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Posts Tagged ‘Antichrist’

2020, the Year in Review and a Look Ahead

Posted in Financial Markets, Presidential Campaign 2020, Roman Catholicism, The Reformation, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on December 27, 2020| Leave a Comment »

A prudent man foresees evil and hides himself; The simple pass on and are punished.

  • Proverbs 27:12

Here we stand at the end of the Year of Our Lord 2020 and at the precipice of 2021.  My, how time flies.

When I was pondering what to write this week, it took some time, but it finally dawned on me that this would be my last Sunday post of 2020.  “Of course,” I thought to myself, “it’s time for my year-in-review post. Problem solved!”

Before launching into a review of 2020 and casting an eye toward the future in coming year, I would like to take this occasion to thank my Lord and Savior Christ Jesus for all the blessings he has brought into my life over the past year.  For the grace he has shown me in forgiving all my sins and patiently teaching me, for a job to pay my bills, for health to do that which I needed to and wanted to accomplish, for the love of family and friends.

It would be remiss of me not to mention how thankful I am for the Lord’s gracious provision in my life to write this blog.  I began blogging in March of 2009, so it won’t be long before I celebrate 12 years of posting online.  Most blogs make it only a few months.  That I have had the strength to sustain this work for so long is a testament, not to my skill or smarts or energy or anything in me, but to the calling and faithfulness of the Lord.  During my first five years of blogging, I posted occasionally.  Here a little, there a little.  It was in November 2014 that I prayed God would help me to reach the goal of posting at least once a week, and he heard me.  From that time until now, I have not gone a week without writing and posting at least one article.       

I thank God also for the opportunity to resume work on my podcast, Radio Lux Lucet.  I mentioned in last year’s end of year podcast that I wanted to start podcast again more regularly.  As it turned out, although I didn’t start out the year all that well, I have managed to string together about eight weeks in a row of podcasts, so that’s progress!

Finally, I would like to thank my readers for their support during 2020.  It is my prayer with each post that the name of God would be glorified and that my words would edify his people.  With every post, it is my goal to bring you perspective on the events of the day that you won’t be able to find just anywhere.  As John Robbins was wont to point out, the Bible has a systematic monopoly on truth.  This includes truth in the areas that I like to write about, namely, economics and politics.  The psalmist wrote, “I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients, because I keep thy precepts.”  Writing to Timothy, the Apostle Paul said, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” While I don’t claim to have greater understanding than all my teachers, I can testify to the fact that there is nothing that can prepare the Christian to take on the received “wisdom” of this world more than a solid grounding in the Scriptures.  All the truths of philosophy, politics, and economics are hidden in Christ Jesus.  And there is no other source to which Christion must repair to fight the good fight of faith against the lies of this world – and how many lies there are and how great! – than to the 66 books of the Bible.  It is from the Word of God that Christians must rebuke senators, judges, governors, presidents, prime ministers and popes for their sinful and foolish words and actions.  And this, the Apostle tells us, is a good work for which the Scriptures thoroughly equip the Christian man.  It is this good work I aim to do with each post.

Thanks is also due to those who have graciously donated to support the work of this blog.  I greatly appreciate your kindness.

Special thanks is also owed to John Bradshaw, brother in Christ, friend and keen eyed and patient editor of my posts.  This blog is much better for your work.  Thank you.     

So, with all that said, what about 2020?

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For Without Me You Can Do Nothing

Posted in Collapse of the West, tagged , , , , , on December 13, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Is feudalism in our future? Medieval illustration, circa 1310.

I am the vine, you are the branches.  He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.

  • John 15.5

There’s not much good news these days.  And not only is the news not good, it’s downright appalling. 

Just to give one example, consider the situation with the presidential election.  Here we are, about six weeks after the election with the nation deeply divided about the winner.  The establishment media have all proclaimed Joe Biden president-elect, yet there is substantial evidence that the election was stolen.  But in spite of what is, in my own opinion, clear evidence of election fraud, the Trump legal team has gone from defeat to defeat.  The latest loss, the refusal of the Supreme Court to hear the complaint by the Texas Attorney General against several other states for their failure to follow the constitution in their election procedures, suggests that there is little hope for Trump and his supporters to find redress for their grievances in the courts.  The bottom line: at this point it appears that, come January, Joe Biden will be sworn in as the 46th president of the United States. 

As if this weren’t bad enough, there are several other pressing problems facing this nation, any one of which threatens serious destruction on its own.  Taken together, the threats seem overwhelming. 

For starters, we have the abject failure of many mayors, governors, district attorneys and police chiefs to do government’s most basic job:  punish those who practice evil.  For months we have witnessed destructive riots in some of our largest cities.  Not only have those who have deliberately destroyed and stolen property and caused bodily harm to peaceful citizens not been punished, but those who have sought to defend themselves and their property from the aggressors have found themselves in legal trouble.  In 2020 America, good is evil, and evil good. 

The state of our nation’s finances continues to deteriorate.  But the economic pain is not equally shared.  In fact, while many ordinary Americans are struggling financially as a result of losing their jobs and business from government imposed Covid lockdowns, the wealth of billionaires has soared. 

Wall Street is hitting records highs while Main Street struggles to pay the grocery bill.  This is not the result of capitalism, as many socialists like to point out, but the result of the oceans of printed money by the Fed.  Some observers have noted that about 23 percent of all US dollars were created just this year, 2020!

If all this weren’t bad enough, the federal budget deficit for 2020 hit a record $3.1 trillion.  This means that the federal government overspent its tax revenues by over $3 trillion. 

I doubt our culture has ever been more vulgar.  Sexual deviants are celebrated and those who oppose them are silenced.  Vulgar language and fornication are openly celebrated.  Internet pornography runs rampant. Oh, and did I mention that transgenderism has attained sacred status and that even the mildest criticism of homosexuality is taken for blasphemy? If you don’t think men who claim they are women are awesome, and women who claim they are men must be believed and have praise heaped upon them, then you, my friend, are the one who has the problem. On the other hand, the man in the dress screaming at you for making the mistake of “misgendering” him? He is above criticism. 

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Rum, Romanism and Rebellion: Evidence of Democratic Election Skulduggery

Posted in Politics, Presidential Campaign 2020, tagged , , , , , , , , , on November 29, 2020| Leave a Comment »

“We are Republicans, and don’t propose to leave our party and identify ourselves with the party whose antecedents have been rum, Romanism and rebellion.  We are loyal to our flag.”

  • Dr. Samuel D. Burchard, 1884

Many Americans, if they have ever heard the quote about “rum, Romanism and rebellion,” have little or no idea about the context in which it was said or the object to which it was applied.  It had something to do with someone at some time way back when.

Those who know of the origin of the quote and the object at which it was directed – it was the Democrats that Burchard, a Presbyterian minister, tagged as the party of rum, Romanism and rebellion – mostly consider it to have been an impolitic gaffe that cost Republican presidential candidate James G. Blaine the 1884 election in which he was running against Democrat Grover Cleveland. 

When reading contemporary commentary on Burchard’s famous alliterative triad, what one finds universal condemnation of it.  No one, at least no one that this author has read, seems to consider the possibility that Burchard was right.

But he was right in 1884 and he is right today. 

The Democrats have been and are the party of rum, Romanism and rebellion.  In the opinion of this author, they proved it once again earlier this month with massive election rigging that, when the dust has all settled, may leave them in control of the House, the Senate and the White House. 

Over the past few weeks, there has been a great deal of commentary on various ways the Democrats may have cheated.  On the other hand, there are those, not all of them Democrats, who claim that there was no cheating, or at least no cheating that made any real difference, in the 2020 election results, that Joe Biden is the legitimate winner, and that those who say otherwise are making baseless claims and are peddling conspiracy theories. 

It is the aim of this and subsequent posts to lay out the reasons this author believes that the 2020 presidential election was rigged by the Democrats, that Joe Biden is not the winner, and that Donald Trump rightfully won the White House.   

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Tough Times Call for Faithful Men: Ebed-Melech and the Rescue of Jeremiah

Posted in Theology, tagged , , , , , on November 22, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Ebed-Melech resuces Jeremiah, Jan Luyken (1649-1712), 1712.

“For I will surely deliver you, and you shall not fall by the sword; but your life shall be as a prize to you, because you have put your trust in Me,” says the LORD.

  • Jeremiah 39:18

Jerusalem was in trouble.  The powerful Babylonian army that had been besieging the city had temporarily left to fight the Egyptians but would soon return with a vengeance.  Many false prophets (false teachers) had been telling the people that Jerusalem would be spared, but Jeremiah knew better and was not afraid to say so.

This made the prophet a very unpopular fellow, especially with the ruling class. 

“Do not deceive yourselves, saying, ‘The Chaldeans will surely depart from us,’ for they will not depart.  For though you had defeated the whole army of the Chaldeans who fight against you, and there remained only wounded men among them, they would rise up, every man in his tent, and burn the city with fire.” Such was a typical rebuke Jeremiah would deliver to those optimists in Jerusalem who thought that somehow everything was going to work out just fine in the end. 

Perhaps even more disturbing, at least from the perspective of the ruling class, was that Jeremiah was telling the people of Jerusalem to defect to the Babylonians, the very nation then destroying the land of Judah.  “Now you shall say to this people, ‘Thus says the LORD: “Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death.  He who remains in this city shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence; but he who goes out and defects to the Chaldeans who besiege you, he shall live, and his life shall be as a prize to him.  For I have set My face against this city for adversity and not for good,” says the LORD.  “It shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire.”’

Indeed, it was suspicion that Jeremiah himself was defecting to the Babylonians that landed him in prison.  And now that Jeremiah was in prison, his enemies in king Zedekiah’s court decided to move in for the kill.

In Jeremiah 38 we read, “Now Shephatiah the son of Mattan, Gedeliah the son of Pashhur, Jucal the son of Shelemiah, and Pashhur the son of Malchiah heard the words that Jeremiah had spoken to all the people, saying, “Thus says the LORD: He who remains in this city shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence: but he who goes over to the Chaldeans shall live; his life shall be as a prize to him, and he shall live.’ Thus says the LORD:  ‘This city shall surely be given into the hand of the king of Babylon’s army, which shall take it.’” 

In verse 4 of Jeremiah chapter 38 we read, “Therefore the princes said to the king, ‘Please, let this man (Jeremiah) be put to death, for thus he weakens the hands of  the men of war who remain in this city, and the hands of all the people, by speaking such words to them.  For this man does not seek the welfare of this people, but their harm.”    

To this demand King Zedekiah replied, “Look, he is in your hand.  For the king can do nothing against you.” 

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Radio Lux Lucet Ep.34: Rum Romanism and Rebellion

Posted in Radio Lux Lucet, tagged , , , , , , , on November 8, 2020| Leave a Comment »

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A Few Thoughts on the Arrest of George Floyd, Part 2

Posted in Politics, tagged , , , on June 7, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Philadelphia police and Pennsylvania National Guard take a knee at the suggestion of Philadelphia Police Deputy Commissioner Melvin Singleton, unseen, outside Philadelphia police headquarters on June 1, 2020, during a rally calling for justice over the death of George Floyd. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

That was quite a week, was it not?

Not since 911 have I been so transfixed by the news of the day.  I have to admit, I got hooked on Twitter watching the reports come in of the rioting last Sunday night.  It was the Lord’s Day, and I try not to get caught up in that sort of thing, but I just could not put my phone down. 

When I sat down to outline this post yesterday and came up with nineteen subpoints, I knew this was going to be a hard post to write.  Don’t worry.  I’m not planning on inflicting that much on you.  But still, there’s so much to say.  Where to begin?

Let’s start with this…

Who’s Paying for the Bricks?

There were numerous reports last week claiming that pallets of bricks were being staged near the riot areas.  The best report I’ve found so far is from NBC News New York.  The headline reads “NYPD’s Terrorism Official Says Unnamed Groups Planned Protest Violence in Advance.” According to the article, “New York’s top terrorism official says there’s strong evidence that members of anarchist groups from outside the city intentionally planned to incite violence at protests calling for justice in the death of George Floyd.” 

The official went on to state that, “there is a high of confidence within the NYPD that these unnamed groups had organized scouts, medics and supply routes of rocks, bottles and accelerants for breakaway groups to commit vandalism and violence.  There are strong indicators they planned for violence in advance using at times encrypted communications”… the agitators, “developed a complex network of bicycle scouts to move ahead of demonstrators in different directions of where police were and where police were not for purposes of being able to direct groups from the larger group to places where they could commit acts of vandalism including the torching of police vehicles and Molotov cocktails where they thought officers would not be.”

So who do the New York police think was organizing and paying for all this illicit activity?  No one has yet said publicly. Mayor Bill de Blasio seemed to hint that more information would be forthcoming.  I’ll believe it when I see it.  For my part, I think we’ll find out who was funding and organizing Antifa terrorism about the same time as we get an honest account of what happened to Jeffrey Epstein, what dirt he had on which masters of the universe, or where Ghislaine Maxwell is hiding. That is to say, the twelfth of never.

One interesting suggestion came in a tweet from forensic accountant Charles Ortel.  He suggests George Soros, the Obama Foundation, and the Clinton Foundation.  I’ve seen Ortel in interviews before and he struck me as a serious fellow, not someone given to hyperbole, so I don’t dismiss his accusations out of hand.

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Church, State and Coronavirus: Does the Civil Magistrate Have the Authority to Ban Church Gatherings?

Posted in Politics, tagged , , , on April 12, 2020| 1 Comment »

Tweet_Rand Paul

We ought to obey God rather than men.

  • Acts 5:29

“Rand Paul and Thomas Massie rip Kentucky governor for tracking license plates of Easter church attendees,” ran the headline in the Washington Examiner.  The story went on to detail the reactions of KY Senator Rand Paul and KY Representative Thomas Massie to KY Governor Andy Beshear’s Friday statement outlining the actions the state plans to take against Kentucky Christians who gather for in-person worship on Easter Sunday.  “Taking license plates at church?  Quarantining someone for being Christian on Easter Sunday?  Someone needs to take a step back here,” tweeted Senator Paul.

Although the statement from the Governor’s office makes the point that the “order is for all mass gatherings and not just worship services,”  given the timing of the announcement (Good Friday), the preface that references people of “multiple faiths”, the statement’s specific warning that, “anyone planning to attend an in-person mass gathering this weekend [Easter] will face quarantine orders, and the statement’s reference to six churches in the commonwealth that are still planning to hold in-person services,” it is fair to see this statement from the Governor’s office as directed at Christians in particular.

Governor Beshear’s stance is not unique.  Last week, Louisville mayor Greg Fischer barred drive-through church services in the city, saying that he can’t allow “hundreds of thousands” of people to drive around town this weekend in observance of Easter festivities when they need to be home riding out the COVID-19 pandemic.  Just yesterday (April 11) a federal judge granted a temporary restraining order filed by a Louisville church against Mayor Fischer.  In his ruling, which applied only to the church that brought the suit, Judge Justin Walker blasted the mayor’s decision to prohibit drive-in church services as ‘beyond all reason’ and akin to what one might find only in a dystopian novel.

Earlier this month, a Tampa, Florida pastor was arrested for holding church services in defiance of a county order.  He was charged with violating quarantine orders during a public health emergency and later posted a $500 bond and was released.

Some Reformed brethren may argue that the churches in Louisville and Tampa are not Reformed and, therefore, these cases do not concern us.  But it’s worth asking this question, would it matter if the pastors of these churches were rock ribbed, 5-point Calvinist Presbyterians?  It’s highly doubtful.  They would have been arrested just the same.

These and other examples raise the important question, what is the relationship between church and state?  Does the civil government have the right to tell churches they may not hold in-person worship services, or have the magistrates overstepped the proper limits of their authority when they arrest or threaten pastors and church members for attending Sunday worship? It’s doubtful most American Christians have even considered this question before.  It’s simply never come up.  But now that it has, how do we as Christians answer it?

Citing Romans 13:1-7, some Christians have concluded that they must obey all coronavirus related government orders prohibiting mass gatherings.  Romans 13:1-7 reads,

Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. 4 For he is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. 5 Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath but also for conscience’ sake. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for they are God’s ministers attending continually to this very thing. 7 Render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor.

For them, the command, “Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities,” and the conclusion, “Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves,” apply in the case of orders from the civil magistrate prohibiting in-person Sunday church gatherings.

Other Christians disagree, citing, for example, Jesus command to “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Mark 12.17).

It is this author’s studied conviction that the former group is in error and the latter group has the correct understanding to the relationship between church and state as set forth in the Scriptures.  What is more, this author believes the US Constitution is on the side of the latter group as well.

It is my goal in this post to defend the proposition that the government has no authority in matters related to church meetings and that by prohibiting in-person worship, these civil authorities have exceeded their rightful jurisdiction and have thereby sinned.  Further, it my conviction that this point can be proven from the Scriptures.

Before proceeding, it is worth noting what this argument is not as well as what it is.  This argument is not that churches are wrong to cancel in-person services and to seek alternate worship service arrangements due to concerns over coronavirus.  Citing 1 Cor. 11:13,  the Westminster Confession of Faith says, “Nevertheless, we acknowledge…that there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God, and government of the Church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature, and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to be observed.” If a church Session believes that, in light of that church’s circumstances that it is best to suspend regular worship and institute some alternate form or worship such as internet video, then the Session is within its right to do so.  This author has no argument with such a decision.

My argument is simply this, that there is no support in Scripture for civil government to prohibit church meetings, whether it be on the Lord’s Day or any other day, and that those civil magistrates who do prohibit such gatherings of the Lord’s people have overstepped their God-given authority and are sinning thereby.

Let us turn now to the Scriptural proofs.

(more…)

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Coronavirus and Economic Collapse, Part 3: Lock ‘em Down

Posted in Financial Markets, Financial News, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on March 22, 2020| 4 Comments »

Yahoo_Limit Down_2020_03_22_802pm

Yahoo finance reports US stock futures in ‘limit down’ status on Sunday, 3/22/2020.  Worth noting is Yahoo’s attribution of the crisis to the “coronavirus crisis.”  This is incorrect.  Our financial crisis is the responsibility of the Fed and those who justify and encourage its ungodly practices of debt creation, monetary debasement and bailouts.

“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.”

Romans 8:28

That was an interesting week.  Last week, I’m talking about.  The one where, if we are still working, we’re doing so from makeshift home offices, the one where governors are locking down the citizenry of entire states and shutting down their economies, the one where the financial markets continue of crash at a rate comparable to, or even exceeding, that of 1929, and this at a time when the Fed is printing more funny money faster than it ever has.

It would seem that Humpty Dumpty indeed has fallen, and all the king’s horses and men are working feverishly to put him back together.  Will they succeed?  That depends on your definition of success.  It may well be that by printing enough money and bailing out not just individual companies, but entire industries, the powers that be may succeed in extending the current politico-financial system a bit longer.  Maybe another year of so.  Who knows?  Longer term, it is doubtful that the current governmental and financial structures currently in place will be able to survive in their current form.  Change is going to happen.

Just to give you a idea about how desperate some in the political establishment haver become, last week a member of Congress suggested  that the federal government provide every person in America – she did not say citizens, but every person in America, which includes, among others, illegal aliens – with a pre-loaded debit card in the amount of $2,000, which would be renewed with $1,000 per month for a year.  That works out to $660 billion for the first month, then $330 Billion for the next eleven months.  If I’ve done my math correctly, this works out to almost $4.2 trillion.

How does she plan to pay for it?  This Congresswoman, Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), wants the Treasury to issue two $1 trillion platinum coins, have the Fed purchase the coins, then have the Treasury sweep the funds into the Treasury General account, from which the money would be disbursed to “every person in America.”

This is nothing but a massive dollar devaluation scheme, not unlike what FDR did in 1933-34 when he forced everyone to turn in his physical gold, then devalued the dollar about 70% against gold.  The biggest difference is that Tlaib’s scheme would be far more aggressive in devaluing the dollar, meaning it would be massively inflationary.  This can easily be seen if we consider the current price os platinum and the amount of investment grade platinum that is currently available.  The current price of platinum in US dollars is $618.61.  According to this article, there are about 8 million total ounces of investment grade platinum bullion available in the world.  At current prices, this means the total value of all investible platinum is about $5 billion.  If the US federal government used this entire 8 million ounces to mint two huge coins weighing 4 million ounces each, this implies that the dollar would be devalued against platinum to approx. 1/400 of its current value.  Put another way, platinum would go from $618.62 per ounce to around $247,444 per ounce.  Other prices would rise accordingly.  Put another way, the dollar would lose 99.75% of its value against platinum.  This is even enough to make an inflationist such as FDR blush.

Of course, it’s highly doubtful that, even if Tlaib’s scheme were put into practice, the coins – if you can call a 4 million troy ounce object a coin at all – would almost certainly be far smaller than in my example above.  This means that the devaluation of the dollar would be far greater than 99.75%

Further, Tlaib claims that her scheme is deficit-neutral, not requiring any new debt to be issued.  Perhaps I’m missing something here or have done my math wrong, but the cost of her program for one year is more than double the $2 Trillion value of her two proposed coins, so where does the other $2 trillion plus come from?

I went through the above exercise in some detail just to give you an example of the sort of absurd nonsense that passes for thinking among our leaders in Washington.  And while Tlaib’s scheme is ridiculous, it’s really not all that much more absurd than proposals being floated by the Trump administration.  Trump is talking about bailing out whole industries, having the federal government own stock of bailed out companies and sending checks to everyone as well.  President Trump himself has gone on record arguing for negative interest rates and quantitative easing.

As in 2008, so it is in 2020.  Government officials are running around with their hair on fire desperately trying to fix a debt crisis by, wait for it…taking on more debt!

(more…)

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