to designate the aims of “radical Islamists” who want to substitute the laws of the French Republic with sharia law. He quoted the example of a clandestine school where young Muslims were found in a plain, almost windowless room, taught by women in niqabs and learning mostly prayers and the Koran, in order to justify his wide-ranging attack against freedom of education.

Emmanuel Macron was speaking at a public event in Les Mureaux, one of the many suburban towns around Paris where immigrants from many countries, mostly in North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa, form the majority. Les Mureaux was the theater of ethnic riots in 2005 and has since been considered a hotspot for radical Islam, with the shooting of a police commander and his girlfriend in 2016 in an attack claimed by the Islamic State. Many of these migrants are Muslim: Muslims represent anything from 4 to 8 or 9 million souls in France, according to different sources. Repeatedly, terrorist attacks in France have been committed in the name of Allah by such migrants, legal or not.

According to Lionel Devic, president of the “Fondation pour l’Ecole,” an association that supports the creation and functioning of independent schools in France, “it is clearly established that not a single perpetrator of terrorist attacks in France came from independent schools.” In his statement, he added that “Emmanuel Macron lucidly acknowledged that Islamist separatism can be traced back to public schools and private schools under contract with the state.”

This is why you cannot allow unmitigated immigration and keep a beautiful national identity simultaneously.  Instead of banning Muslim immigrants, Macron specifically welcomes them, and then under the guise of removing islamic separatists, locks down on education efforts of those who will be,  invariably, French Christians.  

In his speech, Macron requests "whatever his religion or absence of religion, to respect absolutely all the laws of the Republic."  He goes on to say that he is trying to protect children "from religion."  It seems to me he chose his side against his republic and against his people, and thrown his lot in with the god of this world.

The adage "homeschool or die" holds true.  If the people of a true nation cannot teach their own children, eventually that nation dies.

 

Two wrongs don't make a right

This is not exactly word for word, but a very close retelling of a conversation that actually happened at my workplace today.  Mind you all of my coworkers are both right-leaning and Trump supporters.  Coworker 1 is a single dad with majority custody of his son, and coworker 2 has two sons. 

CoWorker1:  I think that Amy Barrett is a religious nut.  I don't think they should do anything to Roe v. Wade and they will if she's confirmed.  So my son will be screwed if he has sex and the girl doesn't want it [the baby]?  What happens then?  She cries rape so she can still have the abortion and my son is fucked.

Me:  Don't fuck until you're married then.

CoWorker2:  Nah...   I tell 'em you've gotta try it before you buy it.

Me:  I could never give my kids advice that would make them statistically more likely to get a divorce

CoWorker2:  [Incredulously, knowing I have a hot wife] So you didn't have sex before you were married?

Me:  No.

CoWorker2:  Oh, well uh...good for you man.

Me on the inside:

Two things here, the first being is that the assumption of coworker 1 is specifically that the only thing you can do to prevent your son from falsely being accused of rape is to allow child murder in your society.  Instead of allowing murder to prevent rape, how about teach your son some self control.  Second, coworker 2 would knowingly give his sons bad advice to prevent having to face his own past misdeeds.  It is literally making the truth anathema to yourself in the same way that the god of this world made the Truth anathema to himself.  

This is why Jesus reminds us that the world hates us.  The world will hate truth and it's adherents the same way Satan hates God.

An example to be made...

Kroger employees were fired over a disagreement about wearing an apron with a gay pride logo.

A federal employment watchdog filed a religious discrimination lawsuit against supermarket chain Kroger on behalf of two Arkansas employees who claim they were terminated because they refused to wear an apron that included a rainbow symbol. ...

"I am requesting a reasonable accommodation of this dress code with regard to my religious belief," she wrote in a letter requesting religious accommodations, according to the lawsuit. "I am simply asking to wear my name badge over the heart logo." ...

The company did not discharge other employees who simply declined to wear the new apron or those who covered the heart emblem without requesting religious accommodations, the suit said, claiming they were also in violation of the dress code.

The women had requested that they either put their nametags over the logo OR that they buy another apron so Kroger wasn't financially burdened.  I find it far easier to simply disobey rules that would violate my conscience than to try to negotiate with these purveyors of nonsense. 

According to the lawsuit, the company didn't fire other employees who simply didn't wear the pride aprons.  Kroger specifically wanted to make an example out of these two Christian women who tried to do the right thing.  The real problem here is, they tried to negotiate with an enemy that gives no quarter.  Good on them for fighting it out!

When truth lacks an absolute source

It is difficult to grasp how far away from Truth someone must be to to come up with such ridiculous conjecture.  

We no longer hold these truths to be self-evident:

—A U.S. presidential election will be held every four years in November.

—The armed forces will not be involved in those elections.

—Nor in domestic protests.

—Medicine will be approved when science says it’s safe and effective, not because a politician wants it approved before Election Day.

—The United States is an example to the world in managing a peaceful transfer of power.

—You’ll get your checks, bills, letters, junk mail — and ballots — on time in your mailbox. Because: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”

That unofficial post office creed is carved in granite. The other verities of American democracy and public service might as well be. But that doesn’t make them eternal.

Later, the author goes on to say "It's a country...where common purpose is sidelined in tribal argument between the masked and unmasked."  Tribal lines always take precedence over 'common purpose'.  But even if it were true that we did have common purpose, it still takes a willful ignorance to believe such common purpose is a better glue than tribe. 

Since when is "truth" supplied by the post office?  To hold any of these as "truth" is a gross misuse of the word truth, in historical American language and in Western Christian tradition.  I think that even willful ignorance is probably too much credit, however.  It is probably safe to say it's a blind devotion to the father of lies.

  

Don't send your kids to college

Especially not Liberty University.  $10.5 million dollars will be going directly to a literal cuckold.  

All the money you've put into getting your kids an indoctrination education, all that time and hope and this "Christian" university just gave it away.  Did they actually help your kids?  Did you go into debt to send your kids there?  Did your kids go into debt to attend?

Lends at interest, and takes profit; shall he then live? He shall not live. He has done all these abominations; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon himself. - Ezekiel 18:13

Stop supporting Church, Inc. and start supporting your actual church family.  Support your local Christian brothers and sisters, you don't need these buildings and institutions that are built to serve the god of this world.

A story of convergence

On Convergence

I moved my family to an almost rural community in Central Virginia just over four years ago.  After a while I felt called to bring my family to a local church community and we started going to a rural Baptist church. 

The old folks appeared to have a handle on the community and control of the culture even though they had a very liberal pastor in place.  There was little convergence at this point however because he did not control the people who controlled the culture.

After about 5 months of attendance, the liberal pastor left and things got even better.  Our community seemed to flourish.  A few months later, however the church got an interim pastor who had spent his career with the International Mission Board organization.

Soon after becoming the interim pastor, the "pastor search committee" - which I will point out did not consist only of the elders of the church but was at least half women - decided to make a motion to have the interim pastor join full-time.  We weren't members yet so we couldn't vote and my few reservations may not have completely convinced me it was the wrong move anyway.  The church voted and he became the full-time pastor.

Immediately, he cut the number of hymns down from 5 to 3, changed our traditional Doxology to a simple and ill-fit melody, changed service time from 10:15 to 11:00, and soon fired the old lady who played piano for years and replaced her with a young buck.  Soon after, he did a library liquidation and sold or gave away all the books in the church's library. 

The preaching now started including quips about the "corporate sin" of racism that is common for us Virginia Confederates.  Messages about a generic love that will "break down walls between communities" abounded.  Missionaries were brought in to teach about the importance of caring for refugees. 

Vote early and often

If life is politics, then in addition to that realization, we must be voting constantly.  

Cancel your netflix when you see that it's actively promoting pedophilia.  

Drop Disney when they start promoting the LGBTQ+ agenda on your pre-teens.  

When your churches start welcoming all persons, know they've put out an invitation to the god of this world.

 

 

The old saying is "Vote early, vote often."  Some see this as cynical, but I prefer it as a reminder of the requirement that we need to be the early voters and we judge these things for ourselves.  Voting is simply a choice and we need to make these choices constantly.  Once someone shows you they aren't just fallen, but have become actively wicked, remove yourself and your family immediately.