Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
Exodus 20:16
As much as I try not to let it happen, the constant drumbeat of lies promoted 24/7 from every corner of our civilization gets to me from time to time.
And I really find it is the constant lying about everything all the time by everyone in official positions of power that gets to me the most.
Politicians, CEOs, university presidents and professors, schoolteachers, school administrators, and school boards, federal government officials, state and local officials, legacy media outlets, churches, doctors, hospitals and medical officials, law enforcement, lawyers and judges, entertainers, athletes and professional sports leagues, bankers, and tax-exempt foundations. In short, every institution in America has become a lie factory dedicated to deceiving us all and promoting a false view of the world.
But the Bible commands Christians not to lie and deceive others. In the Ten Commandments, we are told, “Thou shalt not bear false witness.” Paul repeated this idea in his epistle to the Ephesians, writing, “Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour.” The Lord Jesus Christ said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The devil, Scripture tells us, is the father of lies. And as imitators of Christ, his people are called to walk in the truth. And no lie is of the truth.
[W]here the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
– 2 Corinthians 3:17
Writing as I am on this day, July 3, 2022, it’s hard for my thoughts not to turn to Independence Day as Americans celebrate the 246th anniversary of the founding of the American nation.
I don’t remember a time when Independence Day was not one of my favorite days on the calendar. Growing up in the 1970s, I recall the focus on the Bicentennial celebrations in 1976. I was ten years old at the time. Not old enough to understand or appreciate the full significance of the Declaration of Independence, the Revolutionary War, and the Constitution, but old enough to realize that the acts and the words of the founding fathers had created a new nation committed to the protection of individual liberty to an extent never before accomplished.
One lesson about the formation of the United States that I did not learn until years later was just how much it depended upon the Protestant Reformation kicked off by Martin Luther over 250 years before the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
This idea – the notion that the United States and the history of limited government and economic liberty historically, if not presently, enjoyed by its citizens is a by-product of the Reformation – would likely come as a surprise to many Americans today, even those who attend churches that claim to be Reformed.
Thousands of abortion-rights activists gather in front of the U.S. Supreme Court after the Court announced a ruling in the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization case on June 24, 2022 in Washington, DC. The Court’s decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health overturns the landmark 50-year-old Roe v Wade case and erases a federal right to an abortion. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) (Chip Somodevilla, 2022 Getty Images)
With the release of the Supreme Court’s decision in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision on Friday, June 24, 2022, the reign of the Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion in all 50 states was overturned.
This was a decision Christians have long hoped for but one that at times seems far from ever coming to pass.
A great deal has been written on this topic over the past two days, and it is not my intention here to recap all of it. But despite the volume of commentary about abortion, there are, I think, some important topics that are touched on but rarely, if they are discussed at all. It is to these topics that I now turn.
Dobbs v. Jackson Does Not Outlaw Abortion
The Supreme Court’s decision does not outlaw abortion in America. What it does is remove the Constitutionally guaranteed right to abortion, a right not found in the Constitution at all, but one invented by the Court in 1973.
When the Constitution was written, the intention of the framers was to establish a federal government of enumerated powers. That is, the Constitution spelled out in detail the powers of the federal government. Apart from these enumerated powers, the federal government had no authority. The 10th Amendment puts it this way, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”
The logic here is the same as the logic behind the Regulative Principle of Worship. God alone tells us in his Word how he is to be worshipped. If the Bible does not specifically sanction a worship activity, that activity is prohibited. In like fashion, if the Constitution does not specifically spell out a governmental function as belonging to the federal government, that function is prohibited to it, and is, “reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”
Following this line of thinking, we need to ask ourselves, does the Constitution have anything to say about abortion? This answer is, no it does not. Writing in Liberty Defined, Ron Paul noted,
[T]he Constitution says nothing about abortion, murder, manslaughter, or any other acts of violence. There are only four crimes listed in the Constitution: counterfeiting, piracy, treason, and slavery. Criminal and civil laws were deliberately left to the states.
Paul, Liberty Defined, 2
Those who believe the Supreme Court should ban all abortion in America likely are disappointed by the Dobbs ruling. For example, a tweet from the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) read, “Following the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, a patchwork of state laws means abortion access will vary widely depending on where someone lives.” But what some would call a “patchwork” is simply the result of our federal system of government. As much as Christians would like to see abortion banned in all 50 states, that is probably not a possibility at this time. Some areas of the nation take a more biblical view of abortion, and some will be less Christian in their thinking.
While Christians can pray and work for the day when abortion is banned in all 50 states, we can receive with thanks the Court’s ruling that holds out the promise that abortions will now be banned or severely restricted in some parts of the nation.
Representation of the Netherlands destroyed by water and fire, while allegories of Truth and Virtue uncover a group of sodomites, 1730.
And there were also sodomites in the land: and they did according to all the abomination of the nations which the LORD cast out before the children of Israel.
1 Kings 14:24
If you pressed me asking which parts of Scripture I find most interesting, I would include in that list the books of 1 and 2 Kings. That may seem like an odd choice to some. But as someone who’s always had a fascination with history and political philosophy, I can’t help but be drawn to these books, for they provide a wealth of insight on these subjects. They are God’s official commentary on these matters.
These books also are remarkably applicable to our own time, for in many ways America of the 21st century is wrestling with many of the same sins that plagued Judah and Israel.
One such sin that we share with ancient Israel is sodomy.
Under the leadership of David and his son Solomon, Israel hit its peak of wealth, power, and influence. David the warrior king conquered all Israel’s foes and Solomon consolidated these gains. It was under Solomon’s reign that the first temple was dedicated, which one could argue marked the high point of the Israelite kingdom.
But while Solomon’s reign began impressively, over time Solomon’s heart was turned away from God to idolatry by his many foreign wives. “For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father (1 Kings 11:4).
Although the writer of 1 Kings does not make explicit the connection between Solomon’s turning to idolatry with the presence of sodomites in the land, that seems to be his intent. 1 Kings 11:5 tells us that Solomon, “went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites.” And while the presence of sodomites in Judah is not reported until the reign of Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, the close connection between pagan worship of the sort brought in by Solomon and sexual perversion raises the possibility that the origin of such persons in Israel can be traced to Solomon’s reign.
I mentioned above that 1 and 2 Kings provide a wealth of information about history and the mind of God applicable to our time. One of the takeaways from this portion of 1 Kings is that God hates sodomy and will punish those nations that practice it. In the books of the Law, sodomy, or what is more commonly today called homosexuality, is referred to as an “abomination.”
Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind, it is abomination (Leviticus 18:22).
If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them (Leviticus 20:13).
Not only is sodomy referred to as an “abomination,” but strikingly it is also considered a capital crime in the Law of Moses. This is likely the origin of sodomy laws in the United States. According to one article from a pro-sodomy website, there are still 16 US states that have sodomy laws on the books, although it seems that they are no longer enforced.
But it wasn’t just homosexual acts that were prohibited in the law. Cross dressing, although there were no civil penalties attached to it, likewise also was banned. We read, “The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God” (Deuteronomy 22:5).
John Gill comments on this prohibition of cross-dressing:
The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man…It being very unseemly and impudent, and contrary to the modesty of her sex; or there shall not be upon her any “instrument of a man” (f), any utensil of his which he makes use of in his trade and business; as if she was employed in it, when her business was not to do the work of men, but to take care of her house and family….
Neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment; which would betray effeminacy and softness unbecoming men, and would lead the way to many impurities, by giving an opportunity of mixing with women, and so to commit fornication and adultery with them….
Gill’s commentary on this passage is a strong condemnation of both feminism and transgenderism. His remarks on the prohibition of women wearing men’s apparel extends to their wearing items that would be associated with male professions. By implication, women were not to do the work of men, an idea completely foreign and offensive to our time which holds, contrary to God’s design for the human race, that one’s sex ought to have no bearing on what one does. The feminists’ denial of sex roles implies, whether the feminists want to accept it or not, homosexuality as well as transgenderism. Suppose one’s sex has no bearing on one’s behavior. In that case, there is no reason why this concept should not be extended from one’s professional behavior- why shouldn’t a woman have a right to a career as much as a man – to one’s sexuality – gay or straight – and even to one’s sexual identification – of course, a man can identify as a woman.
Currently, there is a great deal of controversy among feminists as to whether trans-women – by “trans-woman” is meant a person who is biologically male but identifies as a woman – are, in fact, women. So-called TERFs – Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists – reject the concept of trans-women while feminist transgender activists support the concept. In the opinion of this author, the transgender activists are the more consistent of the two groups. As feminism is a philosophical attempt to erase the distinctions between men and women, the feminist transgender activists have simply taken the concept to its absurd and logical conclusion by declaring that anatomical men can in fact be women. TERFs, on the other hand, inconsistently cling to the notion that, although men and women are essentially interchangeable and that sex ought to have no impact on one’s behavior, while at the same time they deny biological males who identify as women are truly women. If one’s sex doesn’t matter, as the TERFs claim, then it doesn’t matter. Therefore, there is no reason why trans-women should not be considered real women.
There has been a great deal of howling from feminists about the increasing participation of trans-women in women’s sports, but the feminists have only themselves to blame as they are the ones who set this process in motion by denying the distinctions God made between male and female. One could argue that Lia Thomas, the University of Pennsylvania trans-woman swimmer who dominated the world of college woman’s swimming this past year, is a feminist “own goal.” Rather than seeking to pass legislation banning trans-women from participating in women’s sports, Christians ought to focus on rooting out the feminist philosophical poison that is killing our civilization and that led to absurd outcomes such as Lia Thomas dominating college women’s swimming.
Gill shows himself prescient when he remarked on the results of men wearing woman’s attire, one of which was that it would, “lead to many impurities, by giving an opportunity of mixing with women, and so to commit fornication and adultery with them.” The many news stories of women being sexually assaulted in restrooms and locker rooms by cross-dressing, so-called trans-women attest to Gill’s insightfulness.
Sodomy Invites God’s Judgment
Given the Lord’s strong condemnation of sodomy, it should come as no surprise that this sin invites God’s judgment. The account of God’s overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19 stands as a dramatic illustration of how offensive this sin is in his sight.
Another example of God’s pouring out his wrath on civilizations that practice this sin is found in a passage already mentioned, 1 Kings chapter 14. Verse 24 of this chapter notes that, “there were also sodomites in the land” during the rule of Solomon’s son Rehoboam. Immediately following this observation, verses 25 and 26 note that, “And it came to pass in the fifth year of king Rehoboam, that Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem: And he took away the treasures of the king’s house; he even took away all the shields of gold which Solomon had made.”
Although the author of 1 Kings does not explicitly make a connection between there being Sodomites in the land and the military defeat of Judah and the plundering of Jerusalem, the fact that the plundering of Jerusalem by Shishak followed immediately upon the note that there were sodomites in the land implied a connection between them.
This should be a concern to all Americans and citizens of other Western nations. If God did not spare Israel from humiliating and destructive military defeat, why would he spare us from similar treatment?
Worth noting in this regard is a tweet sent out by Richard Moore, Chief of MI6, the British Secret Intelligence Service in which he wrote, “With the tragedy and destruction unfolding so distressingly in Ukraine, we should remember the values and hard-won freedoms that distinguish us from Putin, none more than LGBT+ rights.” Not exactly Churchillian level rhetoric, is it? The British, and the West generally, have devolved from, “We shall fight them on the beaches,” to “we’re better than the Russians because we think LGBTQ+ rights are awesome but that bad man Vladimir Putin denies same-sex marriage.” Inspired yet?
Whatever one may think of Putin, he is objectively closer to Biblical teaching on the issue of sodomy than is the apostate and degenerate West. Could it be that the West’s support of sexual perversion is a reason why the war in Ukraine is going badly for Western forces? There are reports of the Biden Regime seeking an “off-ramp in Ukraine.” If the war were going so well, why is Biden looking for a way out?
Turning Back the Clock
It is sometimes assumed that once homosexuals have gained control of an institution, there is no going back. But another lesson we can take from Israel’s experience with sodomites is that their gains can be reversed.
Although Solomon brought in pagan worship that likely led to the flourishing of sodomites during Rehoboam’s reign, they were eventually removed from Israel by the godly kings Asa and Jehoshaphat.
In 1 Kings 15:11-12, we read, “And Asa did that which was right in the eyes of the LORD, as did David his father. And he took away the sodomites out of the land, and removed all the idols that his fathers had made.” Here we see Asa moving decisively against both sodomy and the false religious system that supported sodomy in Judah. Worth noting is that Asa was, unlike his predecessor Rehoboam, successful in defending Judah from foreign enemies.
Likewise, Asa’s son Jehoshaphat is commended by the writer of 1 Kings, who said of Jehoshaphat that he did, “that which was right in the eyes of the LORD.” Among Jehoshaphat’s righteous acts was his removal of, “the remnant of the sodomites, which remained in the days of his father, Asa.”
The reformations effected by Asa and Jehoshaphat in Judah show that it is possible for righteous magistrates to reverse prior gains by sodomites and, so to speak, put them back in the closet.
Christians should take heart from this. Although things are going very badly for us and the sodomites seem to be going from strength to strength, they can be defeated.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has led the way in this by dealing a decisive blow to uber-woke Disney Corporation after it opposed a bill prohibiting the teaching of sexualized material to young children in Florida schools and later, after the bill passed, threatened to campaign for its overturn.
The decisive actions in punishing Disney seem to have had an effect on other “woke capital” as several large firms recently have backed off their woke initiatives in the wake of the smackdown given to Disney by the DeSantis administration.
The actions of Governor DeSantis and the Florida legislature are commendable and indicative of the good that can come when magistrates follow the Lord by punishing those who practice evil and pass laws that uphold the good.
As Christians, let us take heart from this victory and the success of Asa and Jehoshaphat and pray and work that the Lord would strike more such blows against Satan’s kingdom of darkness and that those who are caught in the clutches of the sin of sodomy would repent of their evil and come to saving faith in Christ Jesus.
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Joe Biden presumes to lecture his political opponents at what is supposed to be a memorial service in Buffalo, NY, on 5/17/2022. Photo Andrew Harnik, AP.
Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.
Genesis 9:6
No sooner had the terrible news of yesterday’s mass shooting in Buffalo, NY broken than the usual crowd was out on social and legacy media pushing the usual illogical arguments.
When I say illogical argument, allow me to provide a few examples.
First up on our list is the tweet from noted Jesuit James Martin (you know he’s a Jesuit by the “SJ” listed after his name, SJ standing for “Society of Jesus). Martin calls for prayers, “for the 10 victims of the racist, white nationalist, terrorist shootings.” Christians, of course, are not called to pray for the dead. But this is a teaching of the Roman Church-State.
Martin then goes on to call, “for an end of gun violence, through stricter gun control laws.” This an example of the erroneous approach to criminal justice known as “crime prevention.” The idea is that you regulate – that is, you punish – everyone in advance in hopes of preventing some future criminal action. An extreme form of this unbiblical approach to criminal justice was depicted in the dystopian science fiction movie Minority Report based on a short story by Philip K. Dick. In that movie, a Department of PreCrime would arrest people for crimes that they supposedly were going to commit based upon visions of the future by individuals known as pre-cogs.
But Scripture does not countenance crime prevention. The Scriptural approach to criminal justice is crime punishment, and idea which Martin, at least in part, rejects. In a 2020 article in America Magazine (America is a publication of the Jesuits), Martin approvingly wrote of Pope Francis decision to change the Church’s teaching on capital punishment. According to Martin, in his encyclical “Fratelli Tutti,” Jesuit Pope Francis “placed the full weight of his teaching authority behind this statement: The death penalty is inadmissible, and Catholics should work for its abolition.” Put differently, Pope Francis, James Martin, and the Roman Catholic Church-State (RCCS) generally have committed themselves to subverting justice in all the nations of the world.
Perhaps one motive for the Catholic Church’s desire to subvert criminal justice is the horrifying numbers of murders that historians have laid at the feet of Rome. Scholars have attributed differing numbers of murders to Rome. One of the more conservative figures this author has seen is found in John Dowling’s book The History of Romanism. Writes Dowling, “From the birth of Popery in 606, to the present time, it is estimated by careful and credible historians, that more than Fifty Millions of the human family, have been slaughtered for the crime of heresy by popish persecutors, and average of more than forth thousand religious murders for every year of the existence of Popery” (541-42).
So while on one hand Martin attempts to short-circuit Biblical justice that calls for executing murders, on the other hand, he seeks to punish all Americans by taking away their God-given, Second Amendment guaranteed right to keep and bear arms. That’s very Jesuitical of him indeed. And Marin is hardly the only Jesuit of this opinion. Podcaster Christopher Pinot has discussed on his podcast how the Jesuits have advocated banning even handguns such as 9mm pistols. It seems that their goal is to strip Americans of all their firearms. Now why would they want to do that.
Martin denounces “the evils of white nationalism, white supremacy, and the sin of racism,” but does not tell us what he means by these terms. Perhaps he defines them elsewhere. I don’t know. But given the sloppy way such terms as “white nationalism,” “white supremacy” and “racism” used, given the social justice bent of Martin’s tweet and of the Jesuits generally, and given the Jesuit practice of mental reservation, he may mean something very different by these terms than do his readers.
Elizabeth Warren expresses her displeasure at the thought of women not being able to kill their unborn children. Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Last week when someone leaked the Supreme Court’s draft majority opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, many commentators, including this author, viewed this leak to rally the troops and an attempt to intimidate the justices into withdrawing their support for the decision. The actions or inactions on the part of highly placed people over the past few days have done nothing to diminish this suspicion.
Of course, we don’t know for sure who leaked the draft opinion or their motives for doing so. But given the shrieking that started immediately on the pro-abort side, and which seems to be picking up momentum, it’s reasonable to speculate that stirring up the mob to bully the court was the intent.
Recent history also supports this notion. Think back just two years to the Black Lives Matter/Antifa rioting. Those riots were largely successful in advancing the woke agenda in schools, universities, and corporations and in helping to remove Donald Trump from power and installing the illegitimate Biden Regime in the White House.
Force works, as John Robbins noted. That’s why tyrants use it.
Jesuit-educated Nina Jankowicz (Masters from Georgetown University) has been tapped by the Biden Regime to head up the new Ministry of Truth, known formally as the Disinformation Governance Board.
When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.
Proverbs 29:2
“But clearly our entire principles of the country was founded on, you cannot have a Ministry of Truth in this country. And so let’s get real here. Let’s make sure that we’re doing things that benefit Floridians and Americans, but we’re not going to let Biden get away with this one. So, we’ll be fighting back.”
Those were the remarks of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis last week in response to the Biden Regime’s announcement of a new Ministry of Truth – the Disinformation Governance Board is the actual name for this new group that will fall under the umbrella of the equally Orwellian named Department of Homeland Security.
For years, many have warned Americans of the creeping police state in this nation, and the day for it has finally arrived. Actually, it’s been here for some time, but the fruits of the authoritarian mindset of our rulers have become much more manifest over the past two years.
“These companies need to have some other North Star than just making money and increasing profit shares,” former President Barack Obama said in a speech at Stanford University. Twitter’s all-out attempt to keep Elon Musk from buying the platform exposes Obama’s comments as so much “misinformation.” Credit…Jim Wilson/The New York Times
“Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech.”
The First Amendment to the Constitution
As our once free nation continues to sink under the weight of evil, anti-Christian ideas put into practice by an evil, ungodly governing class, it’s worth taking a moment to review the Biblical roots of one of our most cherished and important God-given and constitutionally guaranteed rights. The right of free speech.
Just last week, former President Barak Obama gave a speech in which he once again called for government regulation of social media platforms. “People are dying,” the former president told us, “because of misinformation.”
Misinformation is bad, according to Obama. And misinformation must be stopped.
Using as an excuse prior unconstitutional regulatory exercises of federal government power, Obama proposed called for the regulation of the social media companies to stop the spread of “toxic information.”
I could go on, but these headlines, typical of legacy media’s decade-plus-long assault on Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, give the reader a fair example of the kind of hate Orban faces from news organizations.
The occasion of the latest media meltdown over Orban was his fourth consecutive election victory on 4/3/2022.
The BBC article summed up the EU’s opinion on his election win thus, “You could almost hear the collective thud of EU hearts sinking on Sunday night as Viktor Orban made his victory speech.”
Ah, the sound of globalist heads exploding. Now that’s music to my ears.
And Jesus answered and said unto them, take heed that no man deceive you.
Matthew 24:4
I have in my possession a book titled Day of Deceit by Robert B. Stinnett. I have not read all of the book. Indeed, I’ve only skimmed it. But its basic thesis is that Pearl Harbor, far from being a surprise to top American leadership, was an engineered event designed to bring America into the war. The author holds that FDR know in advance that the attack on 12/7/41 was coming and wanted it to take place.
Before dismissing his thesis as the ravings of some fringe wingnut and lunatic, it’s worth mentioning that the book was first published in 2000 by Simon & Schuster, a major New York publisher, and was widely and positively reviewed by many mainstream reviewers. Further, the book is still in print twenty years after its release.
In the book’s Preface, the author himself seems almost to approve of the deceit he charges FDR with as necessary for overcoming “isolationist America.”
As a veteran of the Pacific War, I felt a sense of outrage as I uncovered secrets that had been hidden from Americans for more than fifty years. But I understood the agonizing dilemma faced by President Roosevelt. He was forced to find circuitous means to persuade an isolationist America to join in a fight for freedom. He knew this would cost lives. How many, he could not have known (xiii).
So, FDR lied to the American people, but he did so for a good and noble cause. This pagan way of thinking, the idea of the Noble Lie, goes back at least to Plato’s Republic. But while situation ethics of this sort are popular with heathen past and present, it is alien to the Scriptures which command us, “Thou shalt not bear false witness.”
If what Stinnett wrote is true, FDR and others in the know, far from being heroic defenders of America, were liars and murderers.
Further, if the government lied to Americans about Pearl Harbor – and I believe they did – this raises the question, what else have they/are they lying to us about?
Lux Lucet 