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      "permlink": "salt-is-good",
      "title": "Salt is Good …",
      "body": "“Salt Is Good”\n\nI remember sitting in a doctor’s office with my mother years ago. Her blood pressure was dangerously high—well over 170—and her nose would not stop bleeding. The doctor looked at her and said plainly, “You’ve got to cut out the salt. And for heaven’s sake, quit smoking—or get another doctor.”\n\n![01971288-B9A4-4C4C-ADFA-6F1EF9952A88.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmXLiRp4Bjgtv5hY7rdLM82mhwTiXYDSYXjYYioTujF69z/01971288-B9A4-4C4C-ADFA-6F1EF9952A88.png)\n\n\nNow my mother had her own way of seeing things. She loved those canned soups—Campbell’s, Progresso—and she used to say, “If it doesn’t sting your mouth, it’s not salty enough.”\n\nShe quit smoking that day.\nThe salt… well, that took time.\n\nBut as I sat there listening, a thought crossed my mind: the Bible says, “Salt is good…” (Luke 14:34). And I knew right then—that was not what Jesus was talking about.\n\nSalt in the Scripture is a remarkable thing. It isn’t a delicate powder it is a grit. It is a jagged, honest mineral that preserves, seasons, and gives flavor where there is none. God even commanded in the Old Testament that every sacrifice be offered with salt—“with all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt” (Leviticus 2:13). It was called the salt of the covenant. It was a sign of something enduring, faithful, and incorruptible. Salt, you see, speaks of purity, preservation, and a refusal to decay.\nThen the Lord Jesus looks at His disciples and says: “Ye are the salt of the earth…” (Matthew 5:13). Not the sugar. Not the honey. He didn't call us to be the \"syrup\" of the world, coating things in a sticky, artificial sweetness. He called us to be salt. A sharp, distinct presence in a world that is otherwise bland and rotting.\nBut then comes the warning: “…if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing…”\nNow that’s a strange statement. In the ancient world, salt wasn't always refined. It was often dug out of the earth—grey, rocky, and mixed with lime. If the actual salt mineral leached out, all that was left was a dusty, useless grit. It was still called salt, but its useful strength was gone, it had become so mixed, so diluted, and so contaminated by the earth around it that its presence could no longer be detected.\nFor example ,salt left open to the rain may still leave a white crust behind, but the strength has run out of it. It has the look of salt without the bite of salt.\n\nIt was still there—but it had no effect. No flavor. No preservation. No distinction.\nAnd then the Lord says something even more sobering: “…but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.” Think of the irony. Salt is meant for the table, the place of fellowship, or the altar, the place of sacrifice. But once it loses its \"sting,\" it is moved from the holy to the profane. It is thrown onto the pathways to be trampled and discarded.\nAnd here’s the striking part—even when salt is no longer good for seasoning, it still has power. It can sterilize the ground. It can kill what it touches and make the earth barren.\nThat’ll preach. Because a life that has lost its distinctiveness for God does not become neutral. It doesn't just become \"nice.\" It becomes ineffective at best… and harmful at worst. A church that tries too hard to blend in often ends up poisoning the very ground it was meant to preserve.\nThink of Lot’s wife. She was turned to a pillar of salt—a monument not of preservation, but of looking back. A heart divided. She became a statue of \"almost,\" a life that lost its forward direction because she was still rooted in the very world that was being judged.\nAnd yet, salt is still called good. Not because of what it is by itself—but because of what it does when it is pure.\nThe question isn’t: “Are we salt?” If you belong to Christ—you are.\nThe question is: \nAre we still distinct? Or have we leached into the soil around us? Are we still effective? Or have we traded our \"sting\" for a seat at the world's table? \nCan our presence be tasted? Or have we become part of the fog?\nIn a world that is growing darker, more corrupt, and more confused, God has not called His people to disappear. He has called them to preserve, to season, and to stand.\n“Salt is good…” May it be said of us—not only that we are salt by name, but that we still have our savour.",
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      "permlink": "the-4q201-sleight-of-hand-how-the-book-of-enoch-distracts-from-the-gospel",
      "title": "The 4Q201 Sleight of Hand: How the Book of Enoch Distracts from the Gospel",
      "body": "A Short Parable\nOnce upon a time, a man was given a clear map and simple directions to reach a great city.\nThe path was straight, the landmarks were obvious, and the destination was certain.\nBut along the road, he met others who claimed to have found “older maps”—covered in symbols, hidden markings, and mysterious annotations.\n“These,” they said, “are the deeper paths. The original ways. The secrets the simple travelers never see.”\nThe man, intrigued, set aside his plain map and began to study theirs.\nSoon, he was tracing lines that led in circles, chasing symbols that required interpretation, and debating meanings with others who had also left the road.\nThe more he studied, the more advanced he felt.\nBut the further he wandered, the farther he was from the city.\nMeanwhile, those who simply followed the original directions arrived—without fanfare, without mystery, and without confusion.\nAnd when the man finally looked up from his maps, he realized something too late:\nHe had traded the path for the puzzle.\nAnd the puzzle had no end.\n\n\n![73D7BCF7-AC9A-406A-99CF-81C45B76991E.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmQQjgDGV6GkXgZbtPoQUR4kYooNBZwPHGcfqzLHJX3B7Z/73D7BCF7-AC9A-406A-99CF-81C45B76991E.png)\n\nA Prologue \n\nThe Illusion of a Lost Book\n\nBefore we even begin to examine the claims surrounding the “Book of Enoch,” we need to ask a simpler question:\nWhat exactly are we holding in our hands?\nWhat people call The Book of Enoch is not a single, unified text handed down from the days before the Flood. It is a collection of writings—composed in different periods, preserved in fragments, and transmitted across multiple languages and cultures.\nThe earliest copies we possess—such as the Dead Sea Scroll fragments like 4Q201—are incomplete. They give us portions of the text in Aramaic, but not the whole. Centuries later, we find a complete version preserved in the Ethiopian (Ge’ez) tradition—containing material not present in those earlier fragments.\nThis is not a seamless chain of preservation. It is a layered transmission.\nThemes develop. Details expand. Ideas grow more elaborate over time. What begins as a simpler narrative becomes a complex system of angels, hierarchies, and cosmic speculation.\nThat alone should give us pause.\nBecause this is not how Scripture behaves.\nThe Word of God is not discovered in pieces and expanded through imagination—it is given, preserved, and recognized. It does not evolve into clarity; it speaks with authority from the beginning.\nAnd this is where the real danger begins.\nThe more complete the Enoch tradition becomes, the further it seems to move from the earliest fragments—not toward simplicity, but toward complexity. Not toward the plain truth of God, but toward a system that invites interpretation, speculation, and ultimately, elevation of the reader.\nIt offers the allure of hidden knowledge.\nAnd that allure has always been a problem.\nFrom ancient apocryphal writings to later mystical systems, the pattern is the same: when truth is no longer received plainly, it is replaced with something that must be decoded, studied, and mastered. The focus shifts from obedience to understanding, from repentance to interpretation.\nBut the Gospel does not come to us as a puzzle.\nIt comes as a call.\nAnd anything that consistently pulls the heart away from that simplicity—no matter how ancient it appears, no matter how mysterious it sounds—must be tested, not embraced.\nWhat follows is not an attack on curiosity, nor a dismissal of history.\nIt is a warning against mistaking layered tradition for divine revelation.\n\nThus saith the scriptures: Jude 14–15 (KJV)\n\n“And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints,\nTo execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”\n\n“Jude does not invite us into Enoch’s world—he pulls one true statement out of it and anchors it in the authority of Scripture.”\n\nEnter The “Book of Enoch”\n\nThe 4Q201 \"Sleight of Hand\": Why the Book of Enoch is a Spiritual Distraction\nMost people look at the Dead Sea Scroll fragment 4Q201 (the Aramaic Book  Called the Book of Enoch) and see a \"lost mystery.\" When what we actually have in 4Q201 is not a preserved antediluvian record—but a Second Temple-era composition, written thousands of years after the man Enoch lived.” \n Are they what would\nlater be called by the Apostle Paul “Cunningly devised fables.”  Or are they just fragments  of a forgotten truth?\n\n1. The 3,000-Year Invention\nThe manuscript was copied between 200–150 B.C.E., roughly three millennia after the Genesis account. While Genesis is brief and sobering, 4Q201 is a mixture of speculative theology and expanding legend common in the Second Temple period” It fills the gaps of the Pre-Flood world with \"fee-fi-fo-fum\" giant lore and elaborate angel hierarchies that feel more like Eastern mysticism than Hebrew scripture.\n\n2. Loopholes to Holiness\nWhy do people cling to these \"lost books\"? Often, it’s a search for a loophole to holiness. By focusing on the \"biological infection\" of angel-human hybrids, the problem of sin is moved from the human heart to a supernatural accident. It turns the Gospel into a \"special knowledge\" club where the \"enlightened\" feel exempt from the simple, daily call to take up their cross.\n\n3. The Divine \"Editor\"\nWhen Jude or Jesus  or other NT writers reference themes, they aren't endorsing the 2nd-century \"fan-fiction.\" They are acting as the Ultimate Editors—stripping away the \"esoteric \" noise and reclaiming the core truth: Judgment is real. Jesus doesn't need to \"research\" myths; He is the Creator who corrects our corrupted memories with reality.\n\nWhen Jude references Enoch, he isn’t canonizing a Second Temple storybook—he is extracting a single, true statement about judgment and placing it back in its proper authority under the Spirit of God.\n\nThis is the same pattern we see in the ministry of Christ.\n\nJesus speaks of hell, of Abraham’s bosom, of angels, of judgment—but He never appeals to the tangled web of legends surrounding those ideas. He doesn’t quote the myth-makers. He doesn’t validate the speculation. He speaks as the Authority.\n\nWhere men built systems, Christ gave clarity.\nWhere tradition multiplied details, Christ reduced it to truth.\nWhere imagination filled in the gaps, Christ exposed the heart.\n\nIn Mark 9, He speaks of hell with a severity no legend could match—not as a storyteller, but as the Judge Himself.\n\nSo when Scripture touches these themes, it is not endorsing the surrounding mythology—it is stripping it down, correcting it, and anchoring it back in reality.\n\nGod does not borrow authority from tradition.\nHe reclaims truth from it.\n\nTruth does not need mythology to survive—but mythology often grows where truth is neglected. \n\n\n\nThe Bottom Line\nDon't fall for the theological card trick. While 4Q201 offers a \"supernatural high,\" it’s often just misdirection designed to pull you away from the \"simplicity that is in Christ.\" We don't need secret scrolls to know the Truth; we just need to obey the One who spoke it plainly on the hillside.\nThe Arrogance of the \"Insider\": From 4Q201 to the Zohar\nThe real danger of the 4Q201 \"Book of Enoch\" isn't just the weird stories—it’s the intellectual pride it fosters. This path leads directly away from the Cross and into the arms of Kabbalah and other Christ-rejecting traditions.\n\n1. The Pride of the \"Chosen\"\nChasing these \"lost books\" breeds a specific kind of arrogance. It makes a person feel they have \"leveled up\" beyond the \"simple\" believer. Once you believe you have the \"secret key\" to the Nephilim or the Watchers, you start to view the New Testament as \"Introduction Level\" and the esoteric fables as \"Advanced Truth.\" This is the same spirit found in the Zohar—a system built on the idea that the \"plain meaning\" of Scripture is for the masses, while the \"secret meaning\" is for the elite.\n\n2. The Christ-Rejecting Connection\nIt’s no coincidence that the same circles obsessed with Enochian mythology often drift toward Kabbalah. These systems are designed to bypass the Lordship of Jesus. and the Plain  complete revelation of Moses, the Psalms and the Prophets that Jesus spoke about and quoted . \n* In the New Testament, Jesus is the only Mediator.\n* In the world of 4Q201 and the Zohar, the focus shifts to a massive bureaucracy of angels, emanations, and mystical formulas.\nBy filling the mind with \"celestial hierarchies,\" these books effectively crowd out the Person of Christ. It’s a sophisticated way to reject the Savior while still feeling \"spiritual.\"\n\n3. The \"No-Nonsense\" Reality\nThe Jews who compiled these legends after rejecting Christ were looking for a supernatural identitythat didn't require repentance. They traded the Living Word for Esoteric Fables. When we pick up 4Q201 today and treat it as \"inspired,\" we are playing right into a 2,000-year-old misdirection designed to keep us looking at the stars instead of the Savior.\n\n\nThe Bottom Line: Don’t let the arrogance of \"insider info\" pull you into the web of the Zohar. If a \"secret\" makes the simplicity of the Gospel look \"boring,\" it isn't from God—it’s a spiritual smoke screen.\n\nWhen someone decides the plain Gospel isn't enough, they go looking for a \"key\"—and that key almost always unlocks a door to elitism and tribalism.\n\nThe \"Strange Bedfellows\" of Esotericism\nOnce you accept the 4Q201/Enochian premise that sin is a biological \"infection\" from angels rather than a moral choice, you are only one step away from:\n* The Serpent Seed Doctrine: This hateful \"mystery\" claims certain races are literally descended from the devil. It uses the \"angel-human hybrid\" logic of Enoch to justify racism and Christian Identitymovements.\n* Jewish Fables & the Zohar: As you noted, these systems replace the Person of Christ with a complex, occult map of \"emanations,\" allowing the user to feel spiritually superior without ever bowing to the King.\n* Islamic & Arthurian Fantasies:These groups love the \"hidden history\" angle. Whether it’s the \"lost years\" of Jesus or the \"Holy Grail,\" it’s all the same distraction: a quest for a physical object or a bloodline instead of a spiritual New Birth.\n\nThe \"Foolishness of Preaching\" vs. The \"Wisdom of the Initiate\"\nThe contrast is absolute:\n* Their Way: A \"card trick\" of misdirection. It requires a library of \"secret scrolls,\" a specialized vocabulary, and a \"chosen\" pedigree. It is exclusive and arrogant.\n* The Bible's Way: Paul calls it the \"foolishness of preaching\" (1 Corinthians 1:21). God chose the simple things to confound the \"wise.\" It doesn't require a decoder ring; it requires a broken heart.\n\nJesus says, \"Come unto me\"—a command so simple a child can do it, yet so bruising to the ego of the \"scholar\" that they’d rather invent 1,000 years of King Arthur or Nephilim lore than simply repent.\nYou’ve got a powerful \"no-nonsense\" message here: These fables are just high-IQ excuses to avoid the foot of the Cross.\n\nThe Final Word: A Rose by Any Other Name\nShakespeare said a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, and the same is true for spiritual rebellion. You can call it \"The Book of Enoch,\" \"The Secrets of the Zohar,\" or \"Lost Christian Identity,\" but if it leads you away from the Cross and into a maze of genealogies and fables, it’s the same old rejection of God.\n* The Misdirection: 4Q201 and its \"fee-fi-fo-fum\" theology is a theological card trick. It uses the \"mystery\" of giants to distract you from the reality of your own sin.\n* The Arrogance: It trades the \"foolishness of preaching\" for the \"wisdom of the initiate,\" creating a class of \"super-believers\" who are too \"enlightened\" for the plain words of Jesus.\n* The Reality: Jesus doesn't offer a decoder ring or a secret bloodline. He offers a direct invitation: \"Come unto me.\"\nThe Bottom Line: Don’t be fooled by the costume. If the \"mystery\" makes you feel exclusive instead of repentant, it isn't a revelation—it’s a revolt.\n\nEpilogue: No Decoder Ring Required\nIn the end, the question is not whether ancient texts exist, or whether mysterious traditions can be traced through history.\nThe question is far simpler—and far more personal:\nWhat has God actually said?\nNot what has been added.
Not what has been expanded.
Not what has been speculated.\nBut what has been spoken—plainly, openly, and with authority.\nJesus Christ did not come offering hidden keys, secret genealogies, or layered revelations for the initiated. He did not hand out scrolls to the elite while leaving the common man in the dark.\nHe stood in the open and said, “Come unto me.”\nNo riddles.
No hierarchy.
No decoding required.\nAnd yet, for many, that simplicity is the stumbling block.\nBecause the flesh would rather discover than submit.
It would rather interpret than repent.
It would rather feel enlightened than be broken.\nSo it reaches for mysteries.\nIt chases genealogies.
It studies angels.
It builds systems.\nAll the while standing at a distance from the very thing those shadows were meant to point toward.\nThe Cross does not require advanced knowledge.
It requires surrender.\nAnd that is why so many turn away from it—distracted by things that feel deeper, older, or more profound.\nBut depth is not measured by complexity.\nTruth is not hidden behind layers.\nAnd God has not made salvation dependent on recovering lost books.\nHe has made it known.\nIf a man must climb through speculation to reach it, it is not the Gospel.\nIf it makes him feel elevated instead of humbled, it is not the Spirit.\nIf it draws his eyes away from Christ and toward anything else—no matter how ancient, no matter how mystical—it is not light.\nIt is misdirection.\nNo decoder ring is needed.\nOnly a willing heart.",
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      "permlink": "walking-out-on-the-ice",
      "title": "Walking Out on the Ice",
      "body": "Walking Out on the Ice\n\n\n\n![IMG_2512.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmSUD9xaZFa1mLArkz542pSnJgAYSMJuv1X28pEJCsKTiv/IMG_2512.jpeg)\n\n\nIt’s funny — when I tell folks today that I walked out on the ice, they say,\n“Really?”\n\nI say,\n“Sure… why not?”\n\nIt’s been cold long enough. The ice is thick enough. Cranberry bogs and shallow lakes with little movement freeze quickly. After a week of weather in the teens and below, it’s safe. And besides, I’ve been on these lakes before — since I was a little kid.\n\nMy mom and dad pulled me across them on a sled. When I wore a size two, they strapped double-bladed skates onto my boots. When I got bigger, I graduated to single blades.\n\nMy mother and grandmother, my dad and my Pop — they all taught me the same way:\n\n![E4670FC8-F7A4-4A4E-820F-8C90C478B4A0.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmaZqGvP82VSRFDeqoZvwodPpz7xQsvhd6jJ58pGVcMM2p/E4670FC8-F7A4-4A4E-820F-8C90C478B4A0.png)\n\n\nBy doing.\nBy trusting the process.\nBy trusting what people today call the science.\n\nWhy would I be afraid to take my own children the way my parents taught me?\n\nNot to be presumptuous.\nNot to be careless.\nBut to trust that what worked yesterday, under the same conditions, will work today.\n\n⸻\n\nNow, walking out as an older man, my fear isn’t falling through the ice…\n\n…it’s falling down.\n\nAnd even then, I’m not alone.\n\nMy family taught me something else:\n\nNever go out alone.\n\n⸻\n\nWhen I step onto the ice with skates, I don’t imagine cutting through like a cartoon character. The thought never enters my mind.\n\nWhen the lake lets out that deep warping sound — stress cracks echoing across the frozen surface — I find it fascinating, not terrifying.\n\nI remember.\n\nWhen I watch someone who has never walked on the ice step out, I can see it in their eyes. They think they’re walking a tightrope… or stepping across a fragile pane of glass.\n\nAnd it’s a beautiful thing to watch the fear fade with experience.\n\n\n\nThere are always those who test the ice. This year there were ice fishermen already out, cutting holes and dropping lines into the dark water below.\n\nAnd still, there will be one or two standing on the shore who will not step out for fear.\n\nI feel sorry for them.\n\nNo assurance persuades them.\nNo reasoning reaches them.\n\nIf the only good in the world were ten feet from shore, they would starve where they stand.\n\n⸻\n\nHow much this mirrors our walk by faith.\n\nWe trust the faithfulness of God and His unchanging principles and commandments.\n\nPeter stepped onto real water.\nThe foolish man built on sinking sand.\nBut Christ is the Rock — the firm foundation.\n(Matthew 14:29–31; Matthew 7:24–27)\n\nSuch care He takes for His children that He can say:\n\n“Fear not.” (Isaiah 41:10)\n“Peace, be still.” (Mark 4:39)\n\nHe orders our steps (Psalm 37:23), directs our paths (Proverbs 3:5–6), and tells us to walk in them (Ephesians 2:10).\n\nHe warns us what to avoid and how to avoid it — and then He says:\n\n“Follow me.” (Luke 9:23)\n\nAnd the heart that trusts Him answers:\n\nWhere He leads me, I will follow.\n\n⸻\n\nHe is Lord over the cold, the wind, and the frozen deep:\n\n“He sendeth forth his commandment upon earth:\nhis word runneth very swiftly.\nHe giveth snow like wool:\nhe scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes.\nHe casteth forth his ice like morsels:\nwho can stand before his cold?\nHe sendeth out his word, and melteth them:\nhe causeth his wind to blow, and the waters flow.”\n— Psalm 147:15–18\n\n⸻\n\nAnd when we do — when we reach the middle and feel that cold wind blowing on a bright winter day — something happens.\n\nIf we stand very still…\nface into the light…\nstretch out our arms…\n\nthe wind begins to move us.\n\nNot by effort.\nNot by striving.\nBut by yielding.\n\nThe same ice that held us becomes a path, and the unseen wind becomes our guide.\n\n⸻\n![IMG_2365.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmYM5Sx83zZLtyx49wcSNoQVtq3AAPA4MsEq3eH3jHwRkp/IMG_2365.jpeg)\n\n\nSo it is with those who cast away fear and hear His voice:\n\n“Be still, and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10)\n“Fear thou not; for I am with thee.” (Isaiah 41:10)\n\nWhen we stop fighting for control… when we stand still before Him… the Spirit begins to move.\n\n“And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind…”\n— Acts 2:2\n\nHe changes our hearts.\nHe redirects our steps.\nHe carries us according to His will.\n(Romans 8:14; Psalm 37:23)\n\nAnd where He leads…\n\nwe will go.\n\nFor we walk by faith, not by sight.\n(2 Corinthians 5:7)\n\n![IMG_2176.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmTo5LMdyfyjtfeBoQs5795uyzpiJhcTRNGdHd6VTPUbDv/IMG_2176.jpeg)",
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      "title": "My Father was My Dad : Happy Birthday Dad",
      "body": "<h2 style=\"text-align:center;\">My Father Was My Dad</h2>\n<h4 style=\"text-align:center;\">A remembrance for November 5th</h4>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h3>Preface</h3>\n<p>Today was my father’s birthday.<br>\nHe passed away in 2007 at the age of only sixty-seven—five years older than his own father was when he passed. Let me share here a few lines of remembrance from a son who remembers—remembers the 5th of November—his father.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h3>Beginnings</h3>\n<p>I was born on Father’s Day, June 21, 1964. It feels fitting now, because my father was the kind of man whose life defined the word. Long before I understood what work even meant, he taught me to swing a bat, line up a golf shot, and keep score at the bowling alley.</p>\n\n<p>He’d once worked for IBM with my Uncle Bill, but when my grandfather’s heart began to fail, he gave up that promising job to help run the family’s well-supply business. The doctor told him plainly, “You can work with him, or bury him.” So he chose work—and in doing so, he chose love. He traded a paycheck for his father’s heartbeat, and somehow that choice became part of my inheritance.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n\n![IMG_7484.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmUFSX6hXCWZxLA21ELnihhrPPwrGfkxbXRoxby2j43HPo/IMG_7484.jpeg)\n\n\n<p>There’s a photograph from my Aunt Peggy’s wedding that captures three generations of my father’s family. Seated in front are my grandparents—my grandmother radiant in a gown that caught the light, my grandfather dignified beside her, the years of hard work at the well-supply business resting quietly on his shoulders. Behind them, from left to right, stand my cousin Laura Ann with her parents, Uncle Bill and my father’s sister Alice Ann, then Uncle Brian and my father’s sister Rosemarie, followed by Butchy and Peggy, the bride and groom that day. Next are my mother and father, standing close together, and finally my father’s youngest brother, Uncle Shane, completing the line.</p>\n\n<p>By then, my father had already left IBM to work beside his own father, keeping the business alive and helping carry the load that illness had laid on him. In that single photograph, you can almost read the story written across three generations—the labor that built the family, the loyalty that preserved it, and the love that would be passed down in quiet strength to the children still growing nearby.</p>\n\n<hr>\n![IMG_9366.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmcD4VDfBbHKZ7HmvcsHV4vzdBkHzMosoTeNbBVSetQtbm/IMG_9366.jpeg)\n\n![IMG_9368.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmcw5N3Cke11ELY6DUt1JkUsP3UYuit9itqYKFziFSbeqd/IMG_9368.jpeg)\n\n\n<h3>The Public Man</h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Security officer for the Jackson Board of Education for twenty-three years</li>\n<li>Township committeeman from 1994 to 2000</li>\n<li>Police and public works commissioner</li>\n<li>Longtime member of the Planning Board and Environmental Commission</li>\n<li>Founding member of the Jackson Township Municipal Alliance, helping bring the D.A.R.E. program to the police department</li>\n<li>Active with the Jackson Mills Volunteer Fire Company, the Republican Club, and the Elks Lodge</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>It mentioned that he played varsity football at Lakewood High School, where they called him “The Lonesome End.”</p>\n\n<p>But those clippings could never quite capture the man who came home in a white T-shirt smelling of Marlboro smoke and well water, who stopped for snowballs on summer nights, and who made people laugh enough that decades later, they still stop me just to say they miss him.</p>\n\n\n\n<hr>\n\n<h3>The Early Years</h3>\n<p>I don’t remember much of the little house in Jackson where those early years began, but when we moved to Lakewood I was about two and a half. That’s where my earliest clear memory lives—the day my sister came home from the hospital.</p>\n\n<p>They sat me on my parents’ bed, laid a soft baby blanket across my lap, and placed her there. I remember looking up at them, my dad telling me I was a man now, a big brother. I looked down at her tiny face, kissed her forehead, and then caught my own reflection in the vanity mirror across the room—a boy holding new life, learning what family means. Somewhere, there’s still a photograph of that moment.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h3>My Sister’s Story</h3>\n<p>My father was my Dad, but he was my sister’s Daddy. She was born on June 16, 1966—three days before Father’s Day. She came into the world tiny and frail, born with a single front tooth that already had to be removed, eyes that wouldn’t stay straight, and a stomach that couldn’t handle most foods. The doctors called it celiac, something that ran on my dad’s side of the family—my Uncle Shane had it too.</p>\n\n<p>In her first few years, there were surgeries—more than one—to strengthen her eyes and give her a chance to see the world clearly. I can still remember her head wrapped in bandages afterward, the gauze circling her forehead and cheeks, hiding those little eyes that had already been through so much. My dad would sit beside her, calm and steady, brushing the hair away from the wrappings and whispering softly to her.</p>\n\n<p>When the bandages finally came off, the glasses came next—thick, heavy lenses that made her eyes look huge for such a little person. Yet behind those magnified eyes was a spark of wit and life that no surgery could dim.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h3>Lakewood Life</h3>\n<p>By the time I was seven, my father had long since left IBM and settled into the rhythm of work and family life. He knew we were safe during the day, surrounded by a whole patchwork of family from my mother’s side. Our area of Lakewood was that kind of place then—a tight neighborhood where cousins, aunts, grandparents, and friends who grew up with my parents filled the spaces between houses with laughter, gardens, and the sound of wooden screen doors with coil springs that creaked open and slammed shut.</p>\n\n<p>But even with all that company, we always waited for his truck in the evenings. You could feel the shift in the air when the sun began to sink and it was time for Dad to come home. Sometimes he’d stop for Twinkies or Snowballs—little surprises that turned an ordinary day into something to remember.</p>\n\n<p>And he would make the best oatmeal cookies.</p>\n\n<p>Mom worked nights for many years—first the 3-to-11 shift, then later from 11 to 7—but she never left us alone. When she couldn’t be there or had to sleep after a hard night’s work, Mary Lou and Uncle Ben and Aunt Helen or Nana and Pop, Frannie or Aunt Pat, were always there. They filled in the gaps the way families used to, quietly and without complaint. And somehow, between them all, we never felt like anything was missing.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h3>The Blueprint</h3>\n<p>It’s funny now, going to funerals or family gatherings and meeting older cousins, neighbors, and friends I’d nearly forgotten. It happened again at my cousin Mary Lou’s funeral. They’ll smile and say, “You probably don’t remember me—I used to babysit you.” Every time I hear that, I realize again how surrounded we were, how many people cared for us, and how my father’s steadiness was mirrored by an entire community that watched over his kids while he worked to keep us fed.</p>\n\n<p>And the one thing they always say—and I mean always—is, “We really miss your dad. Your dad was so funny. Your dad was such a great guy.” Then almost every time they add, “And your mom—she was so beautiful and smart.”</p>\n\n<p>To me, my dad was the blueprint. I can still see him coming home from work in summer, wearing a white short-sleeve T-shirt, the kind that clung a little with the sweat of a long day. He smelled of earth and iron and water—of wells and pumps and the inside of trucks. The smoke of his Marlboro and the faint bitterness of Rolling Rock or Budweiser mixed with that smell of work in a way that no candle or cologne could ever copy.</p>\n\n<p>To a young boy who idolized his father and couldn’t wait to curl up in his Lazy-Boy and watch <em>F-Troop</em>, that was the scent of familiarity and security. When that smell walked through the door, we knew everything was all right.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h3>The Humor of Fathers</h3>\n<p>He was the blueprint in other ways too—the everyday things only dads teach. I remember long trips when there weren’t any rest stops, and he’d remind me, half serious and half laughing, how to keep good aim at a urinal or make sure we were far enough off the road when nature called. It sounds funny now, but that’s the kind of “dad stuff” that sticks with you. He taught it without embarrassment, just a sense that a man ought to do things properly, even the small things.</p>\n\n<p>Mom used to tell a story from when I was about four or five. Dad and I both had flat-top haircuts back then, just like Johnny Unitas in the 1969 Super Bowl, and we’d wear the same white T-shirts and blue jeans. One day we were walking ahead of her and Nana, and as they watched us go, Nana laughed and said, “There’s no way your husband could ever deny that boy—just look at them walk!” She was right. We looked alike, walked alike, and even back then I followed his lead without thinking about it.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h3>The Names We Knew Him By</h3>\n<p>He was Dad to me, Bobby to my mother, Daddy to my sister, Bobby to most everyone in the family, Grandpa to my children, and Dinks to his friends from school and the old football and baseball teams. (That nickname came from “Humperdinkleberry,” or so the story goes.) Even now, if I run into an old friend of his—like Bernie Ryder, who was once a principal or guidance counselor at the high school—they’ll grin and call out to me the same way they called to him: “Hey, Dinks!”</p>\n\n![IMG_6564.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmUUc28i5CSxDYXQSNSsfJXmiGioN4i2KbWQ3fXTcDnPyP/IMG_6564.jpeg)\n\n![IMG_3456.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmSzLnDbebSuGg4uCDgy72KTuiRauYBPWaCY8QssKVNPEk/IMG_3456.jpeg)\n\n<p>My sister texted me this morning: “Today is Daddy’s birthday.”<br>\nI said, “I remember—the Fifth of November.”<br>\nA day worthy to remember.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h3>Reflections on Love and Sight</h3>\n<p>As life moves on and human frailty shows its cracks and flaws—those heart-wrenching disappointments that time and imperfection bring—I think it’s good, most of the time, to remember the wonder and let the warts fade away.</p>\n\n<p>Someone once asked me why people today seem less faithful in their relationships, why they forget the Snow White they married or the Prince Charming who swept them away. Maybe it’s because we’ve forgotten how to keep our eyes on the Lord. I know this much: if we did, we’d see less of each other’s blemishes and more of His grace in the faces we love.</p>\n\n<p>When my sister finally had her bandages removed after one of her eye surgeries, she got her first pair of glasses. She looked up at our Nana and, seeing her clearly for the first time, reached out and said, “Oh, Nana—your face! Your face is so cracked! What happened?” She didn’t yet understand what time does to the skin, or how love sees past it.</p>\n\n<p>I think about that often—how we can look too close, searching for flaws until we convince ourselves the person we love has somehow changed or been replaced. There’s even a word for it—Capgras syndrome—when you believe someone familiar has become a stranger. I wonder if that isn’t what happens in too many marriages and friendships: we get so focused on what’s broken that we forget what’s beautiful.</p>\n\n<p>Maybe that’s why God, in His mercy, lets our eyesight fade a little as we grow older—to make the wrinkles harder to see, and the love easier to remember.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h3>Closing</h3>\n<p>I suppose that in the end, that sort of love isn’t blind—it just learns to look farther, beyond the cracks, the warts, and the flaws that we all have, and rather admires and cherishes those, like my dad, whom God has used and seen fit to bless in His plan to work all things together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Happy Birthday, Dad.</strong></p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h3>Epilogue – Shoulders</h3>\n\n\n<p>The other day at Six Flags, my daughter Victoria grew quiet as she watched the younger kids riding on their fathers’ shoulders. I could see something shift in her eyes—an understanding that she’s growing up, and that those simple things we did all the time might not last forever.</p>\n\n<p>She began to cry, and I held her close as she wept and wept. I told her, “Just because you’re big doesn’t mean you’re not my little girl.” She said, “I know,” but that didn’t help.</p>\n\n<p>Now, Vicky’s twelve—five foot seven and about a hundred sixty pounds—and I’m sixty-one, with a leg that doesn’t work quite like it used to. She looked at me, half smiling through her tears, and said softly, “I don’t think we can, Dad.”</p>\n\n<p>I smiled and said, “Let’s try.”</p>\n\n<p>So I sat on a bench, and she stood behind me, swinging her legs carefully over my shoulders. I couldn’t lift her all the way, not like I once did, but we managed. I stood, she climbed onto my back, and I carried her toward the park exit. She wrapped her arms around my neck and rested her head against mine. I could feel her tears, and I could feel her smile through them.</p>\n\n\n![IMG_4281.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmQ3UsUaNB4GNauznNbRPiaYdzQpXV6Ztuv9QjKxkPQDnh/IMG_4281.jpeg)\n\n![IMG_9371.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQme39X33dm2JtEvXEqiLSbopk4hNbkobUcuickB3reCUcX/IMG_9371.png)\n\n\n<p>And in that moment, I thought—<em>I hope she remembers me as fondly as I remember my father.</em></p>\n\n<p>I have other children, each one with their own stories and memories, their own moments where love has spoken louder than words. But that afternoon reminded me that the truest inheritance we can pass on isn’t land, or money, or even a name—it’s the feeling of being loved enough to be carried, even when we’re too big to be lifted.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p><strong>For my children,</strong><br>\nthat they may always know the strength of love that lifts them,<br>\nand the grace of the God who never puts them down.</p>",
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      "title": "The World Turned Upside Down : Old Blood, New Blood and The Blood",
      "body": "<h2>The World Turned Upside Down</h2>\n\n<blockquote>Acts 17:6 – “…These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also.”</blockquote>\n\n<p>These words, spoken about Paul’s preaching, brought to mind an event from over two hundred years ago at the very founding of our Republic. The American Revolution had succeeded, and as far as the world was concerned, the impossible had come to pass.</p>\n\n<p>When General Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown in 1781, the British band struck up a tune called <i>“The World Turned Upside Down.”</i> It was meant as mockery—a sneer at what they considered the madness of defeat. The mighty empire had been humbled by ragtag colonies. Surely the world itself was off its hinges!</p>\n\n![7B1F77F0-11DB-4F87-A8B5-B86A291A259F.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmTjoRcnP1TjUFbrhD6YWP2qiQMwS2myLnWuDPtmqFJn2C/7B1F77F0-11DB-4F87-A8B5-B86A291A259F.png)\n\n\n<p>But truth be told, the world had been turned upside down long before Yorktown—long before muskets and redcoats and revolution. It happened in Eden, when Adam sinned. That was the day creation itself tilted. The crown of God’s handiwork traded life for death, fellowship for separation, peace for madness. Every war, every betrayal, every grave since has only been the echo of that first upheaval.</p>\n\n<h3>Madness and the Blood</h3>\n\n<p>The world is still upside down, and at times it seems as though it has gone mad. I have known the insane, and many of you reading this have too. But Scripture tells us the deeper truth:</p>\n<blockquote>“The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God” (Psalm 14:1).</blockquote>\n<p>What greater madness is there than to deny the very One who gives us breath? And God Himself pleads with men,</p>\n<blockquote>“Why will ye die?” (Ezekiel 18:31).</blockquote>\n![7F38FCD9-5E06-4CA4-9B92-D8C1385982B8.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmT5doTeFV6oPNSup8tAMX4M5vF1KAB9smws2iKcwVcKac/7F38FCD9-5E06-4CA4-9B92-D8C1385982B8.png)\n\n\n<p>History tells us that King George III, during the very days of America’s fight for independence, was stricken with madness. His affliction, they say, was rooted in a blood disorder. But friend, so it is with all of us. We are born with a deeper disorder—the contamination of Adam’s blood. Our minds are darkened, our hearts deceived, and our souls diseased. And unless we receive the transfusion that transforms—unless we are washed in the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ—we too will follow the same path of confusion and terror, only this time with no cure, and for all eternity.</p>\n\n<blockquote>“For though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord GOD” (Jeremiah 2:22).</blockquote>\n<p>Man may scrub at the stain, but sin soaks deeper than skin. No ritual, no philosophy, no earthly cure can erase it. Only the blood of Christ speaks better things than the blood of Abel.</p>\n<blockquote>“…the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel” (Hebrews 12:24).</blockquote>\n\n<h3>Old Blood</h3>\n\n<p>From the very beginning, sin and death have been written in blood.</p>\n\n<p>Cain rose up and slew his brother, and God said,</p>\n<blockquote>“The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground” (Genesis 4:10).</blockquote>\n<p>Innocent blood cried—not for mercy, but for justice. And the cry has never stopped.</p>\n\n<p>The law of Moses confirmed the truth. Every lamb that bled, every bullock burned, every drop upon the altar or sprinkled upon the mercy seat was a reminder that sin demands blood. Yet Hebrews thunders,</p>\n<blockquote>“It is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins” (Hebrews 10:4).</blockquote>\n<p>The old blood only covered—it never cleansed.</p>\n\n<p>And Adam’s blood runs in every one of us still. It is the universal inheritance of corruption:</p>\n<blockquote>“For as in Adam all die…” (1 Corinthians 15:22).</blockquote>\n<p>Every casket lowered, every tear shed at a grave, every obituary written is another witness.</p>\n\n<p>Nor is mankind alone in this ruin.</p>\n<blockquote>“The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now” (Romans 8:22).</blockquote>\n<p>The curse seeps into earth and sky, bending trees with storm, cracking soil with drought, shaking mountains with violence. The old blood has poisoned everything.</p>\n\n<p>And what is the result? Isaiah answers:</p>\n<blockquote>“Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure” (Isaiah 5:14).</blockquote>\n<p>The grave yawns wider, generation after generation, because old blood condemns. Old blood dooms. Old blood stains—and no nitre, no soap, no striving of man can wash it away.</p>\n\n<hr />\n\n<h3>New Blood</h3>\n\n<p>Yet the world still glories in new blood. Every day headlines scream of fresh slaughter—whether on a battlefield, in a subway, or in a clinic where the unborn are torn limb from limb. The ancient appetite for bloodshed is alive and well.</p>\n\n<p>Hollywood packages death as entertainment. Streaming platforms turn gore into “original content.” Video games make sport of slaughter, training young minds to glory in carnage. The prophets could not be plainer:</p>\n<blockquote>“All they that hate me love death” (Proverbs 8:36).</blockquote>\n\n<p>And our politicians? They weep before cameras over “gun violence,” yet in the next breath they enshrine womb violence into law—protecting the daily destruction of those who never drew a first breath. Their hands are red while their speeches drip with indignation. They cry against bloodshed in the streets while defending bloodshed in the womb.</p>\n\n<p>The world has not grown wiser—it has grown bloodier. And all the while, Isaiah’s words echo across the centuries:</p>\n<blockquote>“They hatch cockatrice’ eggs, and weave the spider’s web… their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood” (Isaiah 59:5, 7).</blockquote>\n\n<p>New blood fills the streets daily, and men shrug. They shake their heads, and then they scroll on to the next show. Maybe even a show that twists the very Scripture of God, corrupting His Word under the guise of “biblical” entertainment. Look at Hollywood’s <i>Noah</i>—mockery dressed as myth. Or <i>The Passion of the Christ</i>—lavish art, yet mingled with superstition and idolatry. Or the old <i>Ten Commandments</i> with Charlton Heston—truth diluted with Hollywood grandeur. Or the newest, <i>The Chosen</i>—a mixture of truth and mythology. How easy it would be, at this point in history, to simply tell the truth and stick to the Scriptures. How hard would it really be to avoid the entanglements of “woke mythology” and just proclaim the Word as it stands? But the world will not do it. Beauty and poetry without truth is still a lie, and lies dressed in Scripture are the deadliest of all.</p>\n\n<p>It reminds me that Jesus Christ is never physically described in the Bible. Could it be that God withheld His appearance because to fashion an image is to fall into sin? The Scriptures declare,</p>\n<blockquote>“He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him… his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men” (Isaiah 53:2; 52:14).</blockquote>\n<p>That was God’s Word. And yet men dare to draw Him, cast Him, dramatize Him, and sell Him.</p>\n\n<p>But the command still thunders:</p>\n<blockquote>“To whom then will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto him?” (Isaiah 40:18)</blockquote>\n<blockquote>“Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image” (Exodus 20:4).</blockquote>\n<p>To fashion Him according to our imagination is to reduce the Holy One of Israel to an idol of our own hands. That is not worship—it is blasphemy.</p>\n\n<h3>Through His Eyes</h3>\n\n<p>What if instead of imagining Christ according to our own minds, we saw through His eyes as the Scriptures reveal? No actors, no embellishment, no invented dialogue—only the Word, only what God has given us.</p>\n\n<ul>\n  <li>Through His eyes we would see the temple at twelve years old, the astonished faces of the doctors of the law as they marvel, and the anxious voices of Mary and Joseph calling for Him.</li>\n  <li>Through His eyes we would see stones clenched in fists, the accusing eyes of men ready to condemn a woman, and their shame as they turn away one by one.</li>\n  <li>Through His eyes we would see soldiers raise the scourge, hatred mixed with indifference, each lash cutting deeper until flesh and blood stained the stones.</li>\n  <li>Through His eyes we would see the crowd pressing close as He stumbles beneath the crossbeam, the ground rushing up, the jeers of some, the tears of others.</li>\n  <li>Through His eyes we would see the world as He was lifted up—mockers below, thieves beside, and above all, the Father’s face turning away as He bore our sin.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>No face could capture Him. No actor could portray Him. The only image God gave of His Son is not in how He looked, but in what He gave—the cross, the blood, the sacrifice.Through His ears we would hear His final cry, “It is finished” (John 19:30). Not a sigh of defeat, but a shout of victory. And in that moment—through His eyes—we would see His blood washing away sin. Not in theory, not in symbol, but for real. His eyes saw us. He saw you. Every soul, every sinner, every name. He saw you as you either confess Him or reject Him.</p>\n<blockquote>“He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief… he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities” (Isaiah 53:3, 5).</blockquote>\n\n<p>That vision is more than any screen could ever hold.</p>\n\n<p><i>Ah, but where were we?</i></p>\n<p><i>Oh yes—thank God, there is The Blood.</i></p>\n\n<p>Not Abel’s blood crying for vengeance, not Adam’s blood carrying corruption, not new blood spilled in vanity. No—this is the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.</p>\n<blockquote>(1 Peter 1:19)</blockquote>\n\n<p>This Blood stained the pavement at Pilate’s hall when He was scourged. This Blood had to be scrubbed from the floors of judgment after Pilate pretended to wash its guilt from his hands. This Blood dripped along the Via Dolorosa as He staggered under the cross, even as He said, <i>“Weep not for me, but weep for yourselves”</i> (Luke 23:28). This Blood fell from the crown of thorns, from the nails in His hands and feet, from the spear that pierced His side.</p>\n\n<p>And this Blood does not cry for vengeance—it speaks of mercy.</p>\n<blockquote>“…the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel” (Hebrews 12:24).</blockquote>\n<p>Abel’s blood cried, “Justice!” Christ’s blood cries, “Forgiveness!”</p>\n\n<p>Here is the only transfusion that transforms. Here is the only cure for Adam’s madness. Here is the only Blood that makes men whole.</p>\n\n<hr />\n\n<h3>Conclusion</h3>\n\n<p>The world is upside down. Men glory in Old Blood and New Blood. But there is only one hope—the Blood.</p>\n<blockquote>“For the life of the flesh is in the blood… it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul” (Leviticus 17:11).</blockquote>\n\n<p>Friend, the choice is before you. You can remain in Adam’s bloodline and die in your sins. You can follow the world’s madness, drinking in its love for death. Or—you can be washed in the blood of the Lamb.</p>\n\n<p>One day every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. On that day, the world will finally be turned right side up. Will you stand condemned in Adam, or redeemed in Christ?</p>\n\n<blockquote>“These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also” (Acts 17:6).</blockquote>\n<p>May that be said of us—not because we glory in death, but because we preach the Blood that gives life.</p>\n\n<h3>The World Upside Down, The Blood That Sets It Right</h3>\n\n<p>The world is upside down. You can see it. You can feel it. Men glory in Old Blood—Adam’s blood, Cain’s blood, Abel’s blood crying from the ground. They glory in New Blood—today’s blood, shed in streets and subways, in wars and in wombs. They glory in violence, and they call it progress. They glory in sin, and they call it freedom. But there is only one hope—the Blood.</p>\n\n<blockquote>“For the life of the flesh is in the blood… and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul” (Leviticus 17:11).</blockquote>\n\n<p>Friend, the choice is right here before you. You can remain in Adam’s bloodline—condemned, corrupted, lost—and die in your sins. You can follow the world’s madness, drinking in its love for death, and share its end. Or—you can be washed in the blood of the Lamb.</p>\n\n<p>Hear me—there are no other options. Neutrality is a lie. Delay is a decision. Jesus Himself said,</p>\n<blockquote>“He that is not with me is against me” (Matthew 12:30).</blockquote>\n<p>There is no middle ground. There is Adam—or Christ. There is Old Blood—or The Blood.</p>\n\n<p>One day—mark it down—</p>\n<blockquote>“every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Philippians 2:10–11).</blockquote>\n<p>On that day, the world will finally be turned right side up. The madness will end. The King will reign. The Judge will sit. And the question will be this: will you stand condemned in Adam, or redeemed in Christ?</p>\n\n<blockquote>“These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also” (Acts 17:6).</blockquote>\n<p>Oh, may that be said of us—not because we glory in death, not because we glory in politics or power, but because we preach the Blood that gives life!</p>\n\n<p>Through His eyes we see it all—the old blood of Adam that brought death, the new blood of man’s endless violence, and finally the Blood—His own, shed for the remission of sins. And while Abel’s blood cried for justice, Christ’s blood speaks mercy.</p>\n<blockquote>“…to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel” (Hebrews 12:24).</blockquote>\n\n<p>Friend, this is the crossroads. Do you hear me? This is the turning point. The world is upside down—mad with sin, addicted to death, blind to truth. But through the pierced hands of Christ, God offers you the transfusion that transforms. Not soap, not nitre, not good works, not church membership, not religion—but the blood of the Lamb, cleansing and making you new.</p>\n\n<blockquote>“Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool” (Isaiah 1:18).</blockquote>\n\n<p>Will you come? I ask you plainly—will you come? Will you look through His eyes, and finally see yourself as He sees you—guilty, yes, but loved; condemned, yes, but offered pardon?</p>\n\n<blockquote>“For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Romans 10:13).</blockquote>\n\n<p>Come to Him. Call upon Him. Be washed in His blood. Don’t wait until the world turns right side up and the chance is gone. Don’t wait until eternity dawns and your soul is weighed and found wanting. Don’t wait until your blood is required of you, and it is too late.</p>\n\n<p><b>Come now. Call upon Him now. Be washed in His blood now.</b></p>\n\n<p>And when that final day breaks—when the trumpet sounds, when the graves open, when Christ appears—you will not be forgotten. You will not be condemned. You will not be cast out. No—hallelujah—you will be remembered, redeemed, and received by the Savior who died and rose again for you.</p>\n\n<p><b>Friend, the world is upside down. But Christ will set it right. Don’t leave this world in Adam’s blood. Leave this world washed in the Blood.</b></p>\n\n<hr />\n\n<h3>One More Time: The World Turned Right Side Up</h3>\n\n<p>Friend, the choice is yours. Right side up or upside down. You can remain in Adam’s bloodline, upside down in sin and death. Or—you can be turned right side up in Christ, forgiven and made new.</p>\n\n<blockquote>“Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).</blockquote>\n\n<p>This is the gospel, as clear as Paul declared:</p>\n<blockquote>“Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and… he was buried, and… he rose again the third day according to the scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3–4).</blockquote>\n\n<p>And God’s Word lays the path in the Romans Road:</p>\n<blockquote>“All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).<br />\n“The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23).<br />\n“While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).<br />\n“If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved” (Romans 10:9).<br />\n“For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Romans 10:13).</blockquote>\n\n<p>That is the right side up. That is life instead of death. That is mercy instead of judgment. That is the blood that speaks better things than that of Abel.</p>\n\n<p>So, what will it be? Upside down with the world, or right side up in Christ? Condemned in Adam, or redeemed in Jesus? Blind in sin, or washed in the blood of the Lamb?</p>\n\n![1D9AC7E5-7314-48E3-873F-82FBE445E6BE.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmfKTdQ2v6E6xdAFvau2d9suZGCSiZ8Gmhddy4R7Nfy7uX/1D9AC7E5-7314-48E3-873F-82FBE445E6BE.jpeg)\n\n\n<blockquote>“Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow” (Isaiah 1:18).</blockquote>\n\n<p>Friend, come to Him. Call upon Him. Be washed in His blood. And when that day comes, when the trumpet sounds, you will not be forgotten, not condemned, not cast out—you will be remembered, redeemed, and received by the Savior who died and rose again for you.</p>a",
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      "title": "Four 9-11s: History’s Tragedies and Heaven’s Answer",
      "body": "<h2>The 9-11 That Was Forgotten</h2>\n\n<p>If I can remember correctly most September 11ths in my life have been an annual day that has come and gone without much fanfare—working all day, or on Sundays going to church, on weekends taking advantage of fall’s cooler days for yard sale excursions, or, when I was still a student, spending my first week in classes before heading home to Normalville.</p>\n\n<h2>My Own 9-11</h2>\n\n<p>On October 18, 1985—sixteen years before the Twin Towers fell, and more than two centuries after Washington stood at Brandywine—I came to know Christ. I was truly born again, not by church tradition, not by the rituals of confirmation, not by memorized catechisms, but by the living Word of God.</p>\n\n<p>I can still see it: a simple table, a worn Bible between us, and a gospel preacher with calm, steady patience walking me through God’s gracious plan. He read words that seemed to leap off the page and land in my chest:</p>\n\n<blockquote>“Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3–4).</blockquote>\n\n<p>I’d heard them before, but not like that. Suddenly it wasn’t just that Christ died—it was that Christ died for me.</p>\n\n<p>He led me down the Romans Road. Verse by verse, my excuses thinned, my pride cracked, and the truth stood there without makeup: I was guilty—a sinner under condemnation. No ritual, no good intention, no religious effort could wash me clean. Then he showed me that Jesus wasn’t one way among many; He was—and is—the only way. The Savior who came, bled, and rose again…for me.</p>\n\n![image.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmcsDko3AeWzmAVqPtpNXvfSLdgm3C8FuY3bFCEs8WsSZh/image.jpg)\n\n<p>I’d cracked open the Bible as a kid. I had one of those huge antique pulpit Bibles from the 1890s. I went through confirmation. I could recite catechisms. I even started learning classical organ so I could one day play the pipe organ at church. They let me try it once, and I’ll never forget it—the <i>Toccata and Fugue in D Minor</i> thundered through the building, and for a moment I felt like I was touching heaven. I was an Episcopalian!</p>\n\n<p>But none of that gave me life. None of it reached my heart. That day, seeing my guilt and seeing Christ crucified and risen in my place, I called on the name of the Lord, and He saved me—just as He promised:</p>\n\n<blockquote>“For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Romans 10:13).</blockquote>\n\n<p>Not long after, I sat under my very first sermon as a new believer. The preacher opened to Proverbs 11:30:</p>\n\n<blockquote>“The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; and he that winneth souls is wise.”</blockquote>\n\n![image.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmbccXhC2ejkQw46brb43LaFbrwuXUNWsVE1JVjtbhuzYg/image.jpg)\n\n<p>Those words sank deep into me. I thought, If this is true, then this is what life is all about—reaching out, winning souls, letting Christ bear fruit through us. It stirred me to think seriously about separation, about what it meant to be set apart for Him, and about outreach, about why we are left here after salvation.</p>\n\n<p>I couldn’t understand why everyone didn’t burn with the same desire. But I knew God had lit something in me, and it has never fully gone out.</p>\n\n<p>Theology came later—definitions, doctrines, details unfolding over time. First came Christ. And once He had me, I couldn’t keep quiet. Not to win arguments, not to parade knowledge, but to point other sinners to the same Savior who forgave me.</p>\n\n<p>And looking back now, I can see how God was already arranging circumstances. Years before I ever studied Mormonism, or even thought about it deeply, the Lord was planting seeds in me about winning souls. Not long after, He brought across my path a young man—same age as me, about twenty-five or twenty-six, a recent graduate of Brigham Young University. Smart. Polite. Well-spoken. A little quirky, but deeply trained in Mormon doctrine. He shared his faith with me, and I listened. Then I opened the Bible and shared Christ with him.</p>\n\n<p>One by one, the claims crumbled under Scripture’s plain light. Jesus is not the spirit-brother of Lucifer. God is not a once-mortal man exalted on a distant planet. There were no golden plates in “Reformed Egyptian” hidden in a New York hillside. The American Indians are not lost tribes of Israel. We laid the claims next to the Book, and the Book spoke.</p>\n\n<p>By grace, that young man trusted Christ. He got saved. Then he handed me his Mormon library—the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price—plus manuals and Q&A booklets stacked high. I read. And the weight of it landed: this wasn’t another branch on Christianity’s tree. It was another gospel with another Jesus, exactly what Paul warned about:</p>\n\n<blockquote>“For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him” (2 Corinthians 11:4).</blockquote>\n\n<p>“At the time, I thought it was just one soul won and one library of falsehoods exposed. But years later, on September 11, 2001, as I sat watching the towers fall, and then again in 2025 when Charlie Kirk was shot down by a young man raised in Mormonism, God reminded me of the thread. He had been working long before. He had let me see the counterfeit up close, not so I could boast in myself, but so that when these days came, I might recognize it for what it was and point others, not to me, but to the true Christ Jesus—and away from the spirit of Antichrist.”.</p>\n\n<h2>What Is It About September 11?</h2>\n\n<p>Which brings me to another question: what is it about September 11?</p>\n\n<p>Dates that ought to sear themselves into a nation’s conscience are often the very ones we let slip into the background.</p>\n\n<p>Even now, the headlines of 9-11—the day the Twin Towers fell and thousands perished—grow smaller with each passing year. A tragedy that once united us drifts toward becoming just another square on the calendar.</p>\n\n![image.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmUJn29v1AadZajKfesXxBgz2UeHUtEzUdszbzyeMmEbdz/image.jpg)\n\n<p>We’ve seen this before. President Franklin Roosevelt called December 7, 1941, “a day that will live in infamy.” Yet even Pearl Harbor has blurred around the edges for a distracted generation.</p>\n\n<p>And here we are again—another crossroad, another wound, another moment when choices must be made. The world urges us to move on, to sand down the sharp edges, to keep everything “positive.” But history unremembered is history repeated.</p>\n\n<p>Ask the men who stood with Washington at Brandywine in 1777, when General Howe’s redcoats crashed down on the American line. They remembered. They carried the scars. So what is it about September 11—1777, 1857, 2001—that threads these days together? Perhaps this: man may forget, but God does not.</p>\n![IMG_8444.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmZSATFCKo1YX6JBBNeNXhTRrASwAZ2gV3xbGszQ6qjwms/IMG_8444.jpeg)\n\n\n<h2>September 10, 11, and 12</h2>\n\n<p>And now, another September. Fast-forward with me to September 10, 2025. Charlie Kirk stood before thousands at Utah Valley University—direct, passionate, unashamed. Then a rifle cracked from a rooftop. Charlie fell.</p>\n\n<p>The crowd erupted in chaos—shouts, screams, bodies diving for cover. Phones shot into the air, trying to capture what hearts could hardly process. In an instant, what had been a gathering of energy and conviction was shattered by violence. Another day of resolve and purpose became another day of blood and loss. Another mark upon the calendar of September.</p>\n\n<p>Who was this man? Why did his death matter? To some, he was only a conservative commentator. To others, he was an agitator. But at the core, he was a believer in Jesus Christ—unashamed to confess His name in an age when many would rather silence the truth than hear it.</p>\n\n<p>Within minutes, slow-motion clips spilled across social media—Charlie collapsing, bleeding out like a sacrifice before a stunned crowd. Millions watched the same awful seconds on their phones. The nation reeled.</p>\n\n<p>The very next morning was September 11. Memorials already planned went forward. Names were read. Candles flickered. Moments of silence honored those lost in 2001. And yet, the headlines led with the assassination of Charlie Kirk. In one sense, understandable—fresh blood tends to overshadow remembered blood. In another sense, sobering—even a day we vowed never to forget can be pushed aside when the world’s attention swivels.</p>\n\n<p>Then came September 12. The manhunt ended. A suspect, raised in Mormonism, was identified and arrested. How long investigators knew what they knew—we may never learn, and perhaps we don’t need to. To the watching public, the shock had an endpoint. But in truth, the questions remain.</p>\n\n<h2>The Mountain Meadows Massacre</h2>\n\n<p>While thinking on these things, and searching for meaning—for that scarlet thread of God’s working power through history—my mind returned again to September 11. Not 2001. Not 2025. Not even 1777. But 1857.</p>\n\n<p>Just picture it: a wagon train of emigrant families—the Baker-Fancher party—rolling toward California. Looking for a new life. Many were Bible-believing Methodists. Not soldiers. Not agitators. Ordinary American families: farmers, mothers, fathers, children. Wagons creaking. Cattle grazing. Hymns. Hope.</p>\n\n![IMG_8445.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmWYnYrYW7RDPPnw46mfMknmKbWgD6MedfZvQxbidbJPLa/IMG_8445.jpeg)\n\n<p>They passed through southern Utah at a perilous moment. Mormon militia, inflamed by Brigham Young’s fiery rhetoric and the paranoia of the Utah War, encircled them. For five tense days the emigrants were besieged. Then came the deception. Under a flag of truce, the “Saints” promised safe conduct if the travelers surrendered their arms. Exhausted and desperate, they agreed.</p>\n\n<p>It was a lie. Once divided into small groups and marched out, a signal was given. The militia turned on them—joined by Paiute Indian allies—and the killing began. Men. Women. Older children. About 120 lives cut down by betrayal. Seventeen little ones, judged too young to “remember,” were spared—kidnapped into Mormon homes until federal officials later rescued them and returned them to what family remained.</p>\n\n![IMG_8446.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmZRHRpb8su7UnFX99fCF8N8TkdLahXaCzGBLMVRAp6eFi/IMG_8446.jpeg)\n\n<p>Treachery. Slaughter. And all of it under the shadow of Brigham Young—false prophet, territorial governor, and militia commander. His signature may not appear on a written order, but his voice lit the tinder.</p>\n\n<h2>The Hypocrisy of Clean Hands</h2>\n\n<p>The Civil War soon eclipsed the massacre with larger headlines—and gave cover for silence. While the nation bled, the Saints sat apart, waiting and consolidating power. They remembered; they only hoped the rest of us would forget.</p>\n\n<p>Fast-forward again. The LDS Church condemned the murder of Charlie Kirk—swiftly, publicly. And murder is evil. But here’s the rub: they still venerate Brigham Young as a prophet of God. Condemn one killer; canonize the system that bred a massacre. That is not repentance. That is reputation management.</p>\n\n<blockquote>“When ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood” (Isaiah 1:15).</blockquote>\n\n<p>Religion can polish an image, but only Christ can cleanse a heart. Only His blood can wash away guilt. Man’s hands are bloody, but Christ’s are pierced. His wounds cleanse. His cross reconciles. His resurrection gives hope beyond the grave.</p>\n\n<p>And for those dazzled by the polished image—the Tabernacle Choir’s soaring harmonies, the gleaming holiday specials, the cheery missionary smiles—remember: a pretty frame doesn’t sanctify a counterfeit picture. Beauty without truth is camouflage.</p>\n\n<h2>Another Jesus</h2>\n\n<p>And that matters here, because maybe you’ve been told Mormonism is just another denomination. But it isn’t. Underneath it lies another Jesus. Joseph Smith invented him; Brigham Young enforced him. A false christ, brother of Lucifer. A false christ whose kingdom advanced by secrecy, vengeance, and even “blood atonement.” That is not the Lord of Scripture. That is a counterfeit that leads not to forgiveness, but to fanaticism—to massacres.</p>\n\n<p>The Jesus of the Bible is altogether different. He is not created. He is not one god among many. He is the eternal Word made flesh (John 1:14), the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). He offered Himself once for all:</p>\n\n<blockquote>“By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Hebrews 10:10).</blockquote>\n\n<p>He does not demand that you spill others’ blood; He shed His blood for you. His gospel does not enslave with endless works; it frees by grace through faith.</p>\n\n<h2>Four 9-11s, One Blood That Speaks</h2>\n\n<ul>\n<li>1777: Brandywine—traitors and defeat.</li>\n<li>1857: Mountain Meadows—innocents massacred, memory buried.</li>\n<li>2001: Twin Towers—memorialized, yet fading at the edges.</li>\n<li>2025: Charlie Kirk—tragic headline, already being eclipsed.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Man forgets. News cycles turn. Even “never forget” becomes negotiable. But God remembers. Abel’s blood cried out then; the blood of innocents cries out still. And above them all, there is one blood that speaks better things than that of Abel:</p>\n\n![IMG_2027.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmRWs363BcQouPB7u6173vomiXKWHyDznXcK8HpFwXW5Px/IMG_2027.jpeg)\n\n\n<blockquote>“And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel” (Hebrews 12:24).</blockquote>\n\n<h2>Closing Word</h2>\n\n<p>And yet, what do we choose to remember? Not Brandywine. Not Mountain Meadows. Not Pearl Harbor. Not even the Twin Towers. Some can only recall that on September 11, 1971, a 13-year-old teen idol named Donny Osmond climbed to #1 with <i>Go Away Little Girl</i>. If that’s all we have left, God help us—for the blood of the forgotten still cries from the ground.</p>\n\n<p>But hear this: a better day is coming. A day unmarked by massacre or terror. A day when the trumpet will sound, and:</p>\n\n<blockquote>“The dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:16–17).</blockquote>\n\n<p>On that day, time and dates and fragile memories will be gathered into the mind of Christ. The saints will lift one rapturing chorus, and the only headline left will be the glory of the Lamb.</p>\n\n<p>Friend, will you be there? Will you be remembered in Him, or forgotten with the world? The blood of the forgotten cries for justice, but the blood of Jesus Christ cries for mercy—and His blood still speaks today.</p>\n\n<blockquote>“Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).</blockquote>\n\n<p>Come to Him. Call on Him. Be washed in His blood. And when that final day breaks, you will not be forgotten. You will be forever remembered—held, whole, and home—in the presence of the Savior who died and rose for you.</p>",
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      "title": "Weep Not for Me, Weep for Yourselves: Exposing the Hearts Revealed in Charlie Kirk’s Passing",
      "body": "<h1>Weep Not for Me, Weep for Yourselves: The Witness of Charlie Kirk’s Death</h1>\n\n![09EA2148-4FBD-4CC5-B3E8-7742CBB39AF7.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmd7GoNe4yW8vggoZ31CjfXrTWpg8vQgxdGeBBM6qVLYdV/09EA2148-4FBD-4CC5-B3E8-7742CBB39AF7.jpeg)\n\n\n<p><strong>“But Jesus turning unto them said, <em>Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children</em>” (Luke 23:28).</strong></p>\n\n<p>Not all tears are the same. Some spring from faith and hope, others from confusion, and others still from blind hatred. Jesus drew that line on the road to Calvary, and I believe that line is being drawn again today. The death of Charlie Kirk has revealed hearts—some weep, some mock, some are indifferent. The question is not whether the line is there, but this: <strong>where will you be standing when it’s done?</strong></p>\n\n<hr />\n\n<h2>A Bitter Celebration</h2>\n<p>Scripture shows us plainly: when the truth pierces hearts, the wicked sometimes respond with glee at the downfall of God’s servants. At the crucifixion, men mocked and wagged their heads, saying, “He saved others; himself he cannot save” (Matthew 27:42). At Paul’s imprisonment, some preachers rejoiced, supposing to add affliction to his bonds (Philippians 1:15–16). And in Revelation 11, the two witnesses are slain in the street, and the world rejoices, sending gifts one to another because their tormentors were gone.</p>\n<p>So it is today. Charlie Kirk’s death is not only mourned by the faithful, but grotesquely celebrated by those who hated his message. Social corners of the world light up with mockery, laughter, and satisfaction. This is not new; it is the old hatred of the world against the Word of God.</p>\n\n<hr />\n\n<h2>The Exposure of Hearts</h2>\n<p>Death has a way of tearing away the veil. In life, Charlie’s opponents could pretend their quarrel was political. They could mask their rage with arguments about partisanship, influence, or culture. But in death, the masks slip. The rejoicing over his blood exposes the truth: this was never about mere politics. It was about light versus darkness, Christ versus the world.</p>\n<p>The Apostle John wrote: “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19). Their laughter at his death testifies against them. The very joy they feel reveals the depth of the enmity in their hearts toward Christ Himself.</p>\n\n<hr />\n\n<h2>Those Who Mourn, Yet Do Not Understand</h2>\n<p>Not all rejoice. Many mourn. Yet here too we see a division. Some grieve because they truly share Charlie’s faith, his foundation in the Word of God, and his allegiance to Christ. Others mourn because they merely shared his conclusions, not his convictions.</p>\n<p>This is where motives matter. Years ago I found myself standing among anti-abortion voices. On the surface we all agreed. But my stand was because the Bible says God formed life in the womb, and abortion is murder. For others, the reason was cultural, or because their church leader opposed it, or simply because it made them uncomfortable. And I realized—if that leader changed his mind, or if the culture gave them a different reason, their convictions would shift. They were never anchored in the eternal Word.</p>\n<p>Agreement on an issue does not equal unity in Christ. If I begin ten feet to the left aiming for heaven, and you begin ten feet to the right aiming elsewhere, our paths may cross for a moment, but we are not headed to the same place. That momentary agreement is fragile, because it is circumstantial. But when we agree that Jesus Christ is <em>the way, the truth, and the life</em> (John 14:6), when we submit to the authority of God’s Word, then we have true unity.</p>\n<p>That is the unity Christ prayed for (John 17:21). That is the unity Paul preached, calling us to be of “one mind and one judgment” (1 Corinthians 1:10). That is the unity the prophets demanded of Israel. Anything else is lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—and Revelation warns that the Lord will spew the lukewarm out of His mouth (Revelation 3:16).</p>\n<p>Many mourn Charlie’s passing today, but only those who mourn as fellow disciples share his destination. Others are like the crowds at Stephen’s death—holding the coats while the stones fly, mourning the violence yet unmoved to faith.</p>\n\n<hr />\n\n<h2>The Vindication of Truth</h2>\n<p>But as always, the wicked and the shallow rejoice too soon. The rulers rejoiced at the cross, but on the third day Christ rose. The world threw a party at the death of the two witnesses, but after three and a half days, “the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet” (Revelation 11:11). Even Paul could write from prison: “The things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel” (Philippians 1:12).</p>\n<p>So even now, though Charlie’s voice is silenced on earth, his testimony is louder than ever. The celebration of his enemies is itself proof of the truth he proclaimed. The shallow grief of those who only agreed outwardly exposes the difference between cultural conservatism and biblical Christianity. And the steadfast mourning of the saints testifies that his labor was not in vain in the Lord (1 Corinthians 15:58).</p>\n\n<hr />\n\n<h2>Our Call in the Face of Scorn</h2>\n<p>We should not be surprised when the world mocks the death of the righteous. Jesus said: “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven” (Matthew 5:11–12).</p>\n<p>Charlie’s death has become a dividing line: to the wicked, an excuse for mockery; to the shallow, a moment of confused mourning; but to the church, a reminder that our fellowship is not with the world, but with Christ in His sufferings (Philippians 3:10). The rejoicing of sinners only proves the surety of judgment. The unstable grief of the half-committed shows the danger of lukewarm faith. And the hope of saints proves the surety of resurrection.</p>\n\n<hr />\n\n<h2>The Eternal Irony</h2>\n<p>Just imagine it. You lived your life believing the right things for the wrong reasons—politics, social conformity, a form of godliness but denying the power thereof (2 Timothy 3:5). You stood “against abortion,” “for family,” “for morality,” but only because your party, your church leader, or your circle expected it. It was lip service, not faith.</p>\n<p>And then there are others, who believed all the wrong things for the “right” reason—because they hated Christ and His Word. They loved darkness rather than light (John 3:19). Their rebellion was open, their hatred unmasked.</p>\n<p>And death comes, as it always will. And you open your eyes, side by side in hellfire. One from hypocrisy, the other from hatred. You look up, and afar off you see a man you both despised for different reasons—Charlie, not because he was perfect, but because he pointed to Christ. And between you a great gulf is fixed (Luke 16:26). He cannot hear you. He cannot remember you. For the glory of heaven has swallowed up every earthly grief, and “the former things are passed away” (Revelation 21:4).</p>\n<p>And the irony crushes you—you traded a life of lip service, or of mockery, for the gnashing of teeth. The witness you once brushed aside is now branded on your memory forever.</p>\n<p>But friend, it does not have to end this way. The Word of God still pleads: “Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation” (Hebrews 3:15). Don’t listen only to the man; listen to the message. For the message is about the Man—the Son of God, who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). That includes your sin.</p>\n<p>Turn to Him, while it is still called today.</p>\n\n<hr />\n\n<h2>The Saints’ Tears</h2>\n<p>The saints know that mourning is not a mark of unbelief but of love. Scripture does not forbid grief—it sanctifies it. “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning” (Psalm 30:5). Even Jesus wept at the grave of Lazarus (John 11:35). The women who followed Him to Calvary wept (Luke 23:27). Peter, after denying the Lord three times, went out and wept bitterly (Matthew 26:75). David poured out his tears in the Psalms (Psalm 6:6).</p>\n<p>Weeping is expected—but not all weeping is the same. Some tears spring from faith, from hearts that love Christ and grieve the loss of a brother while clinging to the hope of resurrection. Other tears flow from confusion, from those who shared conclusions but not convictions. Still others weep as the world weeps—sorrow without hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13).</p>\n<p>The difference is not in the eyes that cry but in the heart that believes. The saint’s tears are mingled with hope; the world’s tears are steeped in despair; the shallow mourner’s tears are unstable, shifting with the winds of circumstance. But all are seen by God, who promises: “Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted” (Matthew 5:4).</p>\n\n<hr />\n\n<h2>Closing Prayer</h2>\n<p>Lord, let us not be shaken by the laughter of the wicked or the instability of the lukewarm. Root us in Your Word. Teach us to discern the difference between momentary agreement and true unity in Christ. Let us take courage in the truth that, as the world rejoices for a moment, heaven records an eternal witness. Help us to stand faithful, knowing that even in death, the testimony of Your saints still shines. Amen.</p>",
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      "title": "the Charlie Kirk the Media wants to Hide!",
      "body": "<h1>The Truth the World Hides: A Devotional Rebuttal on Charlie Kirk’s Witness</h1>\n\n<p>When Jesus was brought before Pilate, the Pharisees would not speak the real charge. They only said, “If he were not a malefactor, we would not have delivered him up unto thee” (John 18:30, KJV). They cloaked their hatred under vague accusations. But when pressed, they admitted, “We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God” (John 19:7).</p>\n\n<p>At that saying, Pilate was afraid. He knew he was no longer judging a mere political rebel, but One who claimed divine authority. And so Pilate trembled and asked, “Whence art thou?” (John 19:9).</p>\n\n<p>This is the same pattern repeated in every age. The world hates those who stand in the name of Christ. But instead of admitting the spiritual cause, it hides the truth beneath political labels. In the case of Charlie Kirk, the headlines call him a “conservative influencer,” a “MAGA voice,” a “right-wing activist.” Yet the real reason the world raged against him is the same reason it raged against Christ: he confessed truth in the face of lies, and he would not bow.</p>\n\n<hr />\n\n![89CB74F4-529C-4BC5-98BC-2AE84264039B.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmUSiDqvmyk4Sd2muYL2itB5i5a52vU84AWNLE91LKWes9/89CB74F4-529C-4BC5-98BC-2AE84264039B.png)\n\n\n<h2>On Abortion</h2>\n<blockquote>\n  <p>“Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee” (Jeremiah 1:5).</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Abortion is not a political issue, but the murder of the innocent, which the Lord hates (Proverbs 6:17). Charlie’s defense of the unborn rested on God’s Word. He called the shedding of innocent blood what it is—sin. To the media, that sounds like partisanship; to the Christian, it is simply obedience.</p>\n\n<h2>On the Family &amp; Divorce</h2>\n<blockquote>\n  <p>“What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder” (Mark 10:9).</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Charlie defended the family as God’s first institution. He spoke against the unraveling of marriage not because of social preference but because marriage pictures Christ and the Church (Ephesians 5:32). The health of the family is not merely cultural; it is spiritual.</p>\n\n<h2>On the Death Penalty</h2>\n<blockquote>\n  <p>“Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man” (Genesis 9:6).</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>His support for capital punishment in cases of murder was not vengeance, but reverence for God’s image in man. Justice affirms that human life is sacred because God made it so.</p>\n\n<h2>On Free Enterprise</h2>\n<blockquote>\n  <p>“If any would not work, neither should he eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10).</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Work is not a curse but a stewardship. Each man is called to provide for his household (1 Timothy 5:8) and to give freely from honest labor (Ephesians 4:28). Charlie’s view of economics was not rooted in a party system, but in biblical stewardship and accountability before God.</p>\n\n<h2>On Nonviolent Confrontation</h2>\n<blockquote>\n  <p>“The servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient; In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves” (2 Timothy 2:24–25).</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Charlie was known for debates, not riots; persuasion, not force. He wielded arguments shaped by Scripture—words seasoned with truth, not fists clenched in wrath (cf. 2 Corinthians 10:4; Ephesians 4:15).</p>\n\n<h2>On Constitutional Liberty</h2>\n<blockquote>\n  <p>“Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (2 Corinthians 3:17).</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>He valued the Constitution not as an idol, but as a safeguard for liberty—liberty which Scripture grounds in Christ. He knew the rights of man are endowments of the Creator. To defend constitutional order was, in his view, to defend the space where the Gospel and conscience could flourish.</p>\n\n<h2>On Sexual Purity &amp; Refusal to Lie</h2>\n<blockquote>\n  <p>“For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections… And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman… men with men working that which is unseemly” (Romans 1:26–27).</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Charlie refused to call good what God calls evil. Yet his stand was not hateful; it was outreach through truth. Scripture is clear that sin condemns, but Christ saves. “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?… And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified” (1 Corinthians 6:9–11). To warn is not hatred; to lie would be. He refused to hate by lying; he loved by telling the truth and pointing to repentance and grace.</p>\n\n<hr />\n\n<h2>The Final Rebuttal</h2>\n<p>No, Charlie Kirk was not slain because he was “just a conservative.” No, he was not merely a “political influencer.” Like Stephen in Acts 7 and James in Acts 12, he bore witness to Christ, and the world could not endure his voice. His arguments were not partisan talking points but biblical convictions. His courage was not the bluster of a pundit but the faith of a disciple.</p>\n\n<p>The rulers of his day have said, in effect, “By our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God” (John 19:7). And like Pilate, the world trembles at that charge—for it reveals what they cannot suppress: that this was about Christ, not Caesar.</p>\n\n<p>Though men erase, heaven inscribes. Just as the title over Christ’s cross proclaimed Him King (John 19:19–20), so the record of Charlie Kirk’s faith cannot be silenced. “He being dead yet speaketh” (Hebrews 11:4). The saints “overcame… by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony” (Revelation 12:11). One day the truth the world tried to hide will be declared openly.</p>\n\n![756A2690-A114-43E5-B870-9292E916487D.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmShJKhvjRLGtoXhURn5ZuqyqGV4efKfzzJSAV6DV9VCgD/756A2690-A114-43E5-B870-9292E916487D.png)\n\n<h2>Prayer</h2>\n<p>Lord, help us to see through the world’s disguises. Strengthen us to stand where Your Word stands, even when the world twists the truth. Let us live so faithfully that if we too are hated, it will be for Christ’s sake, not our own. May our testimony, like Charlie Kirk’s, be written not only in headlines but in heaven’s eternal record. Amen.</p>",
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      "body": "<h1>If They Had Been Mindful</h1>\n<p><em>Texts: Proverbs 22:28; Romans 15:4; Hebrews 11:15–16 (KJV)</em></p>\n\n![114F6F77-E69F-47A5-9E7A-25366C456E59.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmcDYMq4nnangYneYBcRkQqkxun42Uuuh2UXDMZQLSbxCG/114F6F77-E69F-47A5-9E7A-25366C456E59.png)\n\n\n<h2>Introduction: Baseball and the Illusion of “Ancient” History</h2>\n<p>I have been a Yankees fan all my life. The franchise took the field in New York in <strong>1903</strong> (as the Highlanders) and adopted the name “New York Yankees” in <strong>1913</strong>. From those early days to the present, the Yankees have piled up <strong>40 American League pennants</strong> and <strong>27 World Series championships</strong>. People speak of the Yankees as a dynasty—and they are not wrong.</p>\n<p>And yet when I was young, I remember seeing the widows of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig seated at Yankee Stadium on Old-Timers’ Day. \n\n![IMG_7858.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmS7LFN81dLCXWeonbYb45Qq2Dtoq2zVSqicTrYuG9uRFk/IMG_7858.jpeg)\n\n\nI remember the old ballplayers—some who had shared the diamond with the legends of <em>Murderers’ Row</em>—walking onto that same field. Today you can pick up a World Series history and flip year by year from the early 1900s to now—and a good portion belong to the Yankees. Still, no one roster stayed the same for long: stars rose and faded; players were traded; some went off to war; all of them aged and many of them passed away. Several “dynasties” lived and died—within a single century.</p>\n\n![IMG_7859.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmZCGTMHJx34qkoKrk8B1r5e1fo6x5fU2RqY7Ur4qMDTxs/IMG_7859.jpeg)\n\n<p>I say that to say this: we often do not grasp how much change can happen in a short span of time. If a baseball club can cycle through eras and icons in a hundred years, then when you open your Bible and read three or four centuries compressed into a genealogy—from the Flood to Abraham—you should not imagine a slow trickle. Empires were forming, languages scattering, idols multiplying—and it was all happening while patriarchs who remembered the Ark were still alive.</p>\n\n<h2>Not Just Baseball: How Fast Empires Rise and Fall</h2>\n<p>If baseball seems trivial to you, widen the lens. How long did the <strong>Inca Empire</strong> truly last? Barely a century—then it fell. How quickly did the Spanish overthrow the <strong>Aztecs</strong>, and the remnants of <strong>Mayan</strong> power that had spread across Mexico and Central America in only a few hundred years? Consider the <strong>Iroquois Confederacy</strong> on our own continent—an ascendant power that rose, dominated, and declined within a narrow window of time.</p>\n<p>Look across the oceans: empires in Europe and Asia—Greece and Rome, Assyria and Babylon—each rising and falling in mere centuries. Think of the <strong>Mongol</strong> whirlwind under Genghis Khan sweeping across Asia in the 1200s, leaving descendants scattered among vast populations even today. And even mighty <strong>China</strong>, which speaks of five thousand years of history, is a tapestry of dynasties: regimes rising and collapsing, retelling the past to make their moment seem eternal. Many modern revisionists dismiss the Word of God because they cannot imagine civilizations forming and changing so quickly. Yet the “cradle of civilization” acknowledged in secular textbooks does not reach back beyond what Scripture places within human memory after the Flood.</p>\n<p>History is shorter and more fragile than we pretend. The Bible’s record matches what we see: in only a few centuries, nations can be born, flourish, corrupt themselves, and fall.</p>\n\n<h2>Remember the Landmarks</h2>\n<blockquote>\n  <p><strong>“Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.”</strong> (Proverbs 22:28)</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>In Abraham’s day, the landmarks were not ruins overgrown with ivy; they were living memories. <em>Shem</em> still lived. <em>Eber</em> still lived. Men who had walked off the Ark with Noah were alive while nations formed and scattered from Babel. The Flood stood as God’s landmark of judgment; the Ark as His landmark of salvation; Babel as His landmark warning against man’s pride. Yet their children forgot. They “removed the landmarks”—not by digging up stones, but by refusing to remember the God who set them.</p>\n<p>We also have landmarks today: the infallible Word of God; the blood-stained cross; the testimonies of the saints who have gone before. When we neglect them, we repeat the same decline.</p>\n\n<h2>These Things Were Written for Our Learning</h2>\n<blockquote>\n  <p><strong>“For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning,</strong> that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.” (Romans 15:4)</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>In Abraham’s generation, even the kings of the nations were not yet fully hardened. When Abram went down to Egypt, the LORD intervened, and Scripture says,</p>\n<blockquote>\n  <p><strong>“And the LORD plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai Abram’s wife.”</strong> (Genesis 12:17)</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Pharaoh heeded the warning and released Sarai. Similarly, when Abraham came to Gerar, God spoke to Abimelech in a dream:</p>\n<blockquote>\n  <p><strong>“But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, Behold, thou art but a dead man, for the woman which thou hast taken; for she is a man’s wife.”</strong> (Genesis 20:3)</p>\n  <p><strong>“And God said unto him in a dream, Yea, I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart; for I also withheld thee from sinning against me.”</strong> (Genesis 20:6)</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Abimelech listened—and God restrained him from sin. But a few centuries later, in Moses’ day, Pharaoh hardened his heart again and again, till judgment fell. The lesson is clear: the same God who warns in mercy will judge in righteousness when men refuse to heed.</p>\n\n<h2>If They Had Been Mindful</h2>\n<blockquote>\n  <p><strong>“And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out,</strong> they might have had opportunity to have returned. <strong>But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly:</strong> wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.” (Hebrews 11:15–16)</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>The nations around Abraham were not far removed from Noah; they had memory and testimony—but they were not mindful. They did not retain God in their knowledge. Abraham, by contrast, was mindful: he heard God’s call, left Ur, and sought a city whose builder and maker is God. The difference is not time but trust; not centuries but the heart.</p>\n\n<h2>The Warning in the Paradox</h2>\n<p>Here is the paradox: in our world, with life expectancies of seventy or eighty years, nations still rise and fall in a few generations. In Abraham’s world, where patriarchs lived centuries, decline still came—in the very presence of men who remembered the Flood. <em>Long lives did not preserve righteousness; short lives do not excuse unrighteousness.</em> The issue is always the heart’s response to God’s truth. Will we remember the landmarks? Will we be mindful of His Word?</p>\n\n<h2>Conclusion: Our Learning, Our Hope</h2>\n<p>Dynasties rise and fade. Empires come and go. Baseball legends pass into grainy film and faded scorecards; nations etch their names into stone and then weather into dust. But the promises of God stand. Therefore—</p>\n<p><strong>Remember the landmarks.</strong> <em>“Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.”</em></p>\n<p><strong>Receive the Scriptures.</strong> <em>“Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning.”</em></p>\n<p><strong>Be mindful of the better country.</strong> <em>“God is not ashamed to be called their God.”</em></p>\n<p>Abraham trusted, and God preserved him in the midst of a world already turning aside. He will preserve all who walk by faith—today.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h2>Invitation: Beware of Nostalgia—Be Mindful of the Better Country</h2>\n<p>It is tempting to live on memories—and equally tempting to chase “new” truths that are nothing but old sins dressed in fresh leaves. After Babel, when God scattered the nations, imagine the sons of Mizraim arriving in Egypt and looking up at vast monuments—stone that seemed to whisper of immortality. Whether those works were inherited or imitated, men soon built legends to place themselves at the center of the story. A Sphinx staring back, pyramids piercing the sky—yet the living witnesses to God’s truth were still among them. <em>Shem</em> still lived. <em>Eber</em> still lived. But instead of heeding the patriarchs, they curated nostalgia into religion and rewrote wonder into idolatry.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n  <p><strong>“By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands;</strong> every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations.” (Genesis 10:5)</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<blockquote>\n  <p><strong>“And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth,</strong> and hath determined the times before appointed, <strong>and the bounds of their habitation;</strong> <strong>That they should seek the Lord,</strong> if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us.” (Acts 17:26–27)</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>God fixed the bounds for a merciful purpose: that men might seek Him. But man prefers to resurrect the “golden calves” of sentiment: Gaia dressed up as science, pyramid mysticism repackaged as wisdom, the rites of druids rebranded as roots. Nostalgia can be a sanctified memorial when it points to the Lord; it becomes an idol when it replaces Him. The charge still stands:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n  <p><strong>“Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.”</strong> (Proverbs 22:28)</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Some say, “We would never fall for the lie of Antichrist.” But the Scripture warns about a coming delusion when the restraining hand is taken out of the way.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n  <p><strong>“For the mystery of iniquity doth already work:</strong> only he who now letteth will let, <strong>until he be taken out of the way.”</strong> (2 Thessalonians 2:7)</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Seven swift years will run their course; then a thousand years of Christ’s reign; and at the end, a final insurrection is crushed by the Word of Him who is eternal (Revelation 20). Kingdoms rise; empires fade; even our most cherished “dynasties” pass into dust. What endures is not mother earth, nor some resurrected druid, nor even the New York Yankees—it is the Lamb that was slain.</p>\n\n<p>Friend, the call tonight is simple and searching: <strong>be mindful</strong>. Not of the myths, but of the mercy. Not of the idols, but of the landmarks. Not of the latest spiritual fashion, but of the <em>old rugged cross</em>—the once-for-all sacrifice of the Son of God, two thousand years ago, for sinners like us.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n  <p><strong>“Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you…</strong> how that <strong>Christ died for our sins</strong> according to the scriptures; <strong>And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day</strong> according to the scriptures.” (1 Corinthians 15:1, 3–4)</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p><strong>Will you come to Christ?</strong> Put away the counterfeits and the comforts of nostalgia. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. Remember the landmarks—His Word, His Cross, His empty tomb—and be mindful of that better country. Come while He calls.</p>\n\n<h3>Suggested Prayer</h3>\n<p>“Lord, I confess I have trusted in many things—memories, myths, and myself. I turn from my sin and believe that Jesus Christ died for my sins and rose again. Save me, cleanse me, and set my heart on that better country. Make me mindful of Your Word, and keep me from idols. I receive the Lord Jesus as my Savior and my King. Amen.”</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p><em>If you prayed to trust Christ, or if you have questions about salvation, please reach out tonight. Let’s open the Scriptures together and settle it from God’s Word.</em></p>",
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      "title": "The Devils Gambit: Keeping you at the Board!",
      "body": "<h1>The Devil’s Gambit: Keeping You at the Board</h1>\n<p><em>A sermon manuscript</em></p>\n\n<p>When I was a boy, my father taught me how to play chess. We sat at the dining room table in Jackson with an ornate set my grandparents had brought back from Mexico City. The pieces were tall, heavy, carved from bone that looked like ivory, Spanish in style, ornate and weighty. I still have that set somewhere. I remember sitting across from him as a boy, maybe eleven or twelve years old, concentrating on those pieces. I remember the shock on his face the first time I finally beat him.</p>\n\n<p>Chess isn’t easy. It takes thought, strategy, rules, discipline. My uncle Shane also played. He got very good because he had one of those early computer chessboards—the kind you could play against—and he sharpened himself against it. But the truth was, he never liked real competition. He could play in the backyard, but he wouldn’t join a league or a team. \n\nChess, though, was something I loved to play but i loved to play baseball\nmore and work was always important too so i’ve always\nkept it a game. Even so Years later, when my own kids were little, I painted a chessboard right on our dining room table. We played there. Recently I’ve encouraged my wife to play too and she has gotten pretty good, she mostly taught herself and she wins some, loses some, and enjoys the game a lot.</p>\n\n<p>But here’s the thing: chess is a game. <strong>Life is not.</strong></p>\n\n<p>Hanging in the Louvre  there used to be  a painting by Friedrich A. M. Retzsch called <em>The Chess Players</em>, better known as <em>Checkmate</em>.   It was originally done in somewhere around 1831-2 and has been copied in variations since. I believe the original has been sold and is in private hands now.\n In it, a young man sits across from the devil, locked in a match for his soul. The man is tense, his eyes glued to the board. Across from him sits Mephistopheles, calm, smiling, utterly confident. But notice—the devil isn’t even looking at the board. He’s looking outward, toward you. His mouth curls in a sardonic half-smile, as if to say, “This poor fool thought he could win. You’re next. Why don’t you sit down?”</p>\n![IMG_7746.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmRgMd3kNAXfpqp4h7hg17X8tn5rvXWY68VN9KTUCmw5QS/IMG_7746.jpeg)\n\n\n<p>Hovering nearby is an angel. But not the kind we read about in the Bible. Not Michael with a sword, not Gabriel proclaiming the Word of the Lord. No, this one is soft, delicate, almost feminine. Its eyes are on the man’s struggle, but it does not intervene. It does not rebuke Satan, it does not deliver, it does not even speak. It is pity without power, sympathy without salvation. Paul warned us of such figures: “For Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness” (2 Corinthians 11:14–15).</p>\n\n<p>Now look again at the board. If you know chess, you’ll see something strange. The pieces  just don’t seem to add up. The positions don’t make sense. The rules don’t hold. This isn’t really chess at all. It’s an imitation. It looks like chess, but it isn’t.</p>\n\n<p>And here’s the heart of it: the devil doesn’t have to play fair. He doesn’t have to win by rules. He doesn’t need a real board or real strategy. He just needs to keep you sitting at the table. Keep you Thinking you can win<strong> Notice that he even lets the man play White? \n\nThat is his gambit.</strong> In chess, a gambit is when you sacrifice something early in order to trap your opponent later. And the devil’s gambit is to let  man make the first move, let man take a few pawns, to give him a few small victories, to make him believe he’s “holding his own.” \n\nThe young man in the painting looks as if he’s captured a piece or two. He probably thinks he’s still in it. But the whole thing is a fraud. He cannot win, because there are no rules to win by.</p>\n\n<p>That’s what the psalmist meant when he wrote:  <P>“Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence” (Psalm 91:3). <p>The board is the snare. The devil’s gambit is the trap. He keeps your eyes on the pieces, your head bent down, your mind racing in despair. And to the one who looks on from the gallery, the devil lifts his eyes with a grin, mocking one man and inviting the next.</p>\n\n<p>This is the lie the devil has told from the beginning: that life is a game, that man can outthink God, that with enough wit or wisdom he can find the right move. But the Word of God says otherwise: “There is none righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10). “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Man cannot win. There is no version of this game where the sinner walks away victorious.</p>\n\n<p>And yet, how many pulpits retell this painting as if it were a parable of hope? They preach it dramatically: “Don’t give up, the King has one more move.” They polish it and present it as if they thought it up themselves. It makes for a good closing story, easy to remember, easy to repeat. But life is not easy, and life is not a game. That rehashed story is just another illusion. It makes God sound like a clever chess player, waiting to make a surprise move at the last minute. But God is not playing the devil’s game. And Christ is not a piece on Satan’s board.</p>\n\n<p>No, the gospel is not that man has “one more move.” The gospel is that Christ already made the only move that mattered. At Calvary, He did not sit across from Satan and play by his rules. He overturned the table. He crushed the serpent’s head. “And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it” (Colossians 2:15).</p>\n\n<p>That is victory. Not that you outwit the devil, not that God waits with a trick up His sleeve, but that Jesus Christ has already won. That’s why David could sing: “Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers: the snare is broken, and we are escaped” (Psalm 124:7).</p>\n\n<p>That is the gospel: the snare is broken. The board is overturned. The illusion is shattered.</p>\n\n<p>So I ask you, where are your eyes tonight? The man in the painting stares at the pieces. The false angel gazes at him. The devil smirks at you. But the Word of God calls us to look higher: “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2).</p>\n![C2DBA56A-648B-4669-9C24-9FA72E0D5C34.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmZejpdxA2vDuhaaoiLgsDZAz2SZz4Adomge4VJVjkWjCq/C2DBA56A-648B-4669-9C24-9FA72E0D5C34.png)\n\n\n<p>Have you taken the Devil’s gambit—sitting at his table, keeping your head bent down, staring at the crooked board, convinced that if you just try a little harder you might yet win? That is the trap. That is the snare of the fowler. The devil doesn’t care if you capture a pawn here or a piece there—so long as you never look up. His gambit is not to defeat you by fair play, but to keep you playing until you are lost.</p>\n\n<p>But that’s the Savior’s mercy—He lifts your eyes, He breaks the snare, He sets you free. Just as Jesus entered the temple and saw the tables of the money changers, and He flipped them over because they had turned His Father’s house into a den of thieves (Matthew 21:12–13), so too at Calvary He overturned the devil’s board. He broke the illusion, He shattered the false game, He spoiled principalities and powers, and triumphed over them openly.</p>\n\n<p>And the promise of God’s Word is not that you limp away from the table with barely a draw. It is this: “Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us” (Romans 8:37). More than conquerors—not by wit, not by strategy, not by one more move—but through the finished work of Jesus Christ. </p>\n![878E252B-B04B-47CB-A3AD-63C9C1F9678E.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmPLCjTV2pKav5xn2ApcderpaNE9Hb9VLZLBrwPZKwuPLq/878E252B-B04B-47CB-A3AD-63C9C1F9678E.png)\n\n\n<p>So tonight the invitation is simple: your first move is to walk away from the devil’s board. You don’t have to play his crooked game another second. The King has already won. Lift your eyes to Christ, trust Him, and step into the victory that has been purchased at the cross. The snare is broken, the board is overturned, the Savior calls—will you rise and follow Him?</p>",
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      "parent_permlink": "pearl",
      "author": "monetaryrealist",
      "permlink": "our-family-s-front-row-seat-to-history",
      "title": "“Our Family’s Front Row Seat to History”",
      "body": "<h1>Why I Am No Longer a Redskins Fan</h1>\n![AF66CBD8-F981-484F-B678-4FE89224144D.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmcCsW8DwnmTNNcJyUE3DqRWry21kgKpDsR7Pk3xScy1Hg/AF66CBD8-F981-484F-B678-4FE89224144D.png)\n\n\n  <p><em>This isn’t just a story about a football team that changed its name. It’s a family ledger—inked in a grandmother’s ticket stub at Griffith Stadium, a mother’s quiet walk across the USS Arizona Memorial, and the small loyalties and vows that shaped what we drove, what we bought, and how we cheered. It’s a braid of memory and history—how a Sunday game in Washington and a Sunday attack in Hawaii collided in our blood—and why, in the end, I can’t root for a team that no longer remembers the very story that made us fans.</em></p>\n\n  <p>Most of what I know about that day came from my mother, who told the story again and again—so often I could almost hear her voice before she spoke the first word. She had it down to a rhythm, like a favorite old story that never wore out. My grandmother, Nana, confirmed it when I asked, though she told it more briefly, almost matter-of-fact, like she was handing over a photograph for me to see. My Pop, on the other hand—a man of few words—shrugged when I brought it up. I think he said something like, “Had to work that day,” or maybe, “I went hunting.” He wasn’t one to travel for the sake of it. But Nana certainly was.</p>\n\n  <p>Before my mother was born, Nana owned a women’s clothing shop in Red Bank called <em>Addison’s</em>. She had gotten it from a man named Mr. Carol, who had run a small chain of women’s clothing stores. When he went out of business, she took over one of his locations and made it her own. She drove From Downtown lLakewood to Downtown Redbank everyday.. back in 1930s and 40s . She had a sharp business mind and wasn’t afraid to travel wherever she needed to go to get the right goods or meet the right people—New York, Washington, even further if necessary. I’ve got a photograph somewhere of her in Atlantic City, seated at a table with a crowd of people that included Jersey Joe Walcott, the boxer, and several other famous fighters of the day. That was Nana—always connected, always moving. So when she had business in Washington, she went. And that’s how she happened to be at Griffith Stadium on the day history turned.</p>\n\n  <p>So growing up I also was a Redskins Fan!  Sometimes folks still ask me, usually during football season, if I’m still a Washington Redskins fan. My answer today is simple: I’m not anymore.\n\nNow this is NOT because I stopped caring about football, which I still enjoy watching, but because there are no Washington Redskins anymore. The name’s gone, the history’s been repackaged, and the thread that tied my family to that team was cut without ceremony.</p>\n\n  <p>When I was growing up, and in my family,  we never saw the name as an insult.  We were taught that the name came from tribal leaders themselves, who described their bravest warriors as “Redskins.” \n\nThe emblem on the helmet was meant as honor, not mockery—courage, loyalty, strength.\n\n We saw it standing alongside other national symbols of Native warriors—even on coins like the Indian Head nickel and old gold pieces—a reminder of bravery and triumph. That spirit is what my mother and grandmother saw in the team.</p>\n\n![IMG_2862.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmQNeVPWqHaLcBq5MP7S9Q5CC7JQh97tzWbLCvJ2en8ZP9/IMG_2862.jpeg)\n\n![IMG_2861.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmQvYhKfDGA5zTa3cRiUcRGct211Un87cXRGFFreKHBaDA/IMG_2861.jpeg)\n\n![IMG_2866.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmR3RZ7ZbpdU71z68tGNjVcCPHL7PrhJMsRpiG8pRWibYc/IMG_2866.jpeg)\n\n  <p>My mother was a Redskins fan. So was her mother—my grandmother, Nana. And the origin of that devotion traces back to a cold December day in 1941, to Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C., when the Redskins were playing the Philadelphia Eagles. The date was December 7, 1941—a date that, as President Roosevelt would declare the next day, would live in infamy.</p>\n\n  <p>Nana was there in the stands, surrounded at first by a full crowd. The Eagles struck early, taking a 7–0 lead. Washington answered before halftime to tie it 7–7—and that’s when the first strange announcement came across the public address system:</p>\n\n  <blockquote>“Will all senior military officers in attendance please report to your posts.”</blockquote>\n\n  <p>Odd, but not panicked. A few uniforms rose and left. The game went on.</p>\n\n  <blockquote>“Will all members of Congress and their staff please report immediately to the Capitol.”</blockquote>\n\n  <p>More people slipped away. Cameras packed up. Washington still battled for every yard.</p>\n\n  <blockquote>“Will all enlisted men report to your stations immediately.”</blockquote>\n\n  <p>This time, rows of uniforms stood and filed out. Nana said she began to feel alone. The crowd thinned until only a small scattering of die-hards remained, and the quiet that fell over the stadium was unlike anything she’d ever experienced. With so many empty seats, she could hear the quarterback calling the plays as clear as if she were in the huddle. Coaches’ shouts cut across the field without the usual wall of noise to swallow them up. Every cheer from the scattered few carried—one voice at a time—bouncing around the cold air like echoes in a canyon. It was strange—almost unsettling—to watch a professional game in a huge stadium where you could hear individual fans, the snap count, and the sideline arguments, all while having no idea the world beyond those gates was already on fire. I could never have imagined such a thing myself—until the Wuhan Flu emptied stadiums in my own lifetime, and games were played in such quiet that they actually piped in recorded crowd noise to cardboard people in the seats.</p>\n\n  <p>Meanwhile, the Eagles nudged ahead again after halftime, 14–7. By the fourth quarter, Washington clawed back—one touchdown to make it 14–13 after a missed point, then another to go up 20–14. There weren’t many left to cheer them on. Nana was one of the few.</p>\n\n![95894DC2-CF26-406F-979E-9A8382ED92D4.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmdXTwCMLUvttD2XWwPJr7e61WuqqASj97xBnMo9jpS948/95894DC2-CF26-406F-979E-9A8382ED92D4.png)\n\n  <p>Because at that same moment, half a world away in the waters of Pearl Harbor, another game was underway—one with no scoreboard and no cheering section.</p>\n\n  <p>The Redskins–Eagles kickoff in Washington was about 2:00 p.m. Eastern. In Hawaii, it was 9:00 a.m.—barely an hour since the first wave of Japanese aircraft had struck at 7:55 a.m. The Arizona had already been mortally hit; the Oklahoma was rolling hard to port; black columns of smoke clawed into the blue morning sky.</p>\n\n  <p>Half a world away again, across the International Date Line, Tokyo lay in the dim stillness of early dawn—just past 4:00 a.m. on December 8 by their calendar. I can picture Emperor Hirohito standing at a window, looking east across the dark Pacific, waiting for HIS sun to rise—more than a national emblem to him, a divine birthright. His admirals already knew their squadrons were over Pearl Harbor. Somewhere in those predawn hours, he must have been waiting for confirmation.</p>\n<p>A little over four years later, he would find out that he truly was not God and the son was not his father!</p>\n\n![F0C4EC74-9297-4AEB-B09A-C5C9E1052EA6.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmfYALEkwMXVDCfzozcVdbbF3KjbEnPrnqjYFcCmXrQsSg/F0C4EC74-9297-4AEB-B09A-C5C9E1052EA6.png)\n\n\n  <p>In Washington, the PA called officers to their posts. In Hawaii, sailors sprinted to theirs under a sky alive with gunfire and the scream of diving planes. In D.C., the crowd murmured and thinned; in the harbor, a 1,760-pound armor-piercing bomb plunged into the Arizona’s forward magazine and detonated—splitting the ship, hurling men and steel into the air. In nine minutes she sank with 1,177 souls aboard.</p>\n![AC0DFEC5-82A2-43D9-9ECB-1634DCFEC437.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmR7NKFczZvLZZn9vVtEkFcsPWJRnRYf3F5PDXQYR7vWLW/AC0DFEC5-82A2-43D9-9ECB-1634DCFEC437.png)\n\n\n  <p>An Eagle receiver leapt high for a catch and tumbled to the turf; sailors on the Oklahoma leapt from a listing deck into oil-slicked water as torpedoes—hit after hit—rolled her finally upside down, trapping hundreds inside darkness and steel. A Washington runner fought for extra yardage; in Hawaii, men fought for fire hoses on the California and West Virginia, trying to hold back walls of flame. \n\n![IMG_7537.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmQymwwkAYS3vCP9qBmQjSFURZZHTHuZ1UDV3VwndGWU5W/IMG_7537.jpeg)\n\nOn one side of the world, cheers rose with each first down; on the other, shouts for medics pierced the roar of engines and explosions. Some in Washington caught footballs; others in Hawaii caught hot shards of shrapnel. Some ran toward the goal line; others ran for cover. In both places, men were measured the same way—in courage under pressure, in loyalty to their team or their ship, in the will to keep fighting when everything was coming apart.</p>\n\n  <p>Pearl Harbor wasn’t just a story in the paper for my father’s family—it was a call that changed everything. His father shipped out to the South Pacific with the Merchant Marines, riding dangerous waters to keep the fight supplied. His mother’s brothers went into Europe, fighting across the continent through mud, snow, and blood. They all came home; none came home the same.</p>\n\n![IMG_7538.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmQSbZSkTj8iCBfbMsUHwXmW1HuuN2ZLeT41jHvvXLHXG7/IMG_7538.jpeg)\n\n\n  <p>In those days, Hirohito and his admirals were as real an enemy to our family as the Philadelphia Eagles were to the Redskins on that field—a rivalry played for keeps, with no off-season. And we all understood the difference: a football game is not a war. No scoreboard can tally what men paid at Pearl Harbor or across Europe. But in the heat of the moment—in the hearts of those playing and those watching—both can feel like the whole world depends on the outcome.</p>\n\n  <p>When the war ended, my grandparents swore they would never buy anything made in Japan. For decades they kept that promise. The cars in the driveway were American. The refrigerator, the washer, the stove—American. Even in the kitchen drawers, “Made in USA” was stamped on most everything. Time has its way with vows. My mother was the first to break it—buying a Honda Prelude around 1979 or 1980. My grandfather, who had once braved the Pacific in the Merchant Marines, eventually bought himself a small Honda 250 motorcycle. Nana never gave in on cars or big-ticket items—but I remember finding a little Japanese transistor radio in the house once, proof that even the strongest walls let something small slip through.</p>\n\n  <p>Years later, my mother told me about going to Hawaii for a nurses’ convention. She made a point to take the boat to the USS Arizona Memorial. An elderly Japanese man and his wife, well dressed, sat nearby. As they neared the white memorial over the sunken battleship, she saw a tear in his eye. She leaned to her friend  next to her and whispered, “He’s been here before.” \n\nThey stepped off together and crossed that hallowed place in silence. At first Mom said she was kind of mad at him, but as she watched him  She never spoke to him and her heart softened as she saw and felt his remorse. I think she carried both the memory of that man’s sorrow and her own unshakable patriotism and even the bond to the team she’d loved since girlhood. I can almost hear her, as she walked the span above the Arizona, <p>, <em>Go Redskins.</em></p>\n\n  <p>My mother died just before the team she loved abandoned ship, so to speak. But that day in Hawaii—standing over the resting place of the men who died while her mother watched a game in Washington—her heart carried both loyalties: one to her country, and one to her team.</p>\n\n  <p><strong>Go Redskins.</strong><br>\n  <strong>God bless the USA.</strong></p>\n</article>\n\nAnd The game has been called “most forgotten football game” \n\n Not by me , even though I was only there by my Grandmother’s eyes and my Mother’s faithful tribute.",
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      "parent_permlink": "family",
      "author": "monetaryrealist",
      "permlink": "family-magic-the-painted-dogwood-love-mischief-and-memory",
      "title": "Family Magic :The Painted Dogwood: Love, Mischief, and Memory",
      "body": "<h2>The Painted Dogwood</h2>\n\n<p>Have you ever gone through an old photo album and found a picture that stopped you in your tracks? One of those snapshots that hits you right in the heart—not with the heavy kind of tears, but the good kind. The kind that sneak up on you because a memory comes rushing back so clear, it’s like you could step right back into it.</p>\n\n<p>Every now and then that happens to me. And when it does, I start thinking about my kids—and grandkids and even someday my great grandkids. I don’t want them to just have their own memories. I want them to have <em>ours</em>. The stories of the family. The grand memories, and the great-grand memories. The kind you only get if somebody tells you—around the dinner table, on the porch, or when an old photo makes its way around and somebody says, “Do you remember…?”</p>\n\n<p>Well, not too long ago, I found a picture of a dogwood tree. Not just any dogwood—<em>our</em> dogwood. And the moment I saw it, I was four years old again.</p>\n\n![Resized_CFB20498-2CE3-41E0-8169-218E99852B4E.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmecbpocwpzE6vGwPrtECazBrjokYghsa8AVsu75uv9bGY/Resized_CFB20498-2CE3-41E0-8169-218E99852B4E.jpeg)\n\n<p>I was born at Paul Kimble Hospital in Lakewood, New Jersey, but my first home was in Jackson, in a house my great-grandfather had built. My parents moved in after he passed, and I was just two years old. Not long after, Mom found out she was pregnant with my sister, Chrissy—two years younger than me. The house was too small for a growing family. Even after they added a bathroom, there was no way we’d all fit.</p>\n\n<p>So we moved to Lakewood—right across the street from Nana and Pop, and right next door to Mary Lou and George. Mary Lou’s parents were Uncle Ben and Aunt Helen.</p>\n\n<p>Their green-painted house sat in the middle of a big, beautiful yard. No fence yet, just open grass rolling right to the road. And in the front right-hand corner stood a white dogwood tree—about ten feet back from where the fence would one day be.</p>\n\n<p>I don’t remember the move itself, but I remember that tree. At four years old, it seemed enormous. In spring, it would burst into a cloud of white blossoms so thick you could barely see the branches.</p>\n\n<p>Behind Uncle Ben’s house was his shop—a building that had once been a horse stall, now home to “Ben Johnson’s Typewriter Company.” Beyond it lay a little open patch, then a two-acre pasture where horses grazed, with a barn at the far end.</p>\n\n<p>The shop door faced the house, and to the right was a grape trellis heavy with fruit in season. We’d eat grapes until we were full enough to swear off dinner. If you walked behind the shop, you could see the horses.</p>\n\n<p>And then there was the maple. A great old tree, decades old before Ben ever paved around it. The pavement looped all the way around, making the perfect racetrack for bikes and big wheels. In summer, the maple’s thick green canopy covered nearly the whole drive in shade. High up, the branches made a fine perch—if you were tall enough to climb. I wasn’t, not without a ladder.</p>\n\n<p>That maple was also the throne of Tommy, the big orange long-haired cat that belonged to Mary Lou. Tommy had a trick—he hated grooming himself because it gave him hairballs. Instead, he’d lick your hand until it was dripping wet, then rub against you to wipe himself off. Folks thought it was affection. We knew better.</p>\n\n<p>My cousin Mary Lou was always watching out for us—babysitting and playing. She is ten years older than me and ten years younger than my mom. She taught me my times tables and spelling rules and was always around to make sure we did not run out into the road and to make sure I always knew who was who in the family circle… she still does!</p>\n![IMG_6553.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmYh9ZN7fac54X4L1GL8KK1HzvZjdcuw6yoZ3fx8BcjtRh/IMG_6553.jpeg)\n\n\n<p>We had our own animals, too. Once—before the crazy Dalmatian came along—we had a crow in a cage in the backyard. The crow could talk, and Tommy would sit under the cage for hours, watching. One day we came home, and the crow was dead. Mom and Dad swore Tommy had scared it to death. I believed them.</p>\n\n<p>But the dogwood—now that was the showpiece.</p>\n\n<p>One spring, Uncle Ben decided to paint one whole branch of that white dogwood pink. Not the leaves—just the blossoms. He waited until night, set up ladders, and went at it with spray paint. Somehow, he avoided the leaves enough that from the road, it looked completely natural.</p>\n\n<p>Back then, County Line Road was straight as an arrow, and you could see that tree from far off. This wasn’t a quiet side street—it was the main route from Lakewood to the beach. Drivers would spot that shock of pink against the white, slow down, stop in the middle of traffic, even get out to take a closer look. Some tried to break off clippings, convinced they could grow their own.</p>\n\n<p>Ben had a story for everyone. He claimed he’d grafted a pink dogwood branch onto a white one. He’d mow the lawn when it didn’t even need mowing just so he could be out front telling the tale. And people believed him.</p>\n\n<p>It became a local legend—until 1971, when Ben died young, from a heart problem or maybe pneumonia brought on by it.</p>\n\n<p>That’s when his son George—only a few years older than me and the closest thing I had to a brother—decided to carry on the tradition. But George didn’t just paint one branch.</p>\n\n<p>The next spring, I woke up to see not just pink, but blue, red, yellow—each branch a different color. The blue dogwood stopped traffic completely.</p>\n\n<p>People from the university came to see it. Others parked up the road and snuck back at night to cut branches. With the road so straight, you could see that tree for a long way, and the gawking just got worse. Cars stopped right in the middle of County Line Road while folks clipped “samples.”</p>\n\n<p>It didn’t take long for the township to pay George a visit and tell him to knock it off—it was causing too many traffic problems.</p>\n\n<p>But for a while, it was magic.</p>\n\n<p>I even have a picture from back then—before the fence went up, before George ever tried blue. The dogwood stands in full bloom, its white blossoms interrupted by splashes of pink and yellow, looking almost like it had been painted in a dream.</p>\n\n<p>Every time I look at it, I’m right back there—a little kid in the yard, watching strangers stop in the road just to see our tree. Back then, I didn’t see spray paint cans or ladders. I didn’t know about township warnings or traffic complaints.</p>\n\n<p>I just saw my uncle and cousin making the impossible real.</p>",
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      "parent_permlink": "death",
      "author": "monetaryrealist",
      "permlink": "the-long-viewing-2-corinthians-2-15-16",
      "title": "The Long Viewing.. 2 Corinthians 2:15-16",
      "body": "The Long Viewing\n\n(A Meditation on Life in Christ)\n\nIt dawned on me today—\nwhen we are crucified with Christ,\nwe die.\nNot someday.\nNot just at the end.\nWe die now.\nAnd yet—we live.\nBecause He lives.\n\nI’ve thought of this before,\nbut maybe it struck deeper this time.\nMaybe it’s because I’m going to a funeral tomorrow.\nOr maybe it was something in the moonlight tonight,\nthe hush it cast over everything,\nand the ache of time that refuses to stop.\n\nWhen we’re born again,\nas far as the world is concerned,\nthe rest of our life\nis just a viewing.\nNot the funeral.\nThe viewing.\n\nThey still see the body.\nThey still call us by our old name.\nBut something’s changed.\nWe’re not who we were.\n\nAnd the world comes by—\nevery day—\nto see if we’re still dead.\nTo smell.\nTo poke.\nTo watch for signs of life—or signs of decay.\n\nI’ve been to a lot of viewings.\n\nPeople say, “He looks so peaceful,”\nbut most of the time, they don’t.\nLife leaves its mark on a face.\nSo does death.\nAnd sometimes the body looks more like the undertaker’s work\nthan the person we knew.\n\nThat’s what religion tries to do—\nfill the casket with soft lights,\npillows, frills,\nflowers to hide the smell.\nBut when you’ve really died with Christ,\nyou don’t need embalming.\nYou’re not being preserved for a memory.\nYou’re already raised for eternity.\n\nStill—some come to make sure:\nStick a pin in him.\nHold a mirror to her lips.\n“Is she really dead?”\n“Is he really changed?”\n\nAnd what do they see when they come to my viewing?\nDo they smell the old rot of sin—\nor the sweet perfume of the risen Christ?\nDo they mourn what I used to be—\nor wonder at what I’ve become?\n\nI suppose that depends on their nostrils.\n\nI suppose that also depends on my yielding to the Spirit  of Life in Me\n\nOr  A combination of both? \n\n\nBecause to the nostrils of the dead, the living stink.\nAnd to the nostrils of the living, the dead stink.\n\nWe are in Christ—\nthe offscouring of the world.\nScraped off, thrown out,\nand yet—kept by God.\n\nThey see our scars,\nbut not the joy.\nThey hear our sorrow,\nbut not the singing.\n\nWe carry in our bodies the death of Jesus—\nand somehow, that shines.\n\nWe are the aroma of Christ.\nTo the perishing: the smell of death.\nTo the saved: the fragrance of life.\n\nSo let them come.\nLet them see what death looks like\nwhen it’s been swallowed by victory.\n\n⸻\n\n“For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish:\nTo the one we are the savour of death unto death; and to the other the savour of life unto life.\nAnd who is sufficient for these things?”\n—2 Corinthians 2:15–16\n\nYour life in Christ is a long, slow viewing.\n\nNot just a moment at the end. Not just the day they dress you up in a suit and line the room with flowers. No, it started the day you died with Christ.\n\nFrom that moment on, the world’s been walking past your casket.\nLooking. Judging. Mourning what you used to be.\nTrying to figure out if it’s really you in there.\nAnd sometimes wondering if you’re even dead at all.\n\nA life lived as a viewing…\n\t•\tSome will come respectfully.\n\t•\tSome will come critically.\n\t•\tSome will lean in just to see if you’re faking it.\n\t•\tSome will sniff around, hoping the rot proves you’re not really changed.\n\t•\tOthers will weep—not because you’re gone, but because they miss the version of you that lived for this world.\n\nBut the truth is—you’re not in that metaphorical box.\nYou’re already risen.\nSeated in heavenly places.\nHidden with Christ in God.\n\nTo them, it’s a viewing.\nTo you, it’s life more abundant.\n\nAnd at the end, when your body finally catches up with what your spirit already knew,\nthey’ll close the lid on something that’s already long been dead—\nand you’ll walk out into glory.\n\n![A9F3E1A8-10A5-407F-9223-D090A0E16860.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmNogU34tCwK28H1cW2iDoVwBoy2QDFBJsbTmdTk3szDJs/A9F3E1A8-10A5-407F-9223-D090A0E16860.jpeg)",
      "json_metadata": "{\"tags\":[\"death\",\"jesus\",\"resurection\",\"holiness\"],\"image\":[\"https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmNogU34tCwK28H1cW2iDoVwBoy2QDFBJsbTmdTk3szDJs/A9F3E1A8-10A5-407F-9223-D090A0E16860.jpeg\"],\"app\":\"steemit/0.2\",\"format\":\"markdown\"}"
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      "parent_author": "",
      "parent_permlink": "holy",
      "author": "monetaryrealist",
      "permlink": "i-was-aquaman-until-i-tried-to-breathe-underwater-what-childhood-taught-me-about-faith-failure-and-the-spirit-of-god",
      "title": "“I Was Aquaman (Until I Tried to Breathe Underwater)” What Childhood Taught Me About Faith, Failure, and the Spirit of God",
      "body": "<h2>Breathe Through Me, Lord</h2>\n\n![7D9CBBE3-5643-4050-979F-581FEECF9598.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmTdM3VRbwCTnaqiDTbNNvaYq5ungjDtfDcYxUS1LD3jFf/7D9CBBE3-5643-4050-979F-581FEECF9598.png)\n\n\n<p><strong>What was your dream when you were five years old?</strong></p>\n\n<p>I used to dream I could breathe underwater. All the time. Sometimes… I still do.</p>\n\n<p>Not just holding my breath — I mean <em>really</em> breathing. Deep, full, natural — like I was made for it.</p>\n\n<p>When I was still small, back when dreams and reality blurred together, I’d dream the whole house filled with water — not like a flood or something scary, but like it had <em>always</em> been that way.</p>\n\n<p>The living room. The kitchen. Even the hallway — all underwater.</p>\n\n<p>I remember swimming past the television, turning corners with ease, lungs full, no fear at all. I was Aquaman.</p>\n\n<p>It felt peaceful. It felt normal. It felt like I <em>belonged</em> there.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h3>Have you ever breathed in water?</h3>\n\n<p>I decided to try it.</p>\n\n<p>We went to my grandfather’s pool one early summer — the water was ice cold. I eased myself down the metal ladder, held my breath, went under the surface… and opened my mouth.</p>\n\n<p>And… nothing.</p>\n\n<p>Well, not nothing. There was coughing. Burning in my nostrils. A fast, painful reminder: it doesn’t work.</p>\n\n<p>Of course it doesn’t.</p>\n\n<p>I came up sputtering, reality crashing back in. I wasn’t made to breathe underwater. Not yet.</p>\n\n<p>But I kept dreaming. Sometimes I was back in the house, sometimes the pool, sometimes the ocean… always underwater. Always breathing.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>I think that dream stayed with me because it spoke of something deeper: a longing for a different kind of breath — a life not tied to the limitations of flesh. Something spiritual. Something eternal.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h3>Let me step back a moment.</h3>\n\n<p>When I was really little, I loved the water. We lived near the Jersey Shore, and my mom — who could swim like she was born in the sea — used to take us to the beach all the time.</p>\n\n<p>My Aunt Pat, my mom, little Charlie, Tammy, my sister and me — all piled into a hot car, battling traffic just to find our place in the sand, to be near the water… the ocean.</p>\n\n<p>I was maybe three or four years old when I got caught in one of those little curls — one of those waves that breaks right at the shore. It rolled me around like laundry in a washing machine. I remember the panic.</p>\n\n<p>After that, I didn’t even want to get wet.</p>\n\n<p>So my mom signed us up for swim lessons at the YMCA in Lakewood.</p>\n\n<p>I remember clutching the edge of the pool, kicking my feet, learning to float. And slowly… breath by breath… I got it. I started to trust the water again.</p>\n\n<p>Until graduation day.</p>\n\n<p>I wanted to show my mom I could dive. So I ran — full speed — and launched headfirst… into the shallow end.</p>\n\n<p>Cracked my head on the bottom. Blood in the water. They pulled me out fast. No fractured skull, thank God.</p>\n\n<p>And you know what I asked her when I came to?</p>\n\n<blockquote><strong>“Did you see my dive?”</strong></blockquote>\n\n<p>Even through failure, even bleeding, I just wanted to be <em>seen</em>.</p>\n\n<p>Funny how much that’s still true. We try. We stumble. And deep down, we still want God to see us — even in the shallow end.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h3>Back to the water</h3>\n\n<p>That year, I found my way back to the water. Not the ocean — it was too cold in May — but my grandfather’s pool.</p>\n\n<p>And that’s when my parents got me something that almost made my dream feel real: a snorkel and mask. A long tube bringing air from above down to where I was. A mask that let me see clearly beneath the surface.</p>\n\n<p>I remember the first time I used it — face in the water, heart pounding — thinking:</p>\n\n<blockquote><strong>“I’m doing it… I’m breathing down here!”</strong></blockquote>\n\n<p>But of course, I wasn’t breathing <em>in</em> the water. I was breathing <em>while</em> in it — pulling air from another place.</p>\n\n<p>Now, as a Christian, I understand what that means: that’s exactly what it is to follow Christ.</p>\n\n<p>We don’t live by the breath of this world. We survive by drawing life from above.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n  <p><strong>“If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above… Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.”</strong><br>— Colossians 3:1–2</p>\n  <p><strong>“In Him we live, and move, and have our being…”</strong><br>— Acts 17:28</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>We were born again to breathe different air. Our spiritual lungs can’t survive long on the things of this world.</p>\n\n<p>Did you know you can drown in just a few inches of water?</p>\n\n<p><em>Christian — how deep into this world do you think you can go while breathing its atmosphere into lungs that were remade for heaven?</em></p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h3>The hose trick (that didn’t work)</h3>\n\n<p>I once tried to engineer my own breathing system.</p>\n\n<p>I figured, if a snorkel works, a garden hose must work better, right?</p>\n\n<p>So I sank to the bottom of the pool. My cousin Annie held one end of the hose above water… and I waited.</p>\n\n<p>But no air came. Even at five or six feet, I couldn’t draw in a single breath.</p>\n\n<p>My body knew it before my brain did.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Pressure can kill you.</strong></p>\n\n<p>Human effort can’t overpower it. No clever fix. No workaround. Not in the pool. Not in the ocean. And not in the Spirit.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n  <p><strong>“Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.”</strong><br>— Zechariah 4:6</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h3>The patent that made me laugh… and think</h3>\n\n<p>Years later, a friend — always inventing — invited me over. He handed me a folder titled: <strong>Underwater Breathing Apparatus</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>Inside was a sketch of a raft, a hose going straight down — twenty feet or more — and a diver standing on the ocean floor, breathing through it.</p>\n\n<p>I smiled and said, “Yeah… I’ve tried that. That won’t work.”</p>\n\n<p>He laughed. “Yeah — that’s what they told me at the patent office too.”</p>\n\n<p>And it made me think:</p>\n\n<p>How many people try to live for God the same way? Dragging a man-made system into a place we were never designed to be without Him. Trying to breathe through effort, or religion, or invention.</p>\n\n<p><strong>You can’t fake air.</strong> And you can’t fake being filled with the Holy Spirit.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n  <p><strong>“The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life.”</strong><br>— Job 33:4</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h3>The suit I never wore</h3>\n\n<p>I never did wear one of those deep-sea diving suits I used to dream about — the kind with the brass helmet and the air pumped in from above.</p>\n\n<p>But I understand now: that suit is a <em>picture</em>. A type of Christ.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n  <p><strong>“Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ…”</strong><br>— Romans 13:14</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>He doesn’t just give you strength — He becomes your strength. He doesn’t just supply breath — He <em>is</em> your breath.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n  <p><strong>“And He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost.”</strong><br>— John 20:22</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h3>Deep places, sacred silence</h3>\n\n<p>Sometimes, when God takes you into deep places, you find yourself in silence. Stillness.</p>\n\n<p>You try to speak — it sounds like bubbles. You try to explain — but no one on the surface understands.</p>\n\n<p>But you're not alone.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n  <p><strong>“The Comforter… shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance.”</strong><br>— John 14:26</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>In the quiet, the Word rises. Grace you didn’t know you needed. Strength you didn’t know you had.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n  <p><strong>“Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of Thy waterspouts…”</strong><br>— Psalm 42:7</p>\n  <p><strong>“Even there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold me.”</strong><br>— Psalm 139:10</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h3>Coming back up</h3>\n\n<p>And when you surface — when the mission is done, or the season lifts — you realize:</p>\n\n<p><strong>I was equipped for a depth most cannot enter.</strong><br>Not because of who I am… but because of who filled me.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n  <p><strong>“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me…”</strong><br>— Galatians 2:20</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>So I breathe in again. Not just oxygen — but <em>gratitude</em>.</p>\n\n<h3><em>Breathe through me, Lord. I cannot live here without You.</em></h3>",
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      "parent_author": "",
      "parent_permlink": "resurrection",
      "author": "monetaryrealist",
      "permlink": "morning-is-coming",
      "title": "Morning is Coming.",
      "body": "The Morning Is Coming\n\n  <h1>The Morning Is Coming</h1>\n![IMG_1842.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmPM4nNj1L3C7LRDtuHQQGCvvYU6bRqLz7W23ga4muMA1H/IMG_1842.jpeg)\n\n\n  <p>I remember going to the cemetery when I was a kid. Mostly it was Woodlawn Cemetery in Lakewood, New Jersey, where we’d “visit” my mother’s father’s side of the family—the Johnsons, almost all of them. What I didn’t know as a child was that my great-grandmother Elizabeth Johnson—who I called Great Nana—was already a Johnson before she married my great-grandfather Benjamin. That name ran through both sides, and yes, it does complicate researching and tracing a family tree. At first glance, if you’re not careful, it could create what looks more like a family shrub than a tree.</p>\n\n  <p>My cousin Betsy—who I always called Aunt Betsy—told me that long before I came along, my grandfather Ernest (known to everyone else as Uncle Ernie, but to me he was always “Poppy” as a little boy, and as I grew up he was always “POP”) would load up the car on Memorial Day, bring along a few of the girls—his nieces and my mom and maybe a sister or two—and make a day of tending the graves. Geraniums were the flower of choice. They’d pack lunches and make it an event, placing the bright blooms with care at each grave—first a cemetery, then a churchyard, then another plot—each one remembered.</p>\n\n  <p>Nowadays, mostly I see plastic silk flowers. They seem to last longer, but there is no fragrance, and eventually—because they last longer but fade—they start to look trashy unless they’re thrown away. Flags too are put out on Memorial Day and sometimes the 4th of July, on veterans’ graves and for the community volunteers. At the graves of volunteer firemen, bright red flags with gold-stenciled fire department logos are placed. It can make for quite a busy place. But flags fade or are broken, and time moves on and repeats—as it should…</p>\n\n  <p>And as time moves on, as it does, some things fade—plastic flowers, frayed flags, even the crowds. But Pop never stopped visiting. And neither did Nana. They didn’t need a holiday to remember. They carried the memory of those they loved into every season.</p>\n\n  <p>And so when Nana and Pop were much older and all of the nieces were grown, they would still get my mother and tend a few in Woodlawn or Southard… until one day, on their wedding anniversary in the mid-1980s, my Nana and Pop (Ernest and Grace) decided to get something truly special for each other. It was very expensive, but it was just exactly right… They were so pleased with their gift that they went to show my mom, LannyLou. They picked her up, all excited, saying they had something beautiful to show her—but first, they had to swing by Woodlawn to put out the geraniums and check on the family stones.</p>\n\n  <p>Nana was always dressed up, and Pop… well, he was always Pop. Sometimes he would wear a bolo tie, but he always had a nice button-up shirt, even for work… so Mom was in the car, and they could have been going anyplace nice.</p>\n\n  <p>As they drove up the main road of the cemetery, Mom was fully persuaded that this was just a pit stop… Pop stopped the car, and he and Nana and Mom got out and started walking. And then Nana pointed: “There it is!” Nana added, “Isn’t it beautiful? It’s rose granite—just like my mother’s.”</p>\n\n  <p>But this time, the stone bore their own names. It was a new gravestone with both their names and birth dates already carved into it.</p>\n\n  <p>My mom, who was in her late 40s at the time, wasn’t exactly thrilled to see her parents’ future resting place set in stone. At the time, to be honest, Mom was really kind of angry about it—she told me later, laughing as hard as she could.</p>\n\n  <p>I can actually recall when this happened—my mother calling me afterward, not very pleased. At the same time, she had to laugh. I think she said something like, “What were they thinking? That I would be happy about this?” She might’ve told a few of the other relatives too. And then, many years later, she told me the whole story—just laughing at the kitchen table as we sat together, watching the birds pick through seeds in the snow through her sliding glass door. But I digress.</p>\n\n  <p>The one who really thought it was funny, if I remember correctly, was Nana.</p>\n\n  <p>Years later, in early December or late November of 1999, while Nana was in the hospital, she made my mom go back to the cemetery to check something. She was terrified that the death date etched in the stone—only marked “19–”—might have been mistakenly or magically advanced to “20–.”</p>\n\n  <p>Mom said, “How would that happen?”<br>\n  But Nana insisted, and Mom drove out to the cemetery to make sure that gnomes had not somehow changed the date…</p>\n\n  <p>Nana was relieved when my mom returned and confirmed it still read “19–.”<br>\n  She died just before Christmas that year.</p>\n\n  <p>Nana knew it was time, I think.</p>\n\n  <p>I preached her funeral on December 23, 1999, and later—during a light rain—we drove to the cemetery. As we pulled in, her cousin Billy Addison, an officer with the Lakewood Police Department, was standing in the rain with his bagpipe, playing <em>Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound…</em></p>\n\n  <p>Nana and Pop had been married 54 years.</p>\n\n  <p>I still visit their grave, and I still tend to it.</p>\n\n  <p><em>I can still hear the lonely bagpipe play.</em></p>\n\n  <p>It’s good to know I’m not alone. My cousin Mary Lou—yes, the same one from the rabbit hunting stories—tends many of the others at Woodlawn: the uncles, her father and mother, Uncle Ben and Aunt Helen. Uncle Otis is there, and George, Great Nana and her husband Benjamin Sr., and so many others.</p>\n\n  <p>Several years ago, I brought some of those old pig iron sandstones to Nana and Pop’s grave as a historical tribute to her great-great-great etc. grandfather John Riley, who was a blacksmith at Allaire Foundry and community (currently Allaire State Park), and I built a small flower bed in front of their monument and planted a few of the hyacinths I dug up from their old home. And instead of geraniums, I planted a miniature rose. One year, I even planted a tomato to honor Pop’s love of gardening. But Mom wouldn’t eat any of them. “It’s just wrong,” she said. I ate them, and it didn’t feel wrong at all, but I never told Mom.</p>\n\n  <p>Eventually, though, it was time for me to find a place to bury my mom when she died. And it was going to be soon—she had fallen into a comatose state, and I just could not let her go. I knew she was saved, but it was God who would have to take her to Himself, not me. She had made no plans, so I had to. She left no money except a small life insurance policy to split between me and my sister, along with a letter telling us how sorry she was for not leaving anything—and pleading with us not to fight with each other. I already knew, but it didn’t matter. It’s not about money. My sister and I get along, and family kicked in and made sure all was covered.</p>\n\n  <p>When my mom died, everything felt sudden, even though part of me had seen it coming. There were so many questions to answer—the biggest one being: Where should she be laid to rest?</p>\n\n  <p>I didn’t have a ready answer. We’d always gone to Woodlawn. That’s where her parents were—Ernie and Grace Johnson—along with nearly all of her uncles and aunts. That was where the geraniums were planted, the tomato that wasn’t eaten, the granite that held more memories than inscriptions. But there were no plots left there—at least none that we owned. Most importantly, there was no place left for her beside them.</p>\n\n  <p>Then I remembered Southard.</p>\n\n  <p>The Southard Methodist Cemetery—not far from where her ancestors once lived, not far from where so many of them were already resting—held the key. I began looking deeper and found something remarkable: my great-grandfather George Addison, who had two children, had also purchased four plots many decades ago. Two of them had already been used—one for George himself and the other for his wife Viola. Remember, they had two children: one, my Uncle Norman, who is buried in the Methodist graveyard off Hope Chapel Road in Lakewood, and Grace Uda, my grandmother, who was buried at Woodlawn in Lakewood next to her husband Ernest.</p>\n\n  <p>That left two unused plots. And they still belonged to the family.</p>\n\n  <p>I drafted an affidavit, documenting the lineage and ownership. No one in the family contested it. Everyone understood. It made sense. This was the right place.</p>\n\n  <p>So I buried my mother next to her grandparents—next to George and Viola Addison, next to the quiet road that runs through that quiet of Southard Graveyard, where the trees still whisper, and the gravestones still remember. There was no question anymore. This is where she belonged.</p>\n\n  <p>Southard is a name on buildings now, incorporated into Howell Township. The plows are gone, and most of the old homesteads have been subdivided, sold, or overtaken by time. A huge Coptic church sits across the street, and a Walmart has taken up all the land that once served as farms. But the churchyard remains—modest, tucked away, not far from where the family once worked and worshiped. It holds not just the remains of those who came before, but the memory of the world they helped shape.</p>\n\n  <p>The church that once stood there still stands but is not part of the graveyard anymore—it’s still simple and whitewashed like so many rural Methodist chapels. But back then, it was more than a building. It was the center of life for the community that had endured war, raised barns, buried children, and prayed for rain. It was there that Viola and Lavinia—and even Uda (my Nana)—taught Sunday school, passing on Scripture and songs to the next generation. I believe it was Lavinia, a woman of rare strength and presence, who also became the first female postmistress in the region—trusted with communication, trusted with responsibility. She knew every family by name and every road by feel. I have a photograph with the whole family standing on the porch looking out, and above them the small sign: “Post Office.”</p>\n\n  <p>The graveyard beside that old church tells a story written in granite and lichen. Parents named their children Ulysses S. Grant, Longstreet, Jackson, and Fulton—names not chosen lightly, but in honor of the generals and causes they fought for, bled for, and, in some cases, never returned from. Some came home wounded in body and spirit, never quite the same. Some did not come home at all. And some moved on, seeking quieter places to start over or bury the past.</p>\n\n  <p>But those who did return, those who chose to stay and stitch themselves back into the fabric of the land—they’re here. Buried among kin, neighbors, and fellow soldiers. You can still trace the line of their lives in the rows of headstones. Some are grand and upright; others are weathered, leaning, almost swallowed by the earth. But they’re still standing. Just like the memory of the church, just like the soil they turned, the hymns they sang, and the promises they believed.</p>\n\n  <p><strong>Read the stones.</strong> They confess a hope of the resurrection, the promise of heaven, and the rest that only Jesus can provide.</p>\n\n  <p>So when I laid my mother there—beside George and Viola Addison—it didn’t feel like an end. It felt like a homecoming. A return not just to family, but to the people who had carried this place through fire and faith. In that quiet corner of Southard, where the trees still whisper and the gravestones still remember, she is not alone.</p>\n\n  <p><strong>She is among her own.</strong></p>\n\n  <p>And when I bought my mother’s headstone, I found pink granite—not as dark as Viola’s or as light as Grace’s, but still. It’s the little things that see us together sometimes.</p>\n\n  <p>And though her body rests in that soil, I know she is not in the darkness of the grave. She is in Christ—the Light of the world, the Resurrection and the Life. The same Jesus who said, “He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” She is with Him, where there is no more pain, no more sorrow, no more parting. She has already risen in spirit, and her body, like so many others buried in that ground, waits only for the shout, the trumpet, and the call of God.</p>\n\n  <p>Because this cemetery—quiet as it seems—is not a place of forgetting. It is a field of testimony. These gravestones are not just markers; they are witnesses. Many of them speak still—not with audible words, but with names carved in hope, with dates wrapped in grace, with Scriptures chosen by hands that believed in a world yet to come. These are the resting places of those who died in faith—not having received the promise, but having seen it afar off, and embraced it.</p>\n\n  <p>And one day, they will rise.</p>\n\n  <p><em>As Paul wrote to the Thessalonians,</em> “The dead in Christ shall rise first… and we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them… and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”</p>\n\n  <p>This is not the end of the story. Not for her. Not for any of us who are in Christ.</p>\n\n  <p>The trees may whisper, and the stones may weather, but the promises of God stand sure. And in that hope, I laid her down—not in defeat, but in expectation.</p>\n\n  <p><strong>Waiting for the morning.</strong></p>\n\n  <p><strong>The morning is coming.</strong></p>\n\n</body>\n</html>\n![IMG_BFB92858-CE81-4776-AA42-80EF3A7A5178.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmUTNiMzxYxEguY9PNPicw8GbkgUgmLkLqm5gbEs2ooqpm/IMG_BFB92858-CE81-4776-AA42-80EF3A7A5178.jpeg)",
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      "parent_permlink": "death",
      "author": "monetaryrealist",
      "permlink": "let-me-tell-you-something-about-death",
      "title": "Let me tell you something about death",
      "body": "<h4>Let Me Tell You Something About Death</h4>\n\n<blockquote>\n  <p><strong>“It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.”</strong><br>\n  — Hebrews 9:27 (KJV)</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n![D7287CE4-EE8C-4F7B-96A9-95CD9AC00097.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmVmyx4jsuTeoQu5WJG7c55owuhf4nXTLBC3kHNz1XFXTM/D7287CE4-EE8C-4F7B-96A9-95CD9AC00097.png)\n\n<p>Let me tell you something about death—it’s not what the movies told you. It doesn’t always wait for last words or give you one final breath to whisper a prayer. Sometimes it doesn’t even knock. It just walks in.</p>\n\n<p>People think they have time. Time to get right. Time to clean up. Time to call Mama. Time to make peace. But they don’t. I’ve seen it with my own eyes—death shows up when the calendar’s blank, when the rain is soft, when the world is still turning like nothing’s wrong.</p>\n\n<p>I’ve found people with lottery tickets still clenched in their hands. I’ve held men while their blood soaked into the sidewalk. I’ve sat with strangers as they took their last breath, with Masons lining up behind me too late. I’ve seen the dog barking over its dead master, and the hoarder who never made it out of the maze he built for himself.</p>\n\n<p>Most of them didn’t think it would end like that. Some thought they had years. Some thought they had hours. All they really had was <em>now</em>.</p>\n\n<p>This isn’t about fear. It’s about truth. Because once you’ve seen what I’ve seen, you stop playing games. You stop assuming people know the gospel. You stop pretending death is polite.</p>\n\n<p>What you’ll read in these pages are real stories. I didn’t write them to be poetic. I wrote them because I couldn’t forget them.</p>\n\n<p>Some of these people may have called on Jesus. Some may not have. But they all had one thing in common:</p>\n\n<h3><em>They ran out of time.</em></h3>\n\n<p>And every time I stood over one of them, the same thought echoed in my heart:</p>\n\n<p><strong><em>I should have said more.</em>\n\n</strong></p> <h2>Chapter One: Bob</h2>\n\n<p><strong>Let me tell you something about death.</strong> It doesn’t always come with thunder. Sometimes it shows up on a blistering summer day, quietly sitting down in a folding chair just to pull the trigger without flinching. That’s how it came for Bob.</p>\n\n<p>It was an extremely hot day and I was working on the engine of my truck. It was an old 1969 box truck—a Grumman. I bought it for $1,300, I think. I kept all my lawn equipment in there, drove around, did what I needed to do. But I was always having to work on it.</p>\n\n<p>My son was always trying to help. My oldest daughter too—she was always getting tools and asking if I needed something to drink. This particular day, I think my Son  was around nine, and that would make my Daughter eight. Irish twins. It was summertime, and there was something wrong with the engine—maybe just the radiator—but I had the hood up and we were working on it.</p>\n\n<p>The house we lived in had a decent-sized piece of property, and there was a dirt road that ran the full length of the back. It dead-ended into the woods. Across that dirt road, on a triangle-shaped piece of land near the railroad tracks and a small train bridge, there were initially four or five mobile homes. Eventually, there were only three.</p>\n\n<p>In one lived a man who had married a Vietnamese or Singaporean woman while overseas. He raised bees in the back and she would sweep her front yard—which was all dirt—with a palm-leaf broom she’d made herself. She swept it every day.</p>\n\n<p>The next trailer, behind that one, housed a man who claimed to be the head of the Ku Klux Klan in the area. One day, he walked up to me over the back gate, introduced himself, and handed me a card. It didn’t have his real name—just “Dragon” and “Invisible Empire.” I found it ironic that an invisible empire needed business cards. I’d met some real hard men in the South, and I didn’t see anything visionary or worthy of surpremist delusions about this guy. But he mostly minded himself, got drunk a lot, listened to loud Southern rock, and stayed in his corner.</p>\n\n<p>Then there was the trailer directly behind ours , it was home to a black family whose kids we took to church quite often. Their mother was impeccably clean, obviously loved her children, but seemed to go through boyfriends like tissue. Things would get wild sometimes—like something straight out of Jerry Springer. I remember one day she had an argument with her boyfriend, who drove a red Camaro. She was twice his size and so angry, she tried to drag him out of the car. He tried to drive off or drive over her but  she  jumped in front of the car with a cinderblock and smashed the windshield while screaming at the top of her lungs. It was like a parody of a stereotype—but it was real.</p>\n\n<p>Of course, with the Klan guy living behind them, there was not much friendly interaction between those households… unless the boyfriend—who fancied himself a pseudo–Black Panther—and the Klan guy both got drunk and hung out together. Which happened. Strange, but it happened.</p>\n\n<p>That mom had three boys, I think, and maybe a girl, i think there were a couple different dads but they looked alike. You could tell they were brothers. They were friends with my kids. We took them to church regularly until one day, the mother told them they couldn’t go anymore. I went to talk to her about it, and shared the gospel with her. She said something like, “You don’t have to go to church to go to heaven—God understands.”</p>\n\n<p>I told her it’s not about being good or bad. What matters is Jesus, because all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Some people have done a lot of sin, and others a little—but without Christ, they’re in the same place. And she said, “Well, I don’t think that.” I said, “Even Hitler liked dogs and loved his family—that doesn’t make him a good person.” She said, “Maybe it doesn’t mean he was a bad person either.” I said, “Ma’am, he was responsible for the deaths of millions.” And she replied, “Well, maybe they had it coming.”</p>\n\n<p>I stood there stunned. “World War II, ma’am—millions of Jews.” And she said, “Look, I went to school 20 years ago—you don’t expect me to remember all that.”</p>\n\n<p>That’s when I realized I’d have to start my argument way further back than I thought.</p>\n\n<p>Anyway, one of her boys came crying to me. His mom wouldn’t let him go to church anymore. When I asked why, he said she’d accused him of “acting white.” He looked at me and said, “If going across the street to those white folks makes me white, I’d rather be white than black like this. They feed us, they don’t curse at us, and they treat us like we matter.”</p>\n\n<p>There was more going on in that house than I knew.</p>\n\n<p>Then there was Bob. He and his wife had been there the longest. I think he owned his trailer. The rest probably rented. Bob was a Freemason. Nice guy, but hard to talk to about the Lord. He had a little garden, but there was too much shade for much to grow. His wife had threatened suicide more than once. Bob always seemed tired, like a man holding on to the last rope of peace he had left.</p>\n\n<p>I was working on the truck that day—hood up, elbows deep—when I heard yelling from Bob’s trailer. Just sounded like a typical fight. But then it got louder. Sharper. I stayed focused on the truck. My son was inside the cab. Then I heard Bob yelling outside. He couldn’t get in—she had locked him out.</p>\n\n<p>Then he yelled something like, “If you’re going to kill yourself, then I’m not staying in this trailer alone with all these crazy neighbors!”</p>\n\n<p>I looked up.</p>\n\n<p>He was dragging a folding lawn chair—green and white plastic slats, aluminum frame. The kind you take to the beach. He set it up in the yard by the road, sat down in it, buttoned up his blue checkered shirt, shouted one last thing toward the trailer…</p>\n\n<p>Then he put the barrel of the revolver into his mouth and shot himself.</p>\n\n<p>The sound of the .38 going off was unmistakable. It wasn’t loud. It was dull and final. Like a period at the end of a sentence God never wrote.</p>\n\n<p>I jumped down and ran. My son followed me. I turned and said, “Go back to the house. Tell your mother to call the police.”</p>\n\n<p>I don’t remember all the details, but Bob didn’t fall out of the chair. He kind of slumped and slid. I think I pulled him down gently. I remember sitting cross-legged on the ground with his head in my lap. He was breathing, but his color was changing. No exit wound. No blood out of his mouth. Maybe the bullet hit his dentures and lodged.</p>\n\n<p>And I just started singing. And praying.</p>\n\n<p>“Bob, if you can hear me, you don’t have much time. Jesus died for you. He rose again. And this doesn’t have to be the end. But if you don’t know Him, you only have maybe a minute or two. Call out to Him now. Please, Bob…”</p>\n\n<p>His breathing slowed… and then stopped.</p>\n\n<p>The paramedics arrived, but I was still holding his head. I told them, “You start CPR and blood’s gonna go everywhere.”</p>\n\n<p>They did anyway. As soon as they compressed his chest, blood poured out. Like squeezing a red tube of toothpaste.</p>\n\n<p>Soon after, his wife was brought out of the house on a stretcher. She’d taken pills—this time she wasn’t kidding. She was dead too.</p>\n\n<p>All I could think was: <strong>If Bob died and went to hell, he would not be alone.</strong></p>\n\n<p>The Klansman. The woman in chaos. The drunk boyfriends. The proud. The silent. The decent ones who never repented. All standing together before the throne, speechless.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Let me tell you something about death:</strong><br>\nIt comes for everyone. And when it does, you won’t care what your title was, what color you were, or who lived in the trailer next to yours. You’ll care whether you knew the One who conquered it.</p>\n\n<p>And I’ll still be here thinking… <em>I should have said more.</em></p>\n<h2>Chapter Two: The Man on Front Street</h2>\n\n<p><strong>Let me tell you something about death:</strong> It doesn’t always come with warning signs. There doesn’t have to be a cataclysm. There doesn’t have to be an asteroid or the sound of war. It can be a peaceful, beautiful, rainy day—and then, out of nowhere, you’re gone.</p>\n\n<p>This man lived in a duplex along Front Street, in or near the town where we lived. I used to go door to door or just make general visits, wherever I felt led. I didn’t always have a plan. Sometimes I stood outside a supermarket handing out tracts. Sometimes I just walked or rode to the park, or down a street, Bible strapped to the back of my bicycle—sometimes even a thesaurus, dictionary, or concordance in the basket in case I needed to study or answer a question.</p>\n\n<p>That day I was riding down Front Street, railroad tracks on my right, the duplexes on my left. These were the same tracks that ran past where Bob died—maybe a mile down. As I rode by, I happened to glance through a large open-pane window and saw an elderly man sitting very upright at a small round table. His back was straight, shoulders square. The door was just to his left. I remember thinking, <em>That old man lives alone. I’m going to stop on the way back and talk to him about the Lord.</em></p>\n\n<p>So I kept going. I don’t remember where I was headed—maybe the market, maybe just making visits, or reading Scripture somewhere. But I know I was gone at least an hour or two.</p>\n\n<p>When I came back, I approached the same duplex from the other direction. This time the railroad tracks were on my left and his house on my right. I pulled up to the curb and walked along the sidewalk toward the door. But before I could knock, I looked through the same window and saw…</p>\n\n<p>He was still sitting there. Same table. Same position. Only this time, I could see more clearly. His left hand was clenched around what looked like lottery tickets. His eyes were wide open. He had a strange, stiff expression on his face. I thought maybe he was in some sort of daze.</p>\n\n<p>I tapped the glass. He didn’t flinch. I knocked again—nothing. That’s when I noticed something small—a fly had landed on his cheek. And then I had this awful thought: <em>If that fly crawls across his eye and he doesn’t blink, he’s dead.</em></p>\n\n<p>Sure enough, it did. And he didn’t move.</p>\n\n<p>He was dead. Still sitting up. Upright. Clutching lottery tickets like maybe he had won something—or maybe he was just holding onto a last hope.</p>\n\n<p>I ran to the house next door and asked to use their phone. Told them what I saw. They were startled but kind. I called the police. When they arrived, I explained I hadn’t been inside—I just happened to see him earlier that day and felt led to return and talk to him. But I didn’t stop when I first saw him. I waited. I told them, “I was going to share Jesus with him.”</p>\n\n<p>One of the officers looked at me sideways. “How did you know he was dead?”</p>\n\n<p>I said, “He’s got a fly crawling across his eyeball. If he’s not dead, he’s the best statue I’ve ever seen.”</p>\n\n<p>They took my information. Asked a few more questions. Then they went inside and confirmed it: the man had died, still sitting upright at the table. I never knew his name. I never found out how long he’d been there—if he died just after I passed the first time, or if it had been longer.</p>\n\n<p>I just know this: I meant to stop. I meant to say something. I didn’t. I delayed. I thought I had time.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Let me tell you something about death:</strong> Sometimes you don’t get the chance to say what you need to say. And sometimes the only thing worse than being too late… is knowing you were almost right on time.</p>\n\n<p>I don’t know if he ever heard the gospel before. I don’t know if anyone ever told him that Jesus died for him. But I know that day—it wasn’t me.</p>\n\n<p>He died with lottery tickets in his hand. Maybe he won. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he thought he had more time to make peace with God. Maybe he was already gone when I first passed.</p>\n\n<p>But I didn’t knock. I didn’t stop. And the thought that haunts me still is:</p>\n\n<p><em>I should have said more.</em></p>\n<h2>Chapter Three: Before the Masons Came</h2>\n\n<p><strong>Let me tell you something about death:</strong> Sometimes you do get a chance—one final moment to speak the truth before the shadows fall. And when that window opens, you'd better be bold enough to step through it. Because if you don’t, someone else might—and they might not be bringing life with them.</p>\n\n<p>It was 1999, and my grandmother—my Nana—was dying. She had been in and out of the hospital for a while, dealing with dialysis and other serious issues. She was born in 1912. I’d been doing everything I could to help—bringing her vitamin-rich popsicles packed with antioxidants, encouraging her to eat, praying over her. I don’t want to go too deep into what was going on with her right now, but during those weeks, I was in and out of that hospital constantly. Intensive care. Waiting rooms. Long walks down sterile halls. Always hoping today wasn’t the day she let go.</p>\n\n<p>One afternoon I was in the elevator, quietly singing <em>Amazing Grace</em>. Not for show—just for the Lord. A woman was riding with me, a black woman, very sweet. She told me she went to the big Baptist church in Lakewood, the one that’s since been bought out by the Orthodox community. She heard me singing and we struck up a conversation. She told me about her father-in-law—an older white man—who was in critical condition. He wasn’t saved, and she was worried. So I asked her: “Would you mind if I came to pray for him, maybe talk with him a bit?” She agreed.</p>\n\n<p>We went down into the ICU. Her father-in-law was stretched out on his back—tall, solid, probably once very strong. You could tell this man had been rugged, maybe a coal miner or a laborer of some kind. His body had lost its fight, but the outline of strength was still there. Big hands. Heavy frame. Now nearly lifeless. His breathing was ragged—every inhale like a man hanging onto his last bit of earth, afraid to let go.</p>\n\n<p>His son—her husband—was there, along with another family member. They were all white. She was black. I asked the son if I could talk to his father, and he said yes, “Go right ahead.”</p>\n\n<p>I introduced myself to the old man, grabbed his hand, and asked if he could hear me. He squeezed. It was tight—intentional. He was weak, but present. I leaned in close. The smell in the room was unforgettable: medicinal, sterile, but with an edge I recognized—a jaundiced, almost metallic smell. I had smelled it before, years earlier, when my grandfather’s sister Dorthe was dying. It’s the smell of a body winding down.</p>\n\n<p>I got closer and spoke softly. “Sir, I’ve been talking to your daughter-in-law. She’s worried about you, and she asked me to come pray. I don’t know your condition, but I want to share something important.”</p>\n\n<p>He squeezed my hand again.</p>\n\n<p>So I shared the gospel. I told him Jesus came for sinners, died in our place, rose again from the dead. I told him about grace—that Christ could forgive all his sins, no matter how many, and give him a righteousness not his own. I told him it wasn’t about being good enough—it was about Jesus being <em>perfect</em> in our place.</p>\n\n<p>“Do you believe that?” I asked. He squeezed again.</p>\n\n<p>“Would you like to receive Christ right now? You can do it. Right here. Just call on Him. Ask Him to forgive you. Ask Him to save you.”</p>\n\n<p>He squeezed again. Tighter.</p>\n\n<p>Then, a tear. A single tear ran down his cheek. He couldn’t speak, but his eyes moved. His grip tightened. His breathing grew slower.</p>\n\n<p>I told him about the thief on the cross—that he didn’t have time to clean up his life, but he had just enough time to say, “Lord, remember me.” And Jesus said, “Today thou shalt be with me in paradise.”</p>\n\n<p>I said, “Sir, you can be with Him too. But it has to be now. You don’t have much time.”</p>\n\n<p>And then I began to sing.</p>\n\n<p>I sang:</p>\n<blockquote>\n  “I heard an old, old story,<br>\n  How a Savior came from glory,<br>\n  How He gave His life on Calvary,<br>\n  To save a wretch like me…”<br><br>\n\n  “And somehow Jesus came and brought<br>\n  To me the victory…”\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Then I sang <em>Amazing Grace</em>. And as I sang, more people came in—his brothers, friends, people from his life. That’s when I saw it: Masonic regalia. Little white aprons. Square and compass jewelry. Men whispering in ceremonial tones.</p>\n\n<p>They were there for their ritual.</p>\n\n<p>But thank God—<strong>thank God</strong>—I got to him first.</p>\n\n<p>Because if they had gotten to him before I did, they would’ve distracted him, misled him, wrapped him in symbols and secrecy instead of truth and salvation. The enemy would’ve surrounded him in false light when what he needed was the true Light.</p>\n\n<p>The next day, I ran into the family again. They told me he had passed away. They cried. I cried. Then the daughter-in-law asked if I’d say a few words at the funeral—and maybe sing <em>Amazing Grace</em>. I said I’d be honored.</p>\n\n<p>The funeral was held in a large church—her church. Nearly everyone there was black, gathered to honor a white man in a coffin. It was beautiful. I stood and said what had to be said:</p>\n\n<p><strong>“It’s never too late to call on the name of the Lord… but it can be too late if you wait too long.”</strong></p>\n\n<p>And I sang.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Let me tell you something about death:</strong><br>\nThere may be just one moment left—the last window before eternity. And when it comes, you’d better already know the One who holds the door.</p>\n\n<p>I believe he called on Jesus that day.</p>\n\n<p>And I believe the Masons were too late.</p>\n\n<h2>Chapter Four: The CVS Bench</h2>\n\n<p><strong>Let me tell you something about death:</strong> It can come when everything seems normal. There doesn’t have to be a car crash, or a diagnosis, or a war. It can happen on a peaceful, rainy day—while you're reading the paper—without warning, without time to think. One minute you're here. The next, you’re gone.</p>\n\n<p>This happened at a CVS pharmacy. I was just trying to get a few dollars out of the ATM before heading to the flea market. Nothing spiritual, nothing dramatic. It was just part of a normal day.</p>\n\n<p>As I pulled in, I noticed a group of people standing around near the front of the building, between the sidewalk and the parking lot. They weren’t rushing or shouting—just hovering, uncertain. Curious. That kind of frozen hesitation you see when people are watching tragedy unfold but don’t know what to do yet.</p>\n\n<p>As I looped around toward the ATM, I noticed something else—something red trailing along the sidewalk, like a line drawn from the edge of the crowd. Then I saw a man lying on the ground. He was twisted onto his side, barely visible. I parked, jumped out, and walked over to the scene. No police. No paramedics. Just bystanders. One woman in a pharmacy smock, and several others looking stunned.</p>\n\n<p>As I got closer, it became clear: this man had been <em>pinned</em> against the wall. It looked like something invisible had crushed him into the side of the building and then vanished. The bench he’d been sitting on—one of those metal-framed types bolted into the sidewalk—had snapped from its bolts. The supports had buckled and bent backward like broken fingers. And now the man lay twisted in the remnants of it, half-conscious, blood everywhere.</p>\n\n<p>What happened was this: an elderly woman, possibly with Alzheimer’s or some other cognitive issue, had tried to park in the handicap space. But instead of braking, she hit the gas, jumped the curb, and slammed her car into the man while he sat peacefully on the bench waiting for his wife. The force pinned him to the wall. Then, realizing she wasn’t in the correct space, she backed up, pulled into the actual handicap spot… and <em>went inside the store</em>. She had no idea what she’d done.</p>\n\n<p>By the time I got to him, the man was still alive—but barely. He had a glazed look in his eyes. His face was against the cold, wet pavement, and I couldn’t bear to leave him like that. So I knelt down, got underneath, and gently lifted his head off the concrete. I held it in my hands. I cradled him. And I prayed.</p>\n\n<p>“Sir, I don’t know if you can hear me. But if you can, please listen. You don’t have much time. If you’ve never asked Jesus Christ to save you, do it now. Right now. Deep in your heart, believe that He died and rose again. Confess Him. Trust Him. You don’t have to have all the words—just faith. Don’t wait. Don’t let go.”</p>\n\n<p>I could see he was still breathing, but it was shallow. There was so much blood. The bench had punctured his leg—probably his femoral artery. I saw muscle, tissue… not just a cut, but a wound that meant this man wasn’t going to last long. He was almost unconscious already.</p>\n\n<p>That’s when the police showed up. One officer approached and said, “We need to begin compressions. We have to keep his heart going.” I told him, “You can try, but look—he’s bleeding out. If you press on him, it’s going to force all the blood out of him. It’ll be like squeezing toothpaste.”</p>\n\n<p>But they had their procedure. They did it anyway. As they started compressions, the blood shot out. A terrible, pulsing stream—like something you'd see in war. They were trying to keep him alive, but it was already too late. His body was emptying faster than they could stop it.</p>\n\n<p>I told them they needed to apply a tourniquet. They were working fast, but I knew in my gut—it was over.</p>\n\n<p>They finally got him onto a stretcher, loaded him into the ambulance. I stood back, blood on my hands, his blood. His head had never touched the pavement. I made sure of that.</p>\n\n<p>Then I went inside. I wanted to find the woman. And there she was—walking through the store aisles like nothing had happened. She was holding a bottle of shampoo or something, just browsing. Oblivious.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Let me tell you something about death:</strong> It doesn’t care if you’re in a bad neighborhood. It doesn’t care if you’re on your way to church or going to pick up prescriptions. It doesn’t wait for drama or catastrophe. Sometimes it just steps off the curb and lands on your head.</p>\n\n<p>Later on, I was contacted to give a statement. I had to testify, maybe not in a courtroom, but in a legal setting—some kind of deposition. CVS had to answer for it. Evidently, they had installed those benches even though they were warned about the risk. For years afterward, they didn’t replace them. They didn’t install protective posts or barriers.</p>\n\n<p>But you’ll notice now—look at almost every gas station, every store, every pharmacy—you’ll see those thick concrete pillars outside. Those weren’t always there. They were added because too many people got run over. Maybe, just maybe, what I witnessed helped change that.</p>\n\n<p>But those pillars can’t stop death.</p>\n\n<p>I think sometimes about Adam and Eve. God said, “The day ye eat thereof, ye shall surely die.” But they didn’t drop dead immediately. Not because God lied—but because God showed mercy. He made a covering. A sacrifice. But I wonder if, over time, they forgot what death really meant. Maybe it took years. Maybe they’d gotten used to growing old. But then one day, their own son murdered his brother—and suddenly, they understood.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Death doesn’t always happen to you.</strong> Sometimes it happens through you. Sometimes your sin doesn’t kill you—it kills someone you love.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Let me tell you something about death:</strong><br>\nIt comes fast. It comes without apology. And it doesn’t ask if you’ve made peace with God first.</p>\n\n<p>I don’t know if that man had ever heard the gospel before that day. I don’t know if he heard me whisper it to him. I don’t know if, in those final seconds, he believed. But I know he heard it. He had a witness. He had a chance—even if only for a heartbeat.</p>\n\n<p>And I know this too:</p>\n\n<p><em>I should have said more.</em></p>\n\n<h2>Epilogue: And They All Have One Thing in Common</h2>\n\n<p><strong>Let me tell you something about death:</strong></p>\n\n<p>It doesn’t care who you are.<br>\nIt doesn’t care how long you’ve lived, or what you’ve built, or how neatly you folded your laundry, or whether the neighbors thought you were decent.<br>\nIt comes.<br>\nAnd when it does, it always leaves something behind—regret, questions, silence… or the scent of eternity.</p>\n\n<p>I’ve told you four stories in these pages.</p>\n\n<p>But there are others.</p>\n\n<p>There was the old man I found stretched across his hallway—pants around his ankles, eyes frozen wide in terror, as if the moment of death had caught him by surprise. His little dog barked and yelped beside him, as if trying to call out, “Somebody help. He’s not getting up.”</p>\n\n<p>There was another man—a hoarder—who rolled over in his bed and never got back up. I found him face down in a sea of newspapers stacked two feet high, the house had the smell of decay and CATS. His mobile home was packed so tightly with trash that you could only move through six-inch-wide trails from one room to another. No space for dignity. No space for life. No space for death, really. Just silence, and dust, and the weight of what never got thrown away.</p>\n\n<p>There’ve been others.<br>\nThere will be more.</p>\n\n<p>And though their circumstances were all different—some loud, some quiet, some violent, some barely a whisper—they all had one thing in common:</p>\n\n<h3><em>They ran out of time.</em></h3>\n\n<p>Some were warned.<br>\nSome never saw it coming.<br>\nSome had someone there to pray.<br>\nOthers died staring at the ceiling. Alone. Unfinished. Unready.</p>\n\n<p>And in every case, the same thought runs through me like a cold wind:<br>\n<em>I should have said more.</em></p>\n\n<p>Maybe I said enough. Maybe I didn’t.<br>\nBut the weight never leaves.</p>\n\n<p>Because you only get so many chances to say the thing that matters.<br>\nAnd death doesn’t reschedule.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p><strong>Let me leave you with this:</strong></p>\n\n<p>There is no amount of morality, no measure of decency, no pile of good deeds that will prepare you for that moment.<br>\nThe only thing that matters—<em>the only thing</em>—is whether you knew Jesus Christ. Whether He knew <em>you</em>.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Not whether you went to church.</li>\n<li>Not whether your parents were religious.</li>\n<li>Not whether you “believed in God.”</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p><strong>No, friend. <em>Whether you repented and believed the gospel.</em></strong></p>\n\n<p>And if you haven’t done that yet, I plead with you now…</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Don’t wait for the folding chair.</li>\n<li>Don’t wait for the window.</li>\n<li>Don’t wait for the bench or the hospital or the hallway.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p><strong>Say yes while there’s breath in your lungs.</strong></p>\n\n<p>Because the gospel isn’t just for dying people—it’s for <em>the living who know they soon will.</em></p>",
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      "parent_permlink": "redhats",
      "author": "monetaryrealist",
      "permlink": "better-dead-than-red-or-just-spiritually-dead-in-blue",
      "title": "Better Dead Than Red? Or Just Spiritually Dead in Blue?",
      "body": "<h1>Red-Handed: How the Democrats Ditched the Color of Socialism and Let the Republicans Wear It</h1>\n![DDEF2C8F-FA2A-4660-A39D-399CD6873636.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmahtvyhWVc3kG4TsXAhEowHXnvmWimcGTznFm9idL9Q6Z/DDEF2C8F-FA2A-4660-A39D-399CD6873636.png)\n\n\n<p><strong>When I was a kid,</strong> being called a “Red” wasn’t just an insult — it was a warning. “Better dead than red,” they used to say. And they meant it.</p>\n\n<p>My father didn’t go to college. He didn’t need a degree to know the world was changing fast — and not for the better. We had pamphlets from the John Birch Society lying around the house. Little pocket-sized books that didn’t waste time on fluff. Titles like <em>You Can Trust a Communist to Be a Communist</em>. They were well-documented, plainly written, and dead serious. Back then, no one called it “conspiracy theory.” They called it <em>communism</em>. And they called it <em>dangerous</em>.</p>\n\n<p>Those books traced how the communists — the real ones, expelled from Berlin and Paris — infiltrated America’s labor unions, public education, and political class. The socialists didn’t disappear; they just changed tactics. They came here and put on suits. And if you’ve ever browsed the websites of today’s Marxist or socialist organizations, you’ll see they <em>still</em> openly support groups like the National Education Association, the AFL-CIO, and any political movement that preaches class envy and state dependency.</p>\n\n<p>It’s no mystery why. The NEA has long been proven to harbor historical revisionists, DEI fanatics, and socialist ideologues. The public schools were the first battlefield — and they were captured decades ago.</p>\n\n<p>On the other side, you had the real conservatives — not just the Republican brand, but true constitutionalists. The Barry Goldwater types. Even Catholic fraternal orders like the <strong>Knights of Columbus</strong> once distributed anti-communist pamphlets and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with working-class Americans defending faith, family, and flag. Economists like Milton Friedman challenged Keynesian nonsense with sound money principles. These were people who believed in <em>earned freedom</em>, not state-sponsored control. They stood against the Fabian Socialists hiding in ivy-league towers and bureaucratic backrooms.</p>\n\n<p>And you know what color they wore?</p>\n\n<h2>Blue.</h2>\n\n<p>Red, white, and blue. But <strong>blue</strong> was the color of loyalty. Blue was the field of stars on our flag. The states. The union. The republic. When Ronald Reagan gave his speeches, he wasn’t cloaked in red. The conservative cause stood under blue — solid, steady, constitutional blue.</p>\n\n<p>But something changed.</p>\n\n![B2977D59-952F-49E5-B829-6D9B0039A2BB.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmXdSQSAaAnVuryESfmQb8RiTu4g8e67vsYNw7FM5hf66B/B2977D59-952F-49E5-B829-6D9B0039A2BB.jpeg)\n\n<h2>The Media’s Sleight of Hand</h2>\n\n<p>Somehow, after decades of red symbolizing revolution, communism, Soviet bloodshed, and totalitarianism, the media flipped the script. And they did it almost overnight.</p>\n\n<p>Before the year 2000, there was <em>no official color</em> for Republicans or Democrats. TV networks swapped red and blue back and forth each election cycle. Sometimes blue meant Republicans. Sometimes red. It didn’t matter — until it <em>did</em>.</p>\n\n<p>Then came the <strong>election of 2000</strong>. Bush vs. Gore. Hanging chads. Recounts. For over five weeks, America sat glued to a color-coded electoral map. And this time — by <em>coincidence</em>, they said — <strong>red meant Republican, and blue meant Democrat.</strong></p>\n\n<p>And that was it.</p>\n\n<p>The colors stuck.</p>\n\n<p>Suddenly, <strong>the party that had spent a century marching under the red banner of collectivism, revolution, and state control had been assigned the cool, calming blue of trust and stability</strong>. Meanwhile, the Republicans — once wrapped in the constitutional blues of state sovereignty — were now “the Reds.”</p>\n\n<p>As if nothing had ever meant anything.</p>\n\n<h2>The Psychological Warfare of Color</h2>\n\n<p>But for those of us who remember, <em>everything</em> meant something. We saw how the left infiltrated the labor unions. How they took over the schools. How they rewrote the textbooks and rewired the public mind. How they used Saul Alinsky’s rules to ridicule, polarize, and capture. And then — when the final trick was ready — they flipped the flag.</p>\n\n<p>The red they once waved with pride was now projected onto their enemies.</p>\n\n<p>It was sleight of hand. <strong>Psychological warfare.</strong><br>\nAnd it worked.</p>\n<h2>The Global Meaning of Red</h2>\n\n<p>Red is not just a color — it’s a banner. A signal. A symbol of revolution, upheaval, and state domination. In nearly every major political movement of the 20th century that sought to centralize power and suppress liberty, red was the chosen flag.</p>\n\n<ul>\n  <li>🔴 The <strong>Bolsheviks</strong> of Russia — red flags, red stars, red terror.</li>\n  <li>🔴 <strong>China’s Communist Party</strong> — red armbands, red book, red blood spilled by Mao’s Cultural Revolution.</li>\n  <li>🔴 <strong>Vietnam, North Korea, Cuba</strong> — red flags waving over labor camps and state-run economies.</li>\n  <li>🔴 <strong>Antifa and socialist youth groups</strong> — still waving red in the streets of America and Europe.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Even the term “Red Scare” was coined because people understood exactly what red meant: communism, control, and the eradication of liberty.</p>\n\n<p>So ask yourself — <strong>how did red, the color of gulags and food lines, of KGB and killing fields, end up wrapped around the shoulders of the American Right?</strong></p>\n\n<p>It didn’t happen by accident. It happened because people weren’t paying attention — and the ones who were got shouted down by the very media that orchestrated the flip.</p>\n\n<h2>Who Controls the Color Narrative?</h2>\n\n<p>When NBC’s <strong>Tim Russert</strong> first used red for Republican and blue for Democrat during the 2000 election map, no one thought it would stick. But the <strong>media ran with it</strong>. And it stuck.</p>\n\n<p>From then on, every election night map was the same: red for Republicans, blue for Democrats. CNN, CBS, ABC — they all fell in line. The New York Times published state-by-state maps showing a sea of “red America” swallowing “blue America,” reinforcing the narrative that conservatives were now the outliers — the rural, angry, disconnected class. The “flyover” people.</p>\n\n<p>It was <em>visual conditioning</em>. Over time, people internalized the flip without realizing the ideological theft beneath it. The red you now associate with “freedom” was once the color of tyranny. And the blue that evokes “trust” was once the symbol of state sovereignty and American unity.</p>\n\n<p>Symbols matter. And the Left knows it.</p><h2>Red Is Revolution: A Timeline</h2>\n\n<p>The color red has always meant one thing in global politics — <strong>revolution through centralized power</strong>. Here's a timeline to make that undeniable:</p>\n\n<ul>\n  <li><strong>1848:</strong> The Communist Manifesto is published. Marx and Engels call for violent revolution. Red becomes the color of the worker's uprising.</li>\n  <li><strong>1917:</strong> The Bolshevik Revolution turns Russia red. The hammer and sickle, dripping with the blood of the czar’s family and the gulags to come, becomes the global symbol of communism.</li>\n  <li><strong>1936:</strong> During the Spanish Civil War, red flags fly over the socialist militias. Fascism and communism both wield red in their symbols.</li>\n  <li><strong>1949:</strong> Mao's China raises the red flag over Beijing. Over the next three decades, tens of millions die under that banner.</li>\n  <li><strong>1950s–60s:</strong> The United States is consumed by anti-communist awareness. The “Red Scare” isn’t paranoia — it’s proof. Alger Hiss, the Rosenbergs, and other traitors are exposed. McCarthy may have gone too far, but he wasn’t wrong to ask the questions.</li>\n  <li><strong>1960s–80s:</strong> Red is still worn by violent socialist revolutionaries, guerrilla groups, and pro-Soviet academics — many of whom burrow into American universities, unions, and civil rights movements, not to liberate, but to destabilize.</li>\n  <li><strong>1990s:</strong> After the fall of the Berlin Wall, global socialism doesn’t die. It rebrands. It goes to college. It gets tenure. It runs for office. But it still waves the red flag — just behind closed doors.</li>\n  <li><strong>2000:</strong> The media, without fanfare or explanation, assigns red to Republicans and blue to Democrats during the Bush vs. Gore election coverage. The reversal is complete.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>By the time most Americans realize the shift, it's already over. Generations grow up thinking red means conservative and blue means liberal. But the ideological colors have been reversed — not by fact, but by repetition.</p><h2>The Red Hat Irony</h2>\n\n<p>When Donald Trump launched his campaign in 2015, he branded the movement with a simple, striking image: a <strong>bright red baseball cap</strong> with four bold words — <em>Make America Great Again</em>.</p>\n\n<p>And it worked. The hat became a symbol of populism, defiance, and frustration with the political establishment. It was a middle finger to the media, to globalism, and to the creeping socialist agenda. It was a symbol — powerful, visual, defiant.</p>\n\n<p>But here’s the irony:</p>\n\n<p>In choosing <strong>red</strong>, even Trump — knowingly or not — played into the very color-flip that had been engineered just 15 years earlier. The same red that once represented global communism now adorned the heads of America First patriots. A movement that stood for capitalism, family, borders, and God — all while waving the color of the hammer and sickle.</p>\n\n<p>Some say the red was simply patriotic. Red, white, and blue — all colors of the American flag. Maybe. But ask yourself this:</p>\n\n<blockquote><em>If your enemies control the symbols, how long before they control the story?</em></blockquote>\n\n<h2>The Infiltration of Conservatism</h2>\n\n<p>Meanwhile, the very meaning of “conservative” has shifted. <strong>The conservatives of today are often just the liberals of the 1980s.</strong> What used to be called “left of center” — support for same-sex marriage, expansive federal programs, liberal immigration — is now embraced by many self-identified conservatives.</p>\n\n<p>At the same time, the liberals of the 1960s have transformed into <strong>full-fledged cultural Bolsheviks and modern-day Bohemians</strong>, attacking not just tradition, but truth itself — redefining biology, erasing history, mocking faith, and criminalizing dissent.</p>\n\n<p>The old guard conservatives — men like Goldwater, Reagan, Buckley, or even Pat Buchanan — warned of this drift. But now, even their positions would be branded “far-right,” “nationalist,” or “extremist” by the press and by weak-kneed conservatives afraid of being called names.</p>\n\n<p>So here we are: the movement that once stood against collectivism now wears red, while the collectivists wrap themselves in blue — the color of the stars, the states, and the union they despise.</p>\n\n<p>It’s not just confusion. It’s corruption — of language, of symbols, and of history.</p><h2>Take Back the Flag, Take Back the Truth</h2>\n\n<p>Symbols are not meaningless. They are the language of loyalty and identity. The American flag once meant something — not just borders or colors, but <strong>truth</strong>. The stars on blue represented sovereign states under a Creator. The red represented the <em>blood of patriots</em>, not communist revolution. The white stood for purity, not surrender.</p>\n\n<p>Today, that flag is trampled at protests and waved upside down in desperation. People burn it. Others wear it ironically. And most forget what it meant in the first place.</p>\n\n<p>So the question is no longer “how did this happen?”</p>\n\n<h3>Now the question is: <em>Can the truth be reclaimed?</em><br>\nCan the flag be restored?</h3>\n\n<p>Or… is this what judgment looks like? Have we already become a nation too much like Sodom — mocking God, parading pride, rewriting creation, and daring heaven to act?</p>\n\n<p>Or — is there still time? Are we Nineveh — early enough in our descent to hear a warning, repent, and be spared?</p>\n\n<p>We can't know for sure. But we can choose what side we stand on.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h3>Consider these final voices of warning and hope:</h3>\n\n<blockquote>\n  “The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.”<br>\n  — George Orwell\n</blockquote>\n\n<blockquote>\n  “A decline in courage may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the West.”<br>\n  — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn\n</blockquote>\n\n<blockquote>\n  “Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue.”<br>\n  — Barry Goldwater\n</blockquote>\n\n<blockquote>\n  “If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under.”<br>\n  — Ronald Reagan\n</blockquote>\n\n<blockquote>\n  “Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people.”<br>\n  — <strong>Proverbs 14:34</strong>\n</blockquote>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h2>Take Back the Flag — or Face What We've Become</h2>\n\n<p>We talk about “taking back the flag” as if it were merely a matter of reclaiming symbols. But symbols follow substance. And the substance of this nation — legally, spiritually, and morally — began to shift long before the red hat or the color-coded maps.</p>\n\n<p>The true transformation happened during the <strong>Civil War and Reconstruction</strong>. That’s when the original compact of sovereign states was shattered. That’s when the voluntary union became a perpetual corporate entity. That's when D.C. became supreme — and the people became subjects, not citizens. The ground was broken. The foundation cracked. And over time, every enemy of liberty crawled in through the opening.</p>\n\n<p>It was only after the Constitution was gutted that the <em>Great Switch</em> could even occur. That the moral order could be reversed. That good would be called evil, and evil good. The chaos we live in now isn’t the disease — it’s the symptom.</p>\n\n<h3>So we must ask the only question that matters:</h3>\n\n<h3><em>Is this judgment… or is this warning?</em></h3>\n\n<p>Are we living under the long-delayed justice of a God who gave us every chance — who raised up preachers, warned through history, offered mercy — only to be mocked, ignored, and legislated out of public life?</p>\n\n<p>Or are we more like <strong>early Nineveh</strong> — corrupted, violent, confused, but still within reach of mercy if we turn, fast, and repent?</p>\n\n<p>There are no easy answers. But here is what is clear:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n  “The foundations of the earth are out of course.” — <strong>Psalm 82:5</strong><br>\n  And no amount of color correction, electoral maps, or red hats will fix that.\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>We don’t need a party revival. We don’t need better branding. We need <strong>repentance</strong>. <br>\nWe need truth in the inward parts. We need to confess what we’ve become — and cry out for what we’ve lost.</p>\n\n<p>The flag <em>may or may not</em> be restored. That’s not ours to promise.</p>\n\n<p>But one thing is certain: if — as Scripture says — <strong>“righteousness exalteth a nation”</strong>, then what we call America today is no longer exalted. It is humiliated. Hollow. It waves a banner of liberty while enslaving unborn children, silencing truth, and exporting corruption to the world in the name of freedom.</p>\n\n<p>And if what began as a nation under God has now become a <em>system against God</em> — then it will not be spared. It will be used. Repurposed. Like Babylon, like Egypt, like Rome — a tool of Antichrist to enslave the rest of the world a thousand times worse than what we’ve already seen.</p>\n\n<p>This isn’t just cultural decay. It’s <strong>prophetic unraveling</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>So ask yourself, while there is still breath and time to ask:</p>\n\n<h3><em>Is this Nineveh... or is it Sodom?</em></h3>\n\n<p>Will there be repentance — or only ruin?</p>\n\n<p>We don’t need new parties, better slogans, or flashier candidates. <br>\nWe need sackcloth and ashes. We need truth. We need <strong>Christ</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>The flag is only worth saving… if the heart beneath it is worth redeeming.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<blockquote>\n  “Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people.”<br>\n  — <strong>Proverbs 14:34</strong>\n</blockquote><p>In the end, color-coding won’t save us. Red or blue — party or platform — none of it can cover sin.</p>\n\n<p>What this nation needs cannot be stitched into a flag or printed on a ballot. <strong>It must be imputed — not earned — and it comes only through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.</strong></p>\n\n<p>It is not red. It is not blue. And it is not pale.</p>\n\n<p>It is the <strong>white robe of righteousness</strong>, washed in the blood of the Lamb.</p>\n\n<p>Only those clothed in that righteousness will stand when the kingdoms of this world fall — and only then will the true banner be raised:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n  “And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.”<br>\n  — <strong>Revelation 19:8</strong>\n</blockquote>",
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      "author": "monetaryrealist",
      "permlink": "the-knuckelball-my-father-taught-my-son-and-what-god-taught-me-through-it",
      "title": "The Knuckelball My Father Taught My Son, And what God Taught Me through It",
      "body": "<h1>The Knuckleball My Father Threw</h1>\n\n<p>Have you ever tried to throw a baseball?</p>\n\n<p>Have you ever known a time when you didn’t try to throw a baseball?</p>\n\n<p>That was me.</p>\n\n<p>My dad was a Yankees fan. Not the bandwagon kind—the real kind. We’d go to Old Yankee Stadium. The one that Ruth really built. Not the modern concrete bowl, but the old one, where your seat might be behind a pillar, and by the third inning you’d move up to someplace better, because back then the Yankees were going through a rough spell. Nobody minded. I didn’t. I loved baseball.</p>\n\n![7C9AD053-701F-483F-BEE0-61ACF69E82DE.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmSLnJiALkb1ZEQer4pjPKQtkb7wzrqn3ZQxjFQfcBn1xn/7C9AD053-701F-483F-BEE0-61ACF69E82DE.jpeg)\n\n\n<p>I loved watching Sparky Lyle throw to Rick Dempsey. I loved going to old-timers games—seeing Yogi Berra for real. Mickey Mantle, too. I remember his first old-timers game. He hit a home run. You’d swear he had another decade left in him. But even the greats retire. That’s just the way it is.</p>\n\n<p>My dad taught me how to throw a baseball. They said he was a great pitcher back in high school. Maybe even scholarship-worthy, if not for grades—or maybe just life. He never bragged, but other people did. So I kept that in mind.</p>\n\n<p>He had small hands. So do I. But he could throw the ball wherever he wanted it to go. Curveball, screwball, fastball—but most of all, a knuckleball. That was his pitch. A floating ghost of a thing. No spin. Just air and mystery. I learned it because I wanted to be like him.</p>\n\n<p>I played third base in Lakewood Little League because I was the only kid who could make the throw from third to first without it bouncing. I was proud of that. Then we moved to Jackson, and I had to quit the team. The very next year, Lakewood won the Little League World Series. I’d watch <em>Wide World of Sports</em>, hear “the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat,” and there they were—Lakewood—jumping up and down on the screen.</p>\n\n<p>“Hey,” my dad would say, “that could’ve been you.”</p>\n\n<p>He was smiling, but I still felt it. That’s life, too.</p>\n\n<p>When I was 11, 12, 13… I was still throwing that knuckleball. Trying out for school teams, pitching in backyards, throwing until my arm was jelly. The coaches didn’t know what to do with a kid who threw knuckleballs. One even told me to stop throwing it. Said the catcher couldn’t handle it. So I did what I was told—but that was always my pitch.</p>\n\n<p>The hardest part of learning to throw a knuckleball is finding someone to catch it.</p>\n\n<p>But I kept throwing.</p>\n\n<p>Even as an adult, I kept throwing. Playing catch with kids in the yard, with my own son—that was my chance. I taught my son to play the same way my dad taught me. And my SON?… well, he could throw the Knickler too. He still does. He’s in his 30s now, and he still plays baseball.</p>\n\n<p>One of my customers—who turned out to be a coach—took a shine to him. A coach out in Leesburg. He started giving my Son special lessons, working with him on a real field. Taught him far more than I ever could.</p>\n\n<p>But the knuckleball? That was mine.</p>\n\n<p>I taught him how to grip it, how to float it, how to put it where he wanted it. He still throws it. And every time I would see him do it—or he’d tell me about it later over the phone—it feels like my dad’s arm reached through mine and into his.</p>\n\n<p>These days, I don’t throw much. One of my eyes is no good, so the depth perception is shot. My arm’s not what it used to be. But sometimes—just sometimes—I’ll be out with some kids, and someone will hand me a glove. I pick up the ball. My fingers just know what to do: two fingers on top, thumb underneath—don’t let the ball touch your palm—index finger off to the side.</p>\n\n<p>I throw.</p>\n\n<p>And when it doesn’t spin—just floats like a paper airplane—the kid on the other end says,<br>\n“Hey mister! That’s a knuckleball!”</p>\n\n<p>And I smile. “Thank you.”</p>\n\n<p>“Where’d you pitch?” they ask.</p>\n\n<p>I’d love to say the majors. The minors. Even just varsity. But I tell the truth.</p>\n\n<p>“My dad taught me.”</p>\n\n<p>They nod, impressed. “Well, that was a pretty good one.”</p>\n\n<p>And I always say:<br>\n<strong>“You should’ve seen his.”</strong></p>\n\n<p><em>And then… then I brag on my son…</em></p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h2>The Knuckleball God Throws</h2>\n\n<p>I guess a reflection of what God does in our lives can come from a story like this.</p>\n\n<p>Just like how the knuckleball grip became second nature to me—whether I’m holding a baseball, a tennis ball, even a marble—I believe that’s how the Word of God ought to be in our lives: not something we fake or force or twist, but something handed down so deeply that we don’t even have to think about it. It’s just how we hold it. It’s how we deliver it.</p>\n\n<p>Not long ago, we were at a ballfield, and a foul ball came rolling by. I picked it up. A kid held out his glove. And without even thinking, I threw a knuckleball.</p>\n\n<p>That’s just what came out. That’s what was in me.</p>\n\n<p>And I think that’s a reflection of how God works, too.</p>\n\n<p>When God gets a hold of us, He wants us to deal straight. Not with spin. Not with deceit. Not trying to curve His Word around people’s expectations or make it slide into approval. Paul said, <em>“We have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully.”</em></p>\n\n<p>We’re not supposed to grip God’s Word like a curveball.</p>\n\n<p>We’re supposed to grip it like He gave it to us—solid, unchanging, and obedient. Just pick it up and deliver it the way He intended. No spin. No trick. No heat. Just faith.</p>\n\n<p>We are the clay, He is the potter. And when God throws us—when He uses us in His perfect timing—He throws a knuckleball. It doesn’t spin. It doesn’t bend. But it moves.</p>\n\n<p>It dips. It dances. It dodges every worldly force trying to stop it. And when it lands, it lands exactly where He purposed it to go.</p>\n\n<p>Jesus told Pilate, <em>“You would have no power over me at all except it were given from above.”</em> That’s the same for us.</p>\n\n<p>We’re moving through wind, resistance, humidity, pressure—all of it. But God already accounted for that. And when He sends us into the world, His Word will not return void. It will accomplish what He sent it to do.</p>\n\n<p>So maybe the best thing I can do—the best thing any of us can do—is grip His Word the same way every time. Don’t fake it. Don’t twist it. Don’t try to control the outcome.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Just trust the grip.</strong></p>\n\n<p>Throw it with love. Throw it with truth.<br>\nAnd trust God to move it right where it needs to go.</p>",
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      "parent_permlink": "irs",
      "author": "monetaryrealist",
      "permlink": "preaching-on-a-leash-why-this-irs-ruling-is-not-freedom-the-pulpit-is-not-for-sale-even-if-caesar-says-preach",
      "title": "•\t“Preaching on a Leash: Why This IRS Ruling Is Not Freedom” \t•\t“The Pulpit Is Not for Sale — Even If Caesar Says Preach”",
      "body": "![5A1E61F3-D0C5-433F-A103-69033D07147B.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmc9VHajNgMpoxx8UKHpjQkKS6WaURzAnT3qDLzNwfJfLp/5A1E61F3-D0C5-433F-A103-69033D07147B.png)\n\n\n<h2>🚫✝️ DO NOT BE FOOLED: A WARNING TO THE CHURCH ON THE IRS \"ENDORSEMENT\" ANNOUNCEMENT</h2>\n<p><strong>July 8, 2025</strong><br>\nTo the Remnant Church — from those who fear God more than the IRS</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h3>The headlines say:</h3>\n<blockquote>\n  <p>“IRS says churches can endorse political candidates without losing tax-exempt status.”</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>But don’t be deceived. This is not liberty — this is a leash. And worse: it is bait wrapped in patriotic ribbon, handed out like a blessing, from Caesar to the pulpit.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h3>🧾 What Has Actually Changed?</h3>\n<p><strong>Nothing of substance.</strong><br>\nThe IRS merely declared that if your political endorsement is spoken <em>inside the sanctuary</em>, during <em>a religious service</em>, and directed only to <em>your own congregation</em>, then you are “safe.”</p>\n\n<ul>\n  <li>But livestream that sermon? <strong>Gray area</strong>.</li>\n  <li>Print a church newsletter? <strong>Risky</strong>.</li>\n  <li>Let your church become a meaningful force in the public square? <strong>Now you're crossing the line</strong>.</li>\n</ul>\n<p>They’re not liberating the Church. They’re <strong>redefining its cage</strong>.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h3>📜 It Didn’t Begin with 501(c)(3)</h3>\n<p>Long before Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1954 amendment, religious institutions were corralled under <strong>Section 101(6)</strong> and <strong>Section 205(c)(1)(A)</strong> of the earlier tax code.<br>\nThe language was softer, but the control was real:</p>\n<blockquote>\n  <p>“Thou shalt not speak boldly unless Caesar approves.”</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>So don't let new headlines fool you. The leash isn’t new. They’re just <strong>adjusting the tension</strong>.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h3>⚠️ They Say You May Speak — But Only If It Doesn’t Matter</h3>\n<p>What good is the right to speak if:</p>\n<ul>\n  <li>You may not influence?</li>\n  <li>You may not act?</li>\n  <li>You may not defy the lies of state religion, cultural decay, and political theater?</li>\n</ul>\n<p>You may “endorse” — but not mobilize. You may “teach” — but not transform.<br>\nThis is not Christian liberty. It is <strong>managed speech within sacred walls</strong> — a government-permitted echo chamber.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h3>🤝 Agreement ≠ Unity</h3>\n<p>Do not mistake <strong>issue alignment</strong> for <strong>spiritual alliance</strong>.</p>\n<ul>\n  <li>An atheist may oppose abortion.</li>\n  <li>A Catholic may proclaim “right to life.”</li>\n  <li>A patriot may shout for liberty.</li>\n</ul>\n<p>But do they do it for the <strong>same reason you do</strong> — you, who believe the <strong>Bible is the sole and final authority</strong> in all matters of faith and practice?</p>\n<p>Just because we share a moment of <em>moral overlap</em> doesn’t mean we are headed to the same destination.<br>\nWe may <strong>intersect</strong>, but we did not <strong>begin at the same altar</strong>, and we will not <strong>end at the same throne</strong>.</p>\n<p><strong>So do not merge roads just because they touch briefly. Stay on the narrow one.</strong></p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h3>🕳️ The Catch: Preach Boldly — But Stay in Bounds</h3>\n<p>The IRS would love for churches to believe this is liberty:</p>\n<blockquote>\n  <p>“Speak up — as long as it’s indoors, controlled, non-political in effect, and never too loud.”</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>But <strong>true Gospel preaching has always burst boundaries</strong>.<br>\nIt speaks truth <em>in public</em>, confronts sin <em>without consent</em>, and obeys God <em>rather than men</em>.</p>\n<blockquote>\n  <p><em>“It is never wholly right to serve God only after receiving Caesar’s permission — even if, for a time, Caesar and God appear to agree.”</em></p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h3>🕊️ The Church Is Not a Branch of the State</h3>\n<p>Christ did not die to birth a government-regulated nonprofit. He purchased the Church with His blood, not with a 501(c)(3) certificate.</p>\n\n<p>The true Church of Jesus Christ does <strong>not</strong>:</p>\n<ul>\n  <li>Ask <strong>permission</strong> to preach.</li>\n  <li>File for <strong>approval</strong> to assemble.</li>\n  <li>Edit its doctrine to maintain a <strong>tax number</strong>.</li>\n  <li>Identify as a <strong>corporate entity</strong> under the authority of the state.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>And one must ask:</p>\n<blockquote>\n  <p><strong>Can a church that registers with Caesar, takes on a corporate charter, and accepts a federal tax identification number — even claim to be the body of Christ, governed solely by His Word?</strong></p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Such an arrangement implies:</p>\n<ul>\n  <li>The state is a higher authority.</li>\n  <li>The church exists at the pleasure of government definitions.</li>\n  <li>Its privileges can be granted or revoked — by man, not by God.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>That is not a <strong>New Testament church</strong>. That is a <strong>state-sanctioned institution using the name of Christ</strong> while trading its spiritual birthright for temporal benefits.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h3>📢 To the Faithful Remnant:</h3>\n<ul>\n  <li><strong>Reject the bait.</strong></li>\n  <li><strong>Stand outside the cage.</strong></li>\n  <li><strong>Speak without subsidy.</strong></li>\n  <li><strong>Preach Christ — and Him crucified — to kings, to congresses, and to congregations.</strong></li>\n</ul>\n\n<blockquote>\n  <p>“Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men.”<br>\n  — <em>1 Corinthians 7:23</em></p>\n</blockquote>",
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      "parent_permlink": "affidavit",
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      "permlink": "i-am-not-a-corporate-fiction-are-you-affidavit-of-status-a-reservation-of-all-rights-as-an-american-and-a-human",
      "title": "I am Not a Corporate Fiction. Are You? Affidavit of Status  a Reservation of all Rights as an American and a Human",
      "body": "![7A56FABA-F50A-4F90-AE19-53FAE4CED703.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmfPRw7ZquMLxLhirHaYzyUaB3iQQTW1DsRPKetRfkauUN/7A56FABA-F50A-4F90-AE19-53FAE4CED703.png)\n\nUCC § 1-308 – Performance or Acceptance Under Reservation of Rights\n\n(a) A party that with explicit reservation of rights performs or promises performance or assents to performance in a manner demanded or offered by the other party does not thereby prejudice the rights reserved. Words such as “without prejudice,” “under protest,” or the like are sufficient.\n\n(b) Subsection (a) does not apply to an accord and satisfaction.\n\n⸻\n\n✅ Key Takeaways:\n\t•\tIt protects your right to engage in an act (such as signing a ticket, paying a fee, or responding to a notice) without giving up your rights — so long as you clearly state your reservation (e.g., writing “without prejudice UCC 1-308”).\n\t•\tIt does not apply where a full settlement or agreement (“accord and satisfaction”) has already been reached.\n\nThis is why people who reject presumed commercial jurisdiction or corporate citizenship often reference UCC 1-308 in documents — as a written notice that no waiver or admission is intended.\nAffidavit of Status and Reservation of Rights\n\nRegarding the Corporate Nature of the 17th Amendment and Post-14th Amendment U.S. Jurisdiction\n\n⸻\n\nAffiant: I, (Your Name Goes Here), a natural-born man, competent in mind and body, hereby affirm the following under penalty of perjury under the laws of the united States of America (as originally constituted and ratified in 1787), and not under any adhesion contract, corporate jurisdiction, or presumed statutory incorporation thereof.\n\n⸻\n\nI. Declaration of Standing and Citizenship\n\t1.\tI am not a “citizen of the United States” as defined by the 14th Amendment, but a free and sovereign inhabitant, born on the land of one of the several states united by compact, and therefore a citizen of my state, and only derivatively of the union formed by the Constitution of 1787.\n\t2.\tI do not voluntarily submit to any de facto corporate jurisdiction imposed by the District of Columbia or its subsidiaries, nor do I consent to corporate personhood or status as an “individual,” “resident,” or “taxpayer” as defined by the United States Code.\n\n⸻\n\nII. Concerning the 14th Amendment and Federal Incorporation\n\t3.\tThe ratification of the 14th Amendment in 1868 — under coercion and martial influence — redefined citizenship not as a natural right, but as a privileged legal status under federal corporate jurisdiction.\n\t4.\tThis act, along with the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1871, effectively incorporated the federal government and created a dual structure: the original constitutional republic, and a commercial overlay managed by administrative statutes.\n\n⸻\n\nIII. The 17th Amendment and the Severing of State Sovereignty\n\t5.\tThe 17th Amendment, ratified in 1913, removed the election of Senators from state legislatures and gave it to the general populace — thereby severing the states’ representation in the federal structure and reducing the states to administrative districts rather than sovereign participants in a constitutional compact.\n\t6.\tI assert that the 17th Amendment functions not within the original compact of the Constitution, but within the altered, post-14th Amendment framework — a framework under which the states no longer control the Senate, the people no longer elect a President through the states, and federal control is centralized.\n\n⸻\n\nIV. Reservation of Rights and Legal Status\n\t7.\tI reject any presumption of corporate contract or adhesion to federal statutory jurisdiction that would redefine me as a U.S. person, citizen, subject, debtor, or legal fiction.\n\t8.\tI reserve all rights, liberties, and immunities inherent to a living man under the laws of nature and nature’s God, and under the authority of the Constitution for the united States of America, as originally ratified and amended lawfully (excluding fraudulent or post-corporate usurpations).\n\t9.\tAny attempt to enforce against me a status or obligation inconsistent with this affidavit shall be considered a violation of due process, equal protection, and the compact between the states and the people.\n\n⸻\n\nExecuted this day, [Insert Date], without prejudice under UCC 1-308, all rights reserved.\n\n[Signature line]\n\nYour Name Goes Here \nLiving man, sui juris\n\n[Notary block]",
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      "author": "monetaryrealist",
      "permlink": "ringside-reality-wrestling-politics-and-the-illusion-of-freedom",
      "title": "Ringside Reality: Wrestling, Politics, and the Illusion of Freedom",
      "body": "![3A321BD6-653F-4F54-B99B-0D615115D626.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmc4j1ysX9hshWvG758csFpkudfnhXP1E7sByRbqkXt2t4/3A321BD6-653F-4F54-B99B-0D615115D626.png)\n<h2>Ringside Reality: The Undertaker, Ron Paul, and the Politics of Bruised Illusion</h2>\n<p><em>By The Realist </em></p>\n\n<p>I remember Mean Mark.</p>\n\n<p>He was tall, broad-shouldered, but leaner than I expected. This was back before the urn, the slow roll of the eyes, and the death bell tolls—before he fully became <strong>The Undertaker.</strong> I was in line at the airport in Tampa, headed to Texas. He was ahead of me at the check-in counter, dressed in black with a turtleneck pulled up to cover his neck tattoos. A ballcap pulled low, trying to blend in—but he couldn’t. Not really.</p>\n\n<p>No one else recognized him. But I did.</p>\n\n<p>So I leaned forward, speaking just loud enough for him to read my lips and asked, <strong>“Hi… are you the Undertaker?”</strong></p>\n\n<p>He nodded, almost in a whisper. Just a grin. I smiled and told him I wouldn’t say anything. He reached out that baseball-mitt-sized hand and shook mine—firm and warm. Then we parted ways. Just two travelers on our way to somewhere else.</p>\n\n<p>That day, he wasn’t The Phenom. He wasn’t the Lord of Darkness. He was just <strong>Mark Callaway</strong>, a man catching a flight.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h3>We Don’t Want Men—We Want Characters</h3>\n\n<p>We live in a world that doesn’t want men—it wants <em>characters</em>. It wants gimmicks. It wants slogans. It wants faces on t-shirts and enemies in spandex. It wants heroes to worship and villains to blame. And it wants you cheering in the crowd like it’s all real.</p>\n\n<p>But it’s not.</p>\n\n<p>I’ve seen this before—not just in wrestling, but in politics, in church, in the way our media sells good vs. evil like it’s Monday Night Raw.</p>\n\n<p>We had guys in church who thought wrestling was real. I mean really believed it. One in particular raised his kids on it. One Sunday, he showed up with a big ol’ bruise on his side. I asked what happened. He said, “My kid jumped off the couch with a metal chair while we were horsing around… like they do on TV.”</p>\n\n<p><strong>Even the fakest fights can cause real bruises.</strong></p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h3>Politics as Pro Wrestling</h3>\n\n<ul>\n  <li>Trump vs. Musk</li>\n  <li>Democrats vs. Republicans</li>\n  <li>Blue team vs. Red team</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Scripted feuds. Choreographed chaos. The crowd screams. The lights flash. And backstage? They’re laughing and cashing checks.</p>\n\n<p>It’s all <em>kayfabe</em>—fake rivalry for public consumption. The only thing real is the damage done to those who believe it’s true.</p>\n\n<p>People lose their homes.  \n<br>People lose their children.  \n<br>People lose their minds.  \n<br>And they still think they’re part of a noble fight—<br>\n<strong>not a scripted circus owned by billionaires,</strong>  \nbut by those <strong>whose wealth isn’t measured in money at all.</strong></p>\n\n<p>These are men of <em>ancient power</em>—whose inheritance is secrecy, not stocks.  \nThey trade not in dollars, but in <strong>bloodlines, symbols, and oaths.</strong></p>\n\n<p>Billionaires are just bishops and rooks on their board.  \nThe real players deal in <em>economic alchemy</em>—Kabbalistic finance, esoteric codes, rituals hidden behind charity, and kingdoms behind corporations.</p>\n\n<p>They don’t care what team you choose.  \nThey only want to watch you obey—while <em>believing</em> you’re free.</p>\n\n<p>And once in a while… a Lincoln, a McKinley, a Kennedy…  \na Reagan, a Trump, a Bull Moose…  \nwanders too close to the edge of the board.</p>\n\n<p><strong>That’s when the reminder comes.</strong><br>\nA bullet. A scandal. A stroke.  \nOr something more elegant.  \nAnd the game goes on.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h3>Then There Are the Sincere</h3>\n\n<p>Not everyone in the game is a sellout. Some actually believe. Some even bleed.</p>\n\n<p>I only ever spoke to one man who made it to Congress and still sounded like a man: <strong>Ron Paul.</strong></p>\n\n<p>Quiet. Sincere. Constitution in one hand, truth in the other. They mocked him. Sidelined him. Told him he was “unelectable.” Because he wouldn’t play heel or hero. He wouldn’t take the chair shot or throw one. He came to tell the truth—and that’s not what sells anymore.</p>\n\n<p>Even the so-called “conservatives” in D.C. know the game is rigged.  \nSome Democrats, too—deep down they know their party’s been hijacked.</p>\n\n<p>But no one leaves. They fear the backlash. The blacklisting. The loss of campaign cash.  \nThey’d rather keep their part in the script than risk becoming a <strong>Ross Perot</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>And who can blame them?</p>\n\n<p>Perot told the truth about debt, jobs, and sovereignty—and the machine devoured him. One moment he’s surging. The next, he’s smeared, sabotaged, and quietly exits stage left.  \nAnother casualty of <em>unapproved honesty</em>.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h3>The Final Bell</h3>\n\n<p>We live in a uniparty with two faces. A televised feud with choreographed punches. And a crowd too distracted—or too desperate—to see the truth.</p>\n\n<p>The match is fake.  \n<br>The bruises are real.  \n<br>The audience is being harvested, not helped.</p>\n\n<p>Meanwhile, the real men—the Ron Pauls, the working fathers, the sincere pastors—are either mocked, silenced, or turned into side acts.</p>\n\n<p>They say wrestling’s fake.  \nBut the bodies that hit the floor aren’t made of foam.  \nAsk the whistleblowers.  \nAsk the January 6 prisoners.  \nAsk the parents losing their children to state custody over pronouns and vaccines.</p>\n\n<p>Ask the forgotten man with a bruised soul and a worn-out Bible, trying to raise a family while the Undertakers of this world get flown in first class to another round of applause.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h3>Final Word: Not All is Fake. One is Faithful.</h3>\n\n<p>I met the Undertaker once.  \nAnd he wasn’t who the world said he was.  \nHe was just a man.</p>\n\n<p>And maybe, just maybe... if we could pull the curtain back long enough to see the politicians, the moguls, the media voices—<br>\nnot as legends, or villains, or saviors,  \nbut as <strong>just men</strong>…</p>\n\n<p>We might stop cheering.  \nWe might stop fighting each other.  \nWe might put down the signs, the chairs, and the lies.</p>\n\n<p>And we might start looking up again.</p>\n\n<p>Because there is One who is not playing a part.  \nOne who is not owned by ancient wealth or hidden hands.  \nOne who is not part of the script.</p>\n\n<p>He is the <strong>Author and Finisher</strong>—not only of our faith, but of all things.  \nHe is the <strong>Alpha and the Omega</strong>, the <strong>Beginning and the End</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>And He has allowed this show to go on—<br>\njust as He allowed Israel to wait until the iniquity of the Amorites was full…  \njust as He allowed Sodom and Gomorrah to stand  \nuntil the cry of the oppressed rose up against it to Heaven.</p>\n\n<p>How long do we have?</p>\n\n<p>I don’t know.</p>\n\n<p>But I do know this:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n  <strong>\"Choose you this day whom ye will serve...<br>\n  but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.\"</strong><br>\n  —Joshua 24:15\n</blockquote>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p><em>—End—</em></p>",
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      "author": "monetaryrealist",
      "permlink": "when-you-re-small-enough-to-hide-under-the-couch-and-then-you-re-not",
      "title": "When You’re Small Enough to Hide Under the Couch and then You’re Not.",
      "body": "@@ -13475,45 +13475,1884 @@\n in t\n-own. They all knew what to do with it\n+he family Like Aunt Molly or Ella. They all knew what to do with it.%3C/p%3E %3Ch2%3E%F0%9F%90%87 One More Thing About the Rabbits%E2%80%A6%3C/h2%3E%0A%0A%3Cp%3EI was talking with my cousin Mary Lou%E2%80%94Uncle Ben%E2%80%99s daughter%E2%80%94and she shared something I never knew. Turns out Pop didn%E2%80%99t just bring rabbits to Art or Jack or the widows in town. He brought them to her mother%E2%80%94my Aunt Helen.%3C/p%3E%0A%0A%3Cblockquote%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cem%3E%E2%80%9CUncle Ernie would give the rabbits to my mother. I was the only one who ate it, but still, she managed to come up with different ways to make it for me. She made rabbit stew and even rabbit parm. She would also bake it and use the leftovers to make rabbit salad%E2%80%94like chicken salad. It made a great sandwich for school lunch. No one had a clue what it was. But sometimes she%E2%80%99d make a sandwich with just the leftover baked rabbit and mayo on white. For some reason, the kids figured out what it was. On those days, I had the table to myself.%E2%80%9D%3C/em%3E%3C/p%3E%0A%3C/blockquote%3E%0A!%5BCEEFADE3-7263-498F-B994-F714BBDB093C.png%5D(https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmcRGxBe9cfbUHkUuBBFAvMerhxAqtwn7kfyJvVzbepAxU/CEEFADE3-7263-498F-B994-F714BBDB093C.png)%0A%0A%0A%3Cp%3EThen came the epilogue to that memory%E2%80%94unexpected and honest.%3C/p%3E%0A%0A%3Cp%3EYears later, when Mary Lou was grown and married%E2%80%94living in the very house she grew up in%E2%80%94she said the rabbits started coming to her.%3C/p%3E%0A%0A%3Cblockquote%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cem%3E%E2%80%9CSure did look different before it was cooked. I knew I had to soak it in salt water. Step one, check. But now what? Well, it kinda tastes like chicken, and I like to cook chicken on the rotisserie. Step two, check. So, I put it on the rotisserie. Only problem was%E2%80%A6 it just didn%E2%80%99t look very appetizing.%E2%80%9D%3C/em%3E%3C/p%3E%0A%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cem%3E%E2%80%9CLong story short%E2%80%94it stayed there until garbage day. Then I told Uncle Ernie, %E2%80%98Thanks but no thanks.%E2%80%99 My rabbit days are over.%E2%80%9D%3C/em%3E%3C/p%3E%0A%3C/blockquote%3E%0A%0A%3Cp%3EAnd he probably just nodded.%3C/p%3E%0A%0A%3Cp%3EThat was Pop. And that was family\n .%3C/p\n",
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      "author": "monetaryrealist",
      "permlink": "when-you-re-small-enough-to-hide-under-the-couch-and-then-you-re-not",
      "title": "When You’re Small Enough to Hide Under the Couch and then You’re Not.",
      "body": "<h1>When You’re Small Enough to Hide Under the Couch</h1>\n<p><em>By me…</em></p>\n\n<p>When I was a little kid, my sister and I shared a bedroom at 612 East County Line Road. The house only had two bedrooms—one for our parents and one for us— tucked between  them was the bathroom. <br>The rooms were small by today’s standards, but to us they were expansive—whole worlds to imagine within. We moved into that house when I was about two or three, and from that moment on, it was home. Not just a house, but the center of a child-sized universe.</p>\n\n<p>We had bunkbeds—mine on the top, my sister’s on the bottom because she was so small. She was two years younger than me, and I think a little smarter too. My mom tells me that one day, while she was in the kitchen making lunch for the two of us, she heard a tremendous thump—the unmistakable sound of a non-bouncing, large watermelon hitting the floor.</p>\n\n<p>She ran into the room and threw open the door—and there I was, sprawled out on the floor, unconscious or at least dazed, a towel tied around my neck like a Superman cape. My sister was still in her bed, leaning over me, trying to rouse me with the stern voice of a coach:<br>\n“Hey, Superman—you’re going to have to flap your wings harder than that if you’re gonna fly!”</p>\n\n![52C6146E-9B84-4B58-887E-6E968902A056.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmYB5A1TU1tSUXAW2HbCHfmLmtyUKp9DwZAFAMquGfe983/52C6146E-9B84-4B58-887E-6E968902A056.png)\n\n\n<p>I have no memory of it. None at all. But I’ve never tried to fly since—not once. Some lessons stick, even when the memory doesn’t.</p>\n\n<p>The bedroom was alive with toys and imagination: Lincoln Logs, Matchbox cars, a spirograph with its swirling geometric magic, and Rock’em Sock’em Robots with their clacking plastic fists. I had a game called Battle Tops—a round plastic arena where four spinning tops would collide, and whichever one flew out lost. Simple joy. My sister had her baby dolls and little ovens, the kind you could really bake with. And of course, she had me—the boy who could almost fly.</p>\n\n<p>I remember the injustice of going to bed while it was still light outside—how it never seemed fair. And yet, once the sun dipped and shadows crept in, I wasn’t exactly eager for darkness either. I had it fixed in my head around five or six years old that wolves lived in my closet. You couldn’t see them—but they were there. Always just out of sight, waiting. The closet door had to be shut tight. Thankfully, I had my defenses: a wolf-proof blanket, and Bozo the Clown—my homemade ragdoll. My mother had painted his face and sewn his hair by hand. You could grip him by the feet and swing. He wouldn’t hurt a fly, but he made a loud pop when he hit something. That was enough for me. I don’t know where that doll is now. I kept him for the longest time. Funny how things disappear when you move.</p>\n\n<p>My dad turned bedtime into theater. He had a way of closing the door like he was leaving, only to remain just inside the shadows. Then would come the rumble—“Fee-fi-fo-fum…” or his Frankenstein voice, slow and monstrous. We’d scream, but it was the best kind of scream—the safe kind. The kind where you knew he was there, and nothing could really happen to you. It was pretend. It was love dressed up in drama.</p>\n\n<p>There was always light outside the window, filtering in from next door. That was Uncle Ben’s house—Pop’s brother—the one with the painted dogwood tree (but that’s another story). It was where my cousins George and Mary Lou lived, along with Aunt Helen. For some reason, I always called George “Uncle George,” even though he wasn’t. He helped me learn to ride a bike—steadying me on the smooth asphalt until I could balance on my own. And Mary Lou? She patiently drilled me on my times tables, over and over, until I got them down.</p>\n\n<p>And then, of course, there was that cat—the orange one that would lick you until you were soaking wet, not out of affection, but because it didn’t want to get hair on its own tongue. It wasn’t love. It was strategy.</p>\n\n<h2>Nana’s Purple Kingdom</h2>\n\n<p>Across the street—and catty-corner from Uncle Ben’s—was my sanctuary: Nana and Pop’s house at 621.</p>\n\n<p>That house was full of purple. Nana dyed everything she could. If it wasn’t purple when she bought it, it would be soon. She’d head to the 24-hour laundromat on Kennedy Boulevard late at night with towels, tablecloths, and bargain-bin throw rugs, and emerge with them soaked in lavender or plum. Purple was her color. Her comfort. Her expression. Butterflies and Purple.</p>\n\n<p>It’s hard to describe how many variations of purple there really are—until you’ve spent enough time with an expert like Nana. Lilac, eggplant, orchid, mauve, grape, and whatever shade came out of that dye machine when the water temperature wasn’t quite right. I think it might even be one of the reasons I seem a little color-blind now when I pick out clothes. I grew up around so much purple, everything else just kind of blends in.</p>\n\n<p>Her upstairs bedroom felt like royalty. Not a proper canopy bed, but curtains that draped across the headboard like window treatments, transforming the space into something elegant and soft. Hanging above the pillows was a lamp I thought was the prettiest in the world—a Lucite teardrop, full of tiny flecks of color. It glowed softly, and when you looked up from beneath it, the world turned into a kaleidoscope.</p>\n\n<p>When I got to sleep in Nana’s bed, I’d lie there under the drapes, staring at that lamp and singing softly to myself. I only knew a few songs—“Let the Sunshine In” and “You Are My Sunshine.” I didn’t know who wrote them. I just knew they made me feel warm inside. I still sing them to my own children.</p>\n<p>Eventually, I started sleeping in the bedroom at the end of the hallway. It had green carpet, soft purple sheets, and an air conditioner in the window that kept it cool and quiet. One window looked out over the backyard. The other faced the road and railroad tracks. It was dark, but I wasn’t afraid. The wolves couldn’t follow me across the street, and besides—Pop’s room was just across the hall with a shotgun. That was all the security I needed.</p>\n\n<p>Still, Nana understood. One night, without saying a word, she came into my room and plugged in a Lucite nightlight—red, glowing, shaped like a flower. “I thought you might like this,” she said gently. That was all. She never mentioned fear. But she knew. That little nightlight became my companion. I’d lie there in bed, staring at it until the rest of the world faded, the soft red glow pulling me into sleep like a lullaby without words.</p>\n\n<p>The upstairs hallway had floor vents. The bathroom had them too. The house wasn’t built to heat both floors directly, so warmth rose up from below. Every bedroom had a vent, but the hallway and bathroom vents were the best. On Christmas or Thanksgiving, if I got sent to bed early, I’d sneak out and lie next to it. I could hear the adults downstairs—talking, laughing, wrapping gifts. It was like peering into another world through the grate in the floor, and I loved it.</p>\n\n<p>The stairs were carpeted, except where the floor vents opened. At the bottom was a landing, and then one step to the left led into the living room. A big mirror once hung on that landing—until the day Nana fell down the stairs. The glass shattered, and massive shards cut her badly. She was hurt—but she healed. And when she did, another mirror went up in its place.</p>\n\n<p>Nana had always been someone who took charge. That landing was her photo spot—where holiday pictures and family portraits were staged in front of the mirror, year after year. And a little thing like being nearly killed was not going to stand in the way of her vision.</p>\n\n<p>When we were little, we learned how to conquer those stairs. I remember being maybe two or three, belly down, sliding one step at a time. As I got older, I’d bump down on my backside—bump, bump, bump—all the way to the bottom, where Pop would be waiting.</p>\n\n<p>The living room was cozy, carpeted in a pink-wine color (another variation of purple). Pop’s green vinyl recliner sat near the TV. Nana had a purple sitting chair. and at the back of the living room  A deep purple almost blue, couch rested against the wall. On top of the TV was a Roseville vase—always filled with flowers. I still have it.</p>\n  About the Couch,\nThere was a couch in the back of Nana and Pop’s living room—a deep plum, almost blue. It wasn’t anywhere near the TV. It sat apart, in a quieter section of the room, a place meant for talking—not watching. I don’t remember ever seeing anyone lie on it. It was more like a perch for conversation, coffee cups, and pipe smoke. For grown-ups.\n\nThat couch barely cleared the floor. Maybe six inches, tops. But when I was little, that was enough. I could slither under it on my belly and disappear—completely hidden. During hide and seek, it was my go-to spot. No one ever found me unless I gave myself away by giggling. It felt like a secret world just big enough for me.\n\nThen one day—after a long stretch without playing hide and seek—my sister and I decided to play again. She began counting in the dining room, loud and clear, while I ran off to hide. My plan was simple: go back to the old faithful spot.\n![F4C79274-08EC-48C5-8319-059FC660B9CA.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmcUHbBbWgy9J7Ep74NU3MoQ6AsY7pYn9iSkoNgd4BFxNG/F4C79274-08EC-48C5-8319-059FC660B9CA.png)\n\n\nI dropped to my belly and slid toward the couch.\n\nBut I didn’t fit.\n\nI pressed forward, trying to shimmy in like old times, but my shoulders caught. My head fit, maybe even my chest, but not the rest. I couldn’t go any further.\n\nSo I backed out quietly, settled for the dining room table instead, and waited. From where I was lying, I could see into the other room.\n\nAnd then I saw her.\n\nShe dropped to the floor and, without effort, slid right under that same plum couch—my hiding place.\n\nAnd that’s when it hit me.\n\nIt wasn’t the couch that had changed.\nIt was me.\n\nThat may have been the first time in my life I felt time. Not on a calendar, but in my bones. In the way the world stayed the same, but I no longer fit in it the same way. I had grown—and without knowing it, left something behind.\n \nI guess that’s what made Pop’s chair that much more important. On the right hand side of that chair there was a stand with an ashtray on it grooved for pipes and a space for a pouch of loose tobacco. On the other side there was a stand with the TV guide. Though the need for a TV guide in the world of my grandfather, where he watched the same thing all the time seems silly now to think about it.. <p> at any rate even though I could no longer fit under the couch…<br>\n\n\n<p>There was always room in Pop’s chair for me. I’d climb up next to him and nestle into the crook of his arm. Eventually when we got older he got a dog named Feefee who tried to compete for space but we would always win. Pop smelled of cherry pipe tobacco. He used to smoke unfiltered Lucky Strikes and Camels too, until the heart attack. After that, Nana gave him an ultimatum: “Quit, or &@@#%^ .” He quit. But not the pipe.</p>\n\n<p>Nana smoked too, as did most of our family. Dad smoked Marlboros. Mom smoked Newports. But Nana quit because of me. Around 1970, after watching a commercial about lung cancer during one of my cartoons, I climbed up into her lap and looked her in the eyes. “I don’t want you to die,” I said. “You have to quit.” She never smoked again.</p>\n\n<p>My Pop was more than a recliner and a quiet protector. He was my mentor. He made me bicycles and swings. He took me around with him sometimes, just running errands or going to town. I remember once he brought me along to visit the township where he used to work—just to talk to “the guys” after he retired. It was the early ’70s, and I was in that phase where I didn’t want to get a haircut. My hair was longer than he liked, and I guess it didn’t go unnoticed.</p>\n\n<p>Mom told me later that Pop had gotten pretty upset. One of the men at the township said something to him—something like, “Hey, who’s your granddaughter?”—and Pop didn’t take it well. He told Nana, who told Mom, who told me that Pop said he wasn’t going to take me back again until I got a haircut. It wasn’t mean-spirited. He just came from a different world. One where how you looked said something about your family.</p>\n\n<p>But even so—he still took me hunting. He got me my first license. He gave me my first real shotgun—an over-under Springfield, .22 on top, .410 shotgun on the bottom. I still have the license. Around age twelve or thirteen, I graduated from the BB gun, and Pop made sure I took the hunter safety classes. He showed me how to shoot, how to carry, how to walk the woods like a man.</p>\n\n<p>We’d hunt with Uncle Jack—his sister Dot’s boy—and old Art Maxin, the half-blind former model T mechanic from Squankum Road who now fixed bicycles and lawn mowers. Art smoked cherry pipe tobacco too, as did Jack, if I remember right. The woods were filled with that sweet scent, mingling with the dampness of fallen leaves and the sharp bite of frost in the air.</p>\n\n<p>Pop didn’t eat the game we caught. Too many squirrels and rabbits during the Depression had ruined him on it. He stuck to steak and ham. No fish either. His rule was simple: no fins, feathers, or fur. But he’d clean the rabbits and give them to Art, or Jack, or one of the old widows in town. They all knew what to do with it.</p>\n\n<p>And now it was my turn.</p>\n\n<p>Every house back then seemed to have a cedar post in the yard. Ours did. So did Maxin’s. So did Jack’s. Weathered, grey, sturdy—each with a single nail driven near the top. That was your cleaning post. You’d hang the rabbit by its feet, make a slit, and peel the skin down like you were turning a sock inside out. The guts came out before you ever brought it home. The kidneys went to the dogs—always.</p>\n\n<p>Those posts are mostly forgotten now. People knock them over, never realizing what they were once for.</p>\n\n<p>And always—there were the Wonder Bread bags. The white ones with all the little balloons and promises of vitamins and minerals. After making tomato sandwiches or whatever we packed for lunch, Pop would save the bags. So would Jack and Art. Before we headed out, they’d stuff a couple into their coat pockets. Afterward, they’d slide the dressed rabbits into those same bags and carry them home—pockets bulging with game. Sometimes we’d stop at the gas station or at John Harper’s, and there they’d be—three men standing in line with dead rabbits in bread bags. No one thought anything of it.</p>\n\n<p>Pop taught me how to skin them too. It wasn’t hard—just a little messy. But it was part of growing up. Part of being trusted. Part of being included.</p>\n\n<p>Have you ever been in the woods in late fall or winter? When the air is cold and clean, and the smell of decomposing leaves blends with the faint sweetness of pipe tobacco? When the fog of your breath meets the slanted morning sunlight, and you look over to see the outline of a man you admire—his smoke cloud drifting just ahead of him?</p>\n\n<p>I was thirteen or fourteen when I first looked around and knew with quiet certainty: this is the world I belong to. And it’s a good one. I don’t want it to end.</p>\n\n<p>And when Pop stopped hunting… so did I.</p>\n\n<p>If there’s anyone, even now, who had something bad to say about my Pop—I’ve never heard it.</p>\n\n<p>Pop was always Pop to me—but to many others, he was Uncle Ernie. He left his mark quietly, but deeply, especially on our family. He never drank. Not even a little. He wasn’t the kind of man to shout or command attention—but when he spoke, it mattered. His words were often witty, always kind, and somehow carried more weight for how few there were.</p>\n\n<p>My middle name is Ernest. My father almost always called me that. And if I was going to grow up to be like anyone—really be someone—it would’ve been my Pop. That’s not to take anything away from my father. Not at all. In fact, my Pop was so much like my dad in how he treated me—and that was a good thing, too.</p>\n\n<p>When Pop passed away, his nephew Jack—the one who hunted with us, who was always by his side—fell into a sorrow I’d never seen before. I remember talking to my mother about it, and Nana too. She told me Jack had just stopped eating. Said he’d grown so quiet. So withdrawn. He told my mom, “I just don’t think I can live like this. It’s just too sorrowful.”</p>\n\n<p>It wasn’t long after Pop’s funeral that Jack died, too.</p>\n\n<p>And my mother, who was not given to sentiment, said something I’ll never forget: “If anyone had ever told me someone could die of a broken heart… I don’t think I would’ve believed them. Not until Jack.”</p>\n <h3>One More Thing…</h3>\n\n<p>Before me, Cousin (Uncle) George and Mary Lou had bicycles that Pop and his brother Ben had refurbished, too. Nothing ever went to waste in their hands. Uncle Ben—Pop’s brother—was a typewriter repairman by trade, but a craftsman at heart. He and Pop used to salvage the metal agitators from inside old washing machines—those big twisting parts that stirred the laundry. Uncle Ben thought they looked beautiful in their own way. So they’d sand them down, paint them gold or silver, run a cord up through the center, and turn them into lamps.</p>\n![BAEC83F8-E031-401B-A35A-FE28411338E5.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmaQMWpyQ8VNNS7J7si6LdCdcfTWckpENqFjeLfJhSN8ht/BAEC83F8-E031-401B-A35A-FE28411338E5.png)\n\n\n<p><em>Big, strange, beautiful lamps.</em></p>\n\n<p>Nobody does that anymore.</p>\n\n<p>Well… almost nobody.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p><strong>Time moves on.</strong></p>\n\n<p>A few years later, when I was sixteen or seventeen, Nana and Pop found me a car—a 1972 Buick Electra 225. Emerald green. 455 four-barrel engine. Looked brand new. They’d found it in a retirement community off Route 70. I paid for it myself—$600 for the car, $600 for insurance—money I had saved, little by little, walking to the bank with my deposit book, just like Nana taught me.</p>\n\n<p>That car didn’t last long.</p>\n\n<p>One night after bowling, I took the back road home. Too fast. Hit a sandy patch. The car spun out and slammed into a tree.</p>\n\n<p>Nobody was hurt. But the car was totaled. Gone.</p>\n\n<p>A week or two later, I came home from school—hot day, early June—and there was Pop, out in the front yard, paintbrush in hand. He was in his seventies by then, standing in the heat with a gallon of baby blue rubber-based boat paint, brushing thick strokes onto a 1964 Buick Special.</p>\n\n<p>Leaves stuck to the wet paint. He didn’t care. He painted right over them.</p>\n\n<p>“Pop, what are you doing?”</p>\n\n<p>He didn’t look up. “What’s it look like I’m doing? I’m painting a car.”</p> I figured he bought the car as a second car and since he was living in a restricted community by then he could not paint it there so i asked him if I could help. “Sure can- there’sa nother brush on the seat” \nSo WE painted the Car..\n\n<p>I asked where he got the paint. I think he told me it came from Jack’s place—Jack had a boat once, and the hull was painted that exact color. That boat never touched water as far as I know. But the paint found a purpose.</p>\n\n<p>Pop  and I worked until the car was fully painted—no primer, no spray gun, just steady hands and a thick coat of boat paint drying faster than we could lay it down. It wasn’t pretty, but it was solid. You could’ve thrown a rock at the side of that car and not scratched it.</p>\n\n<p>When he finished, he turned to me and said, “Mike, it’s your car. I bought this for you.”</p>\n\n<p><strong>Just like the bicycle.</strong><br>\nOnly a lot bigger.</p>\n<hr>\n\n<h3>Epilogue: The Father’s House</h3>\n\n<p>I’ve come to believe that one of the greatest gifts God gives us is family we can trust—and memories we can return to. The kind that remind us what safety felt like before we even had words for it. When you’re little and afraid of the dark, or trying to understand the world, God often shows Himself in the steady voices and patient hands of the people who raised you.</p>\n\n<p>Years later, after I got saved, I started sharing the gospel—recording cassette tapes and mailing them to my grandparents. They listened to me the way I used to listen to them. And, in time, they both got saved. Then my mom did too. And maybe, Lord willing, my dad. God works like that. Through steady love. Through generations.</p>\n\n<p>That’s what I try to tell my girls: When it’s time to choose someone to walk beside you, pay attention. Watch how he treats his mother. Ask to see the family album. Sit down, turn the pages, and ask for the stories. And most of all, find out if he loves Jesus.</p>\n\n<p>Because in the end, all the patchwork cars, nightlights, and cherry pipe tobacco fade—but the love of Christ doesn’t. And if a man carries that love, you’ll feel it. Even in the dark.</p>",
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      "parent_author": "",
      "parent_permlink": "slavery",
      "author": "monetaryrealist",
      "permlink": "juneteenth-and-the-illusion-of-freedom",
      "title": "Juneteenth and the Illusion of Freedom.",
      "body": "This Day in History… or So You Were Told:\nJune 19, 1865—Union troops arrive in Galveston and declare the slaves free. It’s called Juneteenth, the end of slavery in America. Or so you were told. Would you believe… it was really the start of a new kind of bondage?\n\n![B8D18016-F6C5-44B5-82FF-8112DB4B4597.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmVieqTH4LtWcLSETEJMAXuCDhyMuWBcFNG29yD1DBgTr4/B8D18016-F6C5-44B5-82FF-8112DB4B4597.png)\n\n\n<h1>Juneteenth and the Illusion of Freedom: Liberty Without Law Is Just Another Form of Bondage</h1>\n\n<blockquote>\n  “They promise them liberty, while they themselves are the servants of corruption.”<br>\n  — <em>2 Peter 2:19</em>\n</blockquote>\n\n<h2>🎭 Introduction: A Genie’s Wish Without Wisdom</h2>\n<p>\n  Imagine a desperate man finds a genie. “Set me free!” he demands. And the genie says, “As you wish.” In a blink, the man’s shackles fall off—but he’s now in the wilderness, naked, starving, hunted, and invisible to the law. Technically, he’s “free.” Practically, he’s abandoned. That’s Juneteenth in a nutshell.\n</p>\n<p>\n  On June 19, 1865, Union General Gordon Granger announced in Galveston, Texas, that “all slaves are free” under General Order No. 3. But what followed wasn’t liberty in any biblical or constitutional sense—it was military occupation, economic dispossession, and legal uncertainty. The freed men and women had no land, no citizenship, no family protections, no restitution, and no welcome—north or south. And worse, they were now subject to new systems of bondage cleverly disguised as progress.\n</p>\n<p>\n  This isn’t to dishonor the longing for freedom. But it is to say: <strong>Juneteenth was not the end of slavery. It was the beginning of its transformation into something more covert—and more profitable.</strong>\n</p>\n\n![54F76A9A-494B-4820-83FF-870919E92F31.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmWxrLr3caRMh1PcunPi8AotNSdSCkGL19kV2L1hmQE3tX/54F76A9A-494B-4820-83FF-870919E92F31.png)\n\n<h2>⚖️ The Emancipation Proclamation: Political Theater, Not Legal Freedom</h2>\n<p>\n  Abraham Lincoln’s famous 1863 proclamation “freed” only those slaves in <strong>Confederate-held</strong> territories—where the Union had <strong>no authority to enforce it</strong>. In loyal Union states like Kentucky and Delaware, slavery remained untouched. In fact, Lincoln said it plainly:\n</p><br>\n![104AB6EA-112B-4184-8A81-F80E390E1F73.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmciVz1CGMxZZojSWnLNqXidxrTzYLMRYyUMgQ9wJdQr52/104AB6EA-112B-4184-8A81-F80E390E1F73.png)\n\n<blockquote>\n  “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it... what I do about slavery… I do because I believe it helps to save the Union.”<br>\n  — <em>Abraham Lincoln, Letter to Horace Greeley, August 22, 1862</em>\n</blockquote>\n<p>\n  So let’s be honest: Lincoln’s Emancipation was not a moral act. It was a <strong>military maneuver</strong>, aimed at undermining the Southern economy, boosting Northern morale, and preventing European alliances with the Confederacy.\n</p>\n<p>\n  Freedmen were not made citizens. They had <strong>no right to vote</strong>, <strong>no guaranteed pay</strong>, and <strong>no land</strong>. They were “free” to walk off the plantation—straight into <strong>starvation</strong>, <strong>vagrancy arrests</strong>, or <strong>forced labor contracts</strong>.\n</p>\n\n<h2>🔗 The 13th Amendment: Slavery Rebranded</h2>\n<blockquote>\n  “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, <em>except as a punishment for crime</em>… shall exist within the United States.”<br>\n  — <em>13th Amendment, Section 1</em>\n</blockquote>\n<p>\n  The public was told slavery had ended. But the <strong>fine print</strong> told another story. The clause “except as a punishment for crime” became a goldmine for the emerging carceral state. Black men were arrested en masse for “vagrancy,” “loitering,” and “breaking labor contracts,” and then leased to private railroads, mines, and farms in one of the most brutal systems of labor in American history.\n</p>\n<p>\n  <strong>Convict leasing</strong>, chain gangs, and labor prisons replaced the plantation. This system existed in full force well into the 20th century and continues today under different labels.\n</p>\n<p>\n  <strong>Case Law Note:</strong> In <em>Plessy v. Ferguson</em> (1896), the Supreme Court enshrined segregation and second-class status, asserting that “separate but equal” facilities did not violate the 14th Amendment. Freedom was never the goal—<strong>containment</strong> was.\n</p>\n\n<h2>🏛️ The 14th Amendment: From Personhood to Federal Property</h2>\n<p>\n  On paper, the 14th Amendment promised “equal protection.” But what it actually did was:\n</p>\n<ul>\n  <li>Create a <strong>new federal citizenship</strong>, different from state citizenship.</li>\n  <li>Place all freedmen (and eventually, all Americans) under <strong>federal jurisdiction</strong>.</li>\n  <li>Lay the legal foundation for <strong>corporate personhood</strong> (<em>Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad</em>, 1886).</li>\n</ul>\n<p>\n  Freedmen were no longer property of private men—they were now <strong>property of the state</strong>.\n</p>\n![EF03B811-C34A-48A5-99E5-9C7A6F6EA98B.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQme57sxFUShoHcopyMftvUv8Tw8zNkMjMDri9U6icXiKg2/EF03B811-C34A-48A5-99E5-9C7A6F6EA98B.jpeg)\n\n<p>\n  And guess what? Northern states wanted no part of them either. In 1863, Illinois explicitly <strong>banned Black migration</strong> into the state. Indiana’s constitution had <strong>similar provisions</strong>. Even New York newspapers expressed concern over an “influx of Negroes” postwar.\n</p>\n![1D9DD94A-9ED0-4CB4-8A1D-528572A9790E.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmWingWxN4RrB4zTAq7i5bz1fKWJJAe9S9E7eNHyGh33UM/1D9DD94A-9ED0-4CB4-8A1D-528572A9790E.png)\n\n\n<h2>💰 The 16th Amendment: Taxing the Fruit of a Man’s Labor</h2>\n<p>\n  Once under federal citizenship, all men became <strong>subject to income taxation</strong> by the 16th Amendment (1913). This was revolutionary:\n</p>\n<ul>\n  <li>The labor of a man—formerly protected as his <strong>private property</strong>—was now <strong>commodified</strong> and <strong>subject to federal lien</strong>.</li>\n  <li>All laborers became <strong>wage slaves</strong>, renting their lives to employers and tithing their earnings to the state.</li>\n</ul>\n<blockquote>\n  “The laborer is worthy of his hire.” — <em>Luke 10:7</em><br>\n  But now, <strong>Caesar collects first</strong>.\n</blockquote>\n\n<h2>🏴 Behind the Curtain: Northern Racism and Fabian Strategy</h2>\n<p>\n  While the South was open in its racism, the North was <strong>covert and institutional</strong>—more dangerous in the long run. Here’s what some of the so-called “emancipators” really believed:\n</p>\n<ul>\n  <li><strong>William H. Seward</strong>, Lincoln’s Secretary of State:\n    <blockquote>\n      “The Negro is not socially or politically equal to the white man… he is destined to occupy an inferior position.”\n    </blockquote>\n  </li>\n  <li><strong>Horace Greeley</strong>, editor of the <em>New York Tribune</em>:\n    <blockquote>\n      “The superior race must rule… even if they must do so as a permanent aristocracy.”\n    </blockquote>\n  </li>\n  <li><strong>Charles Sumner</strong> believed Black people needed “elevation” by moral tutelage—not true equality.</li>\n</ul>\n<p>\n  Even <strong>Margaret Sanger</strong>, founder of Planned Parenthood, wrote:\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n  “We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population.”<br>\n  — <em>Letter to Dr. Clarence Gamble, 1939</em>\n</blockquote>\n<p>\n  Many Fabians and Marxists of the time believed freedmen should be <strong>sterilized</strong>, <strong>segregated</strong>, or <strong>euthanized</strong>. The only reason they were spared? They became <strong>useful destabilizing pawns</strong> in the larger game of social control.\n</p>\n\n<h2>🏢 Incorporation of D.C. and the Monetization of Man</h2>\n<p>\n  By 1871, the <strong>District of Columbia was formally incorporated</strong>—effectively creating a <strong>federal corporate structure</strong> that allowed the <strong>monetization of human beings as legal entities</strong>.\n</p>\n<p>\n  Everyone born under federal jurisdiction became a <strong>commercial asset</strong>:\n</p>\n<ul>\n  <li>Assigned a number (birth certificate, Social Security)</li>\n  <li>Tracked by contract (licenses, tax filings)</li>\n  <li>Trained through systems (public school, military, prisons)</li>\n</ul>\n<p>\n  The same government that declared you “free” could now:\n</p>\n<ul>\n  <li>Tax your labor</li>\n  <li>Lease your body</li>\n  <li>Seize your children</li>\n  <li>Control your speech</li>\n</ul>\n<p><strong>That’s not freedom. That’s bondage in digital chains.</strong></p>\n\n<h2>🧠 True Freedom Only Comes Through Christ</h2>\n<p>\n  The world rebrands bondage every few generations. From chattel slavery to convict leasing, from wage slavery to welfare dependency, from Roman rule to D.C. incorporation—it’s the same system with a new face.\n</p>\n<p>\n  But the gospel is clear:\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n  “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” — <em>John 8:36</em>\n</blockquote>\n<p>\n  Biblical liberty means being delivered <strong>from sin</strong>, not just from man. It means being a <strong>servant of righteousness</strong>, not a pawn in someone else's empire.\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n  “Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men.” — <em>1 Corinthians 7:23</em>\n</blockquote>\n\n<h2>🙏 Closing Word: Don’t Settle for Caesar’s Chains</h2>\n<p>\n  Juneteenth should not be a celebration of government emancipation. It should be a <strong>warning</strong>: beware of freedom granted by tyrants. If it doesn’t come from Christ—it’s a trick.\n</p>\n<p>\n  Today, people cheer for a “holiday” that celebrates being turned from private property into <strong>federal chattel</strong>. But real liberty doesn’t come from a proclamation. It comes from a <strong>cross</strong>.\n</p>\n<blockquote>\n  “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” — <em>Galatians 5:1</em>\n</blockquote>",
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      "body": "Cool",
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      "author": "monetaryrealist",
      "permlink": "sxsq81",
      "title": "",
      "body": "Grace and peace to you, friend. I appreciate the earnestness of your post and your clear desire to speak truth, act lawfully, and reclaim what so many have unknowingly surrendered. That’s a rare thing these days, and it deserves to be honored.\n\nYou’ve touched on something many are only beginning to understand: that systems of law—especially commercial law—often presume consent through silence, ignorance, or adhesion. In that sense, your use of the Affidavit of Truth to declare your status is a courageous step. You are, in effect, saying, “I am not a lie. I am not lost. I am not yours.” And that is no small thing.\n\nThat said, I’d like to offer a reflection—not as a contradiction, but as a brotherly appeal, much like Paul’s words before Festus and Agrippa. He spoke “freely and cheerfully” because he knew the power of truth, and he knew his judge also “understood customs and questions” (Acts 26:2–3).\n\nMy concern is simply this: when we declare truth in commerce, we may unintentionally be affirming that commerce is the proper venue for truth to be judged. Yet, as you well know, commerce is not the highest law. Commerce presumes contracts, liabilities, instruments, and performance. But a living soul, made in the image of God, is not a commercial entity.\n\nThe deeper remedy may not be to claim sovereignty within commerce, but to peacefully remove oneself from its presumptions altogether—by declaring oneself not in contract, not in agency, and not in surety to that which was created without full disclosure or consent.\n\nI believe many of us are seeking the same thing: not rebellion, but reconciliation with our Creator, and restoration of lawful standing as men and women—not corporate “persons,” but living witnesses.\n\nSo I thank you again for your words. And I pray that we all continue, as Paul said, to “exercise ourselves, to have always a conscience void of offence toward God, and toward men” (Acts 24:16).\n\nRespectfully and peaceably,\n—A fellow sojourne",
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      "permlink": "matthew-22-21-this-is-not-the-same-thing-as-flipping-a-coin",
      "title": "Matthew 22:21 “This Is Not the Same Thing as Flipping a Coin”",
      "body": "Have you ever truly considered what the Lord meant when He said, “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21, KJV)?\n\n![5B539C05-E34A-40E0-9387-FDB6BB3208EA.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmZNqoES6sJDw3UeHJqgiriJSqZ4H4mRbaDvXnbqTcwaUf/5B539C05-E34A-40E0-9387-FDB6BB3208EA.png)\n\n![A4D8FD01-3A56-4E18-8C7F-6BAADEB91BB5.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmWajWk7xEgXXHC6vHkRAYQRzN94NX5tjzUbBipgTgTq9s/A4D8FD01-3A56-4E18-8C7F-6BAADEB91BB5.png)\n\n\nWe hear many sermons about surrendering to Christ, about His sole authority, and the necessity of building our lives on the Word of God. But how often do we pause to ask—what, exactly, did Jesus mean when He made that distinction?\n\nAnd more importantly, what did He leave out?\nWhat belongs only to God—and must never be given to Caesar?\n\nWe need to remember the context.\nJesus was not speaking to the disciples here. He was speaking to a group of rebellious Jews—Herodians and Pharisees—who sought to entangle Him in His words (Matthew 22:15).\n\nThey asked Him whether it was lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, hoping to trap Him.\nBut the Lord, knowing their wickedness, asked them to show Him the tribute money.\n\nThey brought unto Him a penny. And He said, “Whose is this image and superscription?”\nThey answered, “Caesar’s.”\n\nThen came the dividing line:\n\n“Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.”\n\nThe coin bore Caesar’s image—so give it to him.\nBut you—you bear the image of God (Genesis 1:27).\nYour soul, your labor, your children, your conscience—they are not Caesar’s to claim.\n\nCaesar may pave roads, mint coins, and raise armies. But he did not create you.\nAnd if he didn’t create you, he doesn’t own you.\n\nI’ll go deeper into this later. For now, I ask only that you consider:\n\nWhat are you rendering to Caesar that belongs only to God?\nBecause what you render reveals whose image you bear—and whose kingdom you truly serve.\n\nAfter this short reflection, feel free to look over the declarations and affidavits that follow.\nThey are meant to help make that distinction clear—lawfully, peacefully, and in truth.\n\n✦ Preface and Purpose Statement ✦\n\nThe following declaration(s) are presented not as “legal advice,” nor as an attempt to avoid lawful responsibility, but as a statement of conscience, faith, and natural law as understood by men and women seeking to walk uprightly before God and neighbor.\n\nThese documents are not intended for commercial use, nor do they claim protection or privilege under any statutory code. They are not offered by an attorney, nor do they seek to exploit loopholes in civil or tax law. They are simply the honest expression of one’s status before God, one’s conviction of standing, and one’s desire to live lawfully, peaceably, and with integrity in this world.\n\nIt is acknowledged that man-made government has created complex systems of assumed jurisdiction, legal identity, and commercial liability. While we make no accusation of malicious intent, we recognize that many individuals are unaware of the distinctions between the natural man and the legal fiction created in their name.\n\nThis material is provided for educational, spiritual, and truth-seeking purposes. It is meant to provoke sincere inquiry into one’s identity, responsibilities, and relationship to the systems of this world, and to the divine law which transcends them.\n\nWe encourage all who read this to:\n\t•\tTest all things (1 Thessalonians 5:21)\n\t•\tSeek wisdom, not shortcuts (Proverbs 4:7)\n\t•\tAct in honor, not defiance (Romans 12:18)\n\t•\tServe no master but Christ (Matthew 6:24)\n\nNothing herein shall be construed as legal, tax, financial, or commercial advice. It is instead a declaration of truth made in good faith, under the authority of conscience and the Most High God. Those who act on this information must do so with personal responsibility, prayer, and discernment.\n\nAs Christ Himself taught:\n“Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” (Matthew 22:21)\nWe seek only to rightly divide the two, and to render what is true.\n\nAffidavit of Status  \nBy Declaration, Not by Application\n\nI, Monetary of the family Realist, a living man created by Almighty God, do hereby make the following declaration of truth, publicly and under penalty of perjury, to correct the record and rebut false presumptions of law or status made against me by operation of statute, fiction, or adhesion.\n\nI am not a \"U.S. person,\" \"citizen of the United States\" as defined in 26 USC §7701, 14th Amendment fiction, or any legal entity created by or for commercial or administrative purposes.\n\nI was born [insert month and year] on the land known as [State, Republic of], to a living woman and man, not as property or subject of any incorporated government. I was not created by the STATE OF [YOUR STATE], nor do I consent to be governed by fiction through the agency of any instrument bearing my name in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS.\n\nI am not surety for, nor agent of, any legal entity, corporation, trust, or vessel that has been registered in my name without full disclosure or informed consent. I reserve all rights, titles, and interests in my name and estate, nunc pro tunc, ab initio.\n\nI travel freely, assemble peaceably, speak without license, worship without condition, and work by right, not by privilege.\n\nThis affidavit is a true and faithful expression of my status, beliefs, and natural right to be governed only by God's law and mutual contract. No third party may rebut this affidavit without sworn testimony, first-hand knowledge, and full commercial liability.\n\nThis affidavit shall stand as truth in commerce, law, and public record unless rebutted point-for-point by sworn affidavit within 21 days.\n\nFurther Affiant saith not.\n\nAutograph of Living Man:\n___________________________  \nYour Name Goes Here… Monetary:Realist\n(autograph, not signature)\n\nDate: _____________________\n\nWitness #1:  \nName: _____________________  \nSignature: __________________  \n\nWitness #2:  \nName: _____________________  \nSignature: __________________  \n\nNotary (optional, but recommended):  \nState/Commonwealth of ____________  \nCounty of ________________________  \nSubscribed and affirmed before me this ____ day of ____________, 20___  \nNotary Public: _____________________  \nMy commission expires: _____________  \n\n\nxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx\nprotecting a child’s God-given identity from entanglement in state-created legal fictions. \n\nBelow is a carefully constructed Affidavit of Status for a Child, written to:\n\t•\tAffirm the child’s natural status as a living soul—not property or corporate entity.\n\t•\tDeny and rebut any presumption that the child is a “U.S. person,” “citizen of the United States,” or part of any statutory jurisdiction.\n\t•\tPreserve standing under natural law, divine law, and common law.\n\nThis version is designed for parents or guardians who wish to formally declare and protect their child’s status in the public or private record. Let me know what you think.\n\nAffidavit of Status  \nFor [Child's Given Name], a Living Soul\n\nBy Declaration, Not by Application\n\nI, John of the family Doe, a living man and biological father to the child known as [Child’s Given Name], do hereby make this solemn and lawful declaration of truth, publicly and under penalty of perjury, before God and man:\n\n1. That [Child’s Given Name] was born on the ___ day of __________, in the year of our Lord ________, on the land commonly known as [your state], within the united States of America, to a living mother and father.\n\n2. That [Child’s Given Name] is a **living soul**, created by Almighty God, not by the hand or fiction of any government, corporate body, or commercial entity.\n\n3. That no application has been made by myself, or to my knowledge by any agent, hospital, institution, or governmental body, for a State-issued birth certificate, Social Security number, or other enrollment instrument that would create or bind the child to a corporate or statutory entity.\n\n4. That [Child’s Given Name] is **not a \"U.S. person,\"** \"citizen of the United States\" under the 14th Amendment, or participant in any statutory jurisdiction unless and until [he/she] knowingly and voluntarily chooses to enter into such a relationship as a legal adult, with full knowledge of the implications.\n\n5. That I, as the father [and/or mother], retain **full lawful guardianship and responsibility** over the child, and assert all **natural, parental rights** under common law, ecclesiastical law, and divine law, which supersede any presumptions of wardship by the State or any of its subdivisions.\n\n6. That I do not consent, authorize, or acquiesce to any government, corporation, agency, or third party presuming jurisdiction, custody, guardianship, or authority over said child now or at any time in the future unless lawfully contracted with mutual consent and full disclosure.\n\n7. That this Affidavit shall stand as a **lawful rebuttal to any presumption** that the child is a corporate citizen, ward of the state, or subject of any statutory control or benefit system.\n\n8. That this affidavit shall be entered into the private and/or public record as truth and evidence, and shall remain in full force and effect unless rebutted point-for-point by a sworn affidavit within twenty-one (21) days.\n\nFurther Affiant saith not.\n\nAutograph of Living Father:  \n___________________________  \nMonetary : Realist \n[wet ink signature only – not ALL CAPS]  \nDate: _____________________\n\nAutograph of Living Mother (optional):  \n___________________________  \n[Name]: [Last name]  \nDate: _____________________\n\nWitness #1:  \nName: _____________________  \nSignature: __________________  \nDate: _____________________\n\nWitness #2:  \nName: _____________________  \nSignature: __________________  \nDate: _____________________\n\n[Optional but recommended:]  \nNotary Public: _____________________  \nCommission Expires: _______________  \nState/Commonwealth of _____________  \nCounty of _________________________  \n\n\nxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx\n\nAffidavit of Status and Ecclesiastical Guardianship  \nFor a Living Soul Known as [Child’s Given Name]\n\nI, (Your First name here), son of [Father’s name], a man created in the image of Almighty God, do declare before heaven and earth, as the natural and lawful father of the child known as [Child’s Given Name], the following solemn truths, to be entered into the record in the name of the Lord of Hosts.\n\n1. This child, born on the ___ day of ____________, in the year of our Lord ________, is a **living soul**, formed in the womb by the hand of God (Psalm 139:13–16), and is **not a vessel, person, corporation, subject, or property** of any government or man-made institution.\n\n2. This child is **not under Caesar**, but under the sovereign covering of the Most High God. I affirm with full conscience and conviction that no number, license, certificate, bond, or commercial registration has been sought, nor will it be accepted, that would alter or dilute this sacred identity.\n\n3. As father and head of my house (Genesis 18:19, Ephesians 6:4), I accept full and divine **stewardship over this child**. My authority is not derived from the state, but from the God who made us, and I answer only to Him in all matters of conscience, upbringing, and education.\n\n4. I reject and deny any claim, presumption, or constructive trust created by the issuance of:\n   - A birth certificate\n   - A Social Security number\n   - A taxpayer ID or administrative filing\n   - Any state registration or incorporation of the child’s name\n\n5. Let it be known that the **name of this child** is given in love and covenant, not in commerce. The child shall be known as [First Given Name] of the house and family of ( Your Family Name Aka Last name goes here), a sojourner on the land but not of the world system (John 17:14–16). No entity shall alter, convert, securitize, monetize, bond, or claim ownership of this name or identity.\n\n6. I declare that this child is:\n   - A member of the ecclesia (called-out assembly)\n   - Covered under my household’s covenant with the Lord (Joshua 24:15)\n   - Entitled to all natural rights bestowed by the Creator, and not subject to waiver by silent acquiescence\n\n7. Any agency, state actor, or court attempting to assert jurisdiction over this child must first overcome this **publicly affirmed, ecclesiastical declaration**, and must do so by sworn, firsthand affidavit of full liability and lawful authority under God—which no man can claim above the Father of Lights.\n\n8. This declaration shall remain as truth in all public and private records, unless lawfully rebutted within twenty-one (21) days by sworn affidavit under penalty of perjury and under full commercial and spiritual liability.\n\nSo help me God.\n\nFurther affiant saith not.\n\nAutograph of the living father:  \n______________________________  \n(Your first name): of the family ( your last name)\n[wet ink only – not signature or ALL CAPS]  \nDate: _____________________\n\nAutograph of the mother (optional):  \n______________________________  \n[Name]: of the family ____________  \nDate: _____________________\n\nTwo living witnesses (required for ecclesiastical record):  \nWitness 1:  \nName: __________________________  \nAutograph: ______________________  \nDate: ___________________________\n\nWitness 2:  \nName: __________________________  \nAutograph: ______________________  \nDate: ___________________________\n\nNotary (optional for public interface):  \nSubscribed and affirmed before me on this ___ day of __________, 20___  \nNotary Public: ____________________  \nMy Commission Expires: ___________",
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      "parent_permlink": "grace",
      "author": "monetaryrealist",
      "permlink": "debbie-couldn-t-spell-cat-but-she-remembered-me-and-taught-me-god-s-grace",
      "title": "Debbie Couldn’t Spell “Cat,”   But she Remembered me and Taught Me God’s Grace",
      "body": "<h1>When You Are Four, and When You Are Five… and Then You Are Six</h1>\n<p><strong>By Me…</strong></p>\n\n![IMG_0664.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmefqEbSybyGsdon65gLzNDaF347JhzoXHXqRnNJXceEc2/IMG_0664.jpeg)\n\n\n<p>When you are four, the world is your size.</p>\n\n<p>Trees are big. Shoes are confusing. Sidewalks stretch like roads. And the girl across the yard, the one in the light blue dress with the short haircut and the gentle voice—she’s just the right size for your heart, even if she’s bigger than you.</p>\n\n<p>Her name was Debbie. I called her my friend.</p>\n\n<p>She lived near the edge of Nana and Pop’s property, off North Apple Street, in a house just beyond the crab apple tree—about ten yards or so past where the garden gave way to old fencing and strawberry rows. Her parents were kind, and they let us kids come and go, play in the yard, swing on the tree, laugh until we ran out of breath.</p>\n\n<p>Debbie was older than me. Ten years, maybe more. But when you’re four, and she plays hopscotch with you like she means it, you don’t count years. You count jumps.</p>\n\n<p>She never went to school like I did. I didn’t know why. She just didn’t. She waited for us at the bus stop sometimes, smiling like she had waited her whole day just for us to get back. And when she asked how school was, it was because she truly wanted to know. Every day, she’d ask again.</p>\n\n<p>So when I was five, I started trying to teach her.</p>\n\n<p>I’d bring my schoolwork. I’d hold up crayons. I’d spell out “D-E-B-B-I-E” on construction paper and ask her to do the same. I’d tell her “two and two is four,” then try again the next day.</p>\n\n<p>But she didn’t remember. Or couldn’t. It was hard for me to understand why.</p>\n\n<p>That’s when Nana sat me down, gently, and told me something I didn’t yet have words for: “Debbie’s special,” she said. I guess my Nana could see my confusion so she added  “She’s retarded. She won’t learn the way you do. But she loves you.”</p>\n\n<p>So the next time I saw Debbie, I asked her straight: “Are you retarded?”</p>\n\n<p>She got a little quiet and said, “i Tink so.”</p>\n\n<p>I said, “That’s okay. We’re still friends.”<br>And we were.</p>\n\n<p>I never asked her to spell “cat” again. Never asked her what two plus two was. We just played. Red light, green light. Hopscotch. Swinging under the tree to the right of the sidewalk before Pop’s garden began. That swing was made for a kid my size but did not seem to matter.</p>\n\n<p>And every year, on my birthday, Nana made me the same cake—lemon yellow with white frosting and coconut sprinkles. Debbie would come dressed up, her best light blue dress, a big smile, a lot of love. She brought her heart to the party, and that was enough.</p>\n\n<p>There was something else I didn’t know—not until recently.</p>\n\n<p>Debbie hadn’t learned to talk at all until just a few years before I knew her. My Aunt Pat, one of my mother’s best friends, lived right next door with her husband Charlie and their kids, Tammy and little Charlie. Tammy was a year older than me. She had wild red hair, freckles, and a bright, chattering voice. She was “my first friend.”</p>\n\n<p>And it was Tammy—my friend—who first inspired Debbie to speak.</p>\n\n<p>Debbie was ten years older than Tammy. But when Tammy began learning to talk, Debbie started to talk too—for the very first time in her life. She was 12 or 13 or so. That’s what makes it all the more precious: when I, a kindergartener, was trying to teach Debbie how to spell or count, I didn’t realize I was speaking to someone who had only recently begun to speak at all.</p>\n\n<p>We eventually moved to jackson when i was about ten and Life went on. When ever I came back to Nana and Pop’s l would  visit, but eventually Nana and Pop Sold their house and moved to a retirement  village , But I never forgot Debbie</p>\n\n<p>When I was older—grown, bearded, with daughters of my own—I came back to Lakewood one day and drove up to that same old house. Nana and Pop’s place was long sold. But Ethel still lived there. And Debbie was still inside.</p>\n\n<p>I knocked on the screen door, the kind that squeaks with a spring, and said hello.</p>\n\n<p>From the back, I heard, “Who’s that?”<br>“Come and see,” her mother said.</p>\n\n<p>Debbie walked to the door, and it was like no time had passed. Same haircut. Same color dress. Same gentle face. She saw right through my beard and years and said, “You grew up.”</p>\n\n<p>Then she smiled, opened her arms, and gave me the biggest hug.</p>\n\n<p>As far as I know She never did learn what two plus two was. But she remembered me.</p>\n\n<p>She always remembered me.</p>\n\n<p>And that, I think, is love.</p>\n\n<h2>…But Greater Still Is His.</h2>\n\n<p><em>Debbie remembered me.</em></p>\n\n<p>She remembered me when I had forgotten the very things I once tried to teach her. She remembered me when I had grown taller, older, bearded, tired. She remembered me when I didn’t deserve remembering.</p>\n\n<p>And in that embrace—so simple, so unearned—I saw something far bigger than the moment.</p>\n\n<p>I saw a glimpse of how God sees me.</p>\n\n<p>Because the truth is, I am not the teacher in this story. I am not the helper, or the guide. I am the one who barely understands. The one slow to learn. The one who forgets, who wanders, who stumbles and stammers and speaks out of turn. I am the one with all the limitations—more than Debbie ever had, really.</p>\n\n<p><strong>And yet…</strong><br>God remembers me.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n    <p>“For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.”<br>\n    —Psalm 103:14</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>He bends down. He stoops low. He condescends to men of low estate.<br>\nHe, who numbers the stars and calls them by name, also numbers the hairs on my head—and the tears I’ve shed.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n    <p>“What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?”<br>\n    Psalm 8:4</p>\n</>\n\n<p>I don’t have a worthy answer. But I have this story. And I have that hug. And I have the cross—where the Son of God remembered me, even then.</p>\n\n<p>We may spend our lives trying to spell things we barely understand. We may forget the simplest truths, like “two and two is four.”</p>\n\n<p><strong>But God remembers.</strong> He never forgets His own. Not one.</p>\n\n<p>Not me.<br>\nNot Debbie.<br>\nNot you.</p>\n\n<p><strong>And that, I know now, is Love.</strong></p>\n\n</html>",
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      "title": "No More Stars or Whippoorwills, But Jesus Never Changes",
      "body": "<h1>No More Whippoorwills</h1>\n\n<h3><em>A Devotional Reflection</em></h3>\n\n<h4><strong>Scripture Reading:</strong></h4>\n<blockquote>\n“Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls…”<br>\n—Jeremiah 6:16 (KJV)\n</blockquote>\n\n<h2>Devotional: A Fieldside Lament</h2>\n\n<p>I remember a time when the night had a voice.<br>\nA whippoorwill calling somewhere just past the woodline,<br>\nand a bobwhite whistling in the briars.<br>\nThey were small, simple sounds—but holy to a boy who knew<br>\nhis way home by earshot,<br>\nby the ring of his mama’s brass school bell.</p>\n\n<p>Back then, the dark was still dark.<br>\nNot orange-glowed from some warehouse complex a mile away.<br>\nNot pierced by the hum of interstate freight and sodium lights.<br>\nYou could sit in your yard and hear nothing but the wind,<br>\nan owl, maybe the rustle of raccoon feet.<br>\nThe night was slow, and sacred, and alive.</p>\n\n<p>I remember the smell of <strong>sweet fermenting leaves</strong>—<br>\nnot rot, but autumn’s exhale.<br>\n<em>The scent of change, not fire.</em><br>\nHoneysuckles twining through fences, their scent<br>\ncarried in every breeze.</p>\n\n<p>We played in yards, fields, and woods,<br>\nnot fenced in, not watched through Ring cameras.<br>\nWe knew the names of the men who pumped our gas,<br>\nthe women who sold us licorice, bread rolls, and fish hooks.<br>\nWe got our fishing licenses at the same place we got our news—<br>\nby name, not by barcode.</p>\n\n<p>There’s a stream behind the house I grew up in.<br>\nA mile back, maybe less if you take the old deer trail.<br>\nAmber water from tannin-rich roots,<br>\nskunk cabbage sprouting like memory,<br>\ncranberries that once filled the bogs in the 1800s<br>\nnow barely clinging to the edges.</p>\n\n<p>I brought my kids there once.<br>\nTried to show them what quiet looked like.</p>\n\n<p>But the houses are creeping in now.<br>\nLoud cars on cut-in trails.<br>\nDune buggies, maybe.<br>\nThe woods don’t echo anymore. They strain.<br>\nThe land’s been colonized not by settlers,<br>\nbut by developers with bulldozers and brochures.<br>\nThey clear ten acres at a time,<br>\nor fifty, or five hundred.<br>\nThey call it progress.<br>\nBut if a wildfire burns that much forest, it’s a tragedy.<br>\nIf a man sells it to build boxes on slabs,<br>\nthey call it growth.</p>\n\n<p>They paved the huckleberries.<br>\nThey tore up the streambeds.<br>\nThey cut the starlight out of the sky<br>\nwith parking lots and 24-hour LED security lights.</p>\n\n![15C63935-F9E1-4531-B9F1-0A3A1FE5AEB2.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmUU8m2ECCDfGtkRa1pYnzvYTi8XeayW37UbwEMTJ25Qxg/15C63935-F9E1-4531-B9F1-0A3A1FE5AEB2.png)\n\n<p><strong>I bought a telescope back when the stars still existed.</strong><br>\nNow I just look up and remember.</p>\n\n<p>Even the deer have nowhere to go anymore.<br>\nSo they run—through backyards, across roads,<br>\ninto headlights and headlines.</p>\n\n<p>And the whippoorwills?</p>\n\n<p>They left so quietly,<br>\nmost folks didn’t even notice they were gone.</p>\n\n<p>But I did.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h3>Reflection Prompt:</h3>\n<p>What sounds, places, or people once anchored your soul—reminding you that the world was good, and God was near?<br>\nWhat still whispers in your spirit of a quieter way, a special memory, or an old path that should not have been forgotten?</p>\n\n<p>Are we willing to stop, <em>stand in the way</em>, and ask for the old paths again?<br>\nOr have we been too quick to trade them for something louder, faster, brighter—but emptier?</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n\n<h3>Final Reflection & Invitation:</h3>\n<p>Jeremiah’s words weren’t just for ancient Israel—they’re a call to every soul that’s grown tired of the noise.<br>\nThe Lord doesn’t ask us to invent new ways. He invites us to <strong>remember</strong>. To stop. To look. To ask.  \nAnd to walk in what is still good.</p>\n\n<p>Maybe your world no longer sounds like it used to. Maybe the stars are hidden now.<br>\nBut there’s still a path—worn, trusted, old as Eden—that leads to rest.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Will you ask for it?</strong></p>\n\n<p>And if everything else changes—if the whippoorwills go silent,  \nif the woods are swallowed in concrete,  \nif the sky itself dims—</p>\n\n<p><strong>Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.</strong><br>\n—Hebrews 13:8</p>\n\n<hr>\n\nListen……….whippoor -will.",
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      "title": "No More Stars or Whipporwills, But Jesus Never Changes",
      "body": "<h1>No More Whippoorwills</h1>\n\n<h3><em>A Devotional Reflection</em></h3>\n\n<h4><strong>Scripture Reading:</strong></h4>\n<blockquote>\n“Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls…”<br>\n—Jeremiah 6:16 (KJV)\n</blockquote>\n\n<h2>Devotional: A Fieldside Lament</h2>\n\n<p>I remember a time when the night had a voice.<br>\nA whippoorwill calling somewhere just past the woodline,<br>\nand a bobwhite whistling in the briars.<br>\nThey were small, simple sounds—but holy to a boy who knew<br>\nhis way home by earshot,<br>\nby the ring of his mama’s brass school bell.</p>\n\n<p>Back then, the dark was still dark.<br>\nNot orange-glowed from some warehouse complex a mile away.<br>\nNot pierced by the hum of interstate freight and sodium lights.<br>\nYou could sit in your yard and hear nothing but the wind,<br>\nan owl, maybe the rustle of raccoon feet.<br>\nThe night was slow, and sacred, and alive.</p>\n\n<p>I remember the smell of <strong>sweet fermenting leaves</strong>—<br>\nnot rot, but autumn’s exhale.<br>\n<em>The scent of change, not fire.</em><br>\nHoneysuckles twining through fences, their scent<br>\ncarried in every breeze.</p>\n\n<p>We played in yards, fields, and woods,<br>\nnot fenced in, not watched through Ring cameras.<br>\nWe knew the names of the men who pumped our gas,<br>\nthe women who sold us licorice, bread rolls, and fish hooks.<br>\nWe got our fishing licenses at the same place we got our news—<br>\nby name, not by barcode.</p>\n\n<p>There’s a stream behind the house I grew up in.<br>\nA mile back, maybe less if you take the old deer trail.<br>\nAmber water from tannin-rich roots,<br>\nskunk cabbage sprouting like memory,<br>\ncranberries that once filled the bogs in the 1800s<br>\nnow barely clinging to the edges.</p>\n\n<p>I brought my kids there once.<br>\nTried to show them what quiet looked like.</p>\n\n<p>But the houses are creeping in now.<br>\nLoud cars on cut-in trails.<br>\nDune buggies, maybe.<br>\nThe woods don’t echo anymore. They strain.<br>\nThe land’s been colonized not by settlers,<br>\nbut by developers with bulldozers and brochures.<br>\nThey clear ten acres at a time,<br>\nor fifty, or five hundred.<br>\nThey call it progress.<br>\nBut if a wildfire burns that much forest, it’s a tragedy.<br>\nIf a man sells it to build boxes on slabs,<br>\nthey call it growth.</p>\n\n<p>They paved the huckleberries.<br>\nThey tore up the streambeds.<br>\nThey cut the starlight out of the sky<br>\nwith parking lots and 24-hour LED security lights.</p>\n\n![15C63935-F9E1-4531-B9F1-0A3A1FE5AEB2.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmUU8m2ECCDfGtkRa1pYnzvYTi8XeayW37UbwEMTJ25Qxg/15C63935-F9E1-4531-B9F1-0A3A1FE5AEB2.png)\n\n<p><strong>I bought a telescope back when the stars still existed.</strong><br>\nNow I just look up and remember.</p>\n\n<p>Even the deer have nowhere to go anymore.<br>\nSo they run—through backyards, across roads,<br>\ninto headlights and headlines.</p>\n\n<p>And the whippoorwills?</p>\n\n<p>They left so quietly,<br>\nmost folks didn’t even notice they were gone.</p>\n\n<p>But I did.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h3>Reflection Prompt:</h3>\n<p>What sounds, places, or people once anchored your soul—reminding you that the world was good, and God was near?<br>\nWhat still whispers in your spirit of a quieter way, a special memory, or an old path that should not have been forgotten?</p>\n\n<p>Are we willing to stop, <em>stand in the way</em>, and ask for the old paths again?<br>\nOr have we been too quick to trade them for something louder, faster, brighter—but emptier?</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n\n<h3>Final Reflection & Invitation:</h3>\n<p>Jeremiah’s words weren’t just for ancient Israel—they’re a call to every soul that’s grown tired of the noise.<br>\nThe Lord doesn’t ask us to invent new ways. He invites us to <strong>remember</strong>. To stop. To look. To ask.  \nAnd to walk in what is still good.</p>\n\n<p>Maybe your world no longer sounds like it used to. Maybe the stars are hidden now.<br>\nBut there’s still a path—worn, trusted, old as Eden—that leads to rest.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Will you ask for it?</strong></p>\n\n<p>And if everything else changes—if the whippoorwills go silent,  \nif the woods are swallowed in concrete,  \nif the sky itself dims—</p>\n\n<p><strong>Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.</strong><br>\n—Hebrews 13:8</p>\n\n<hr>\n\nListen……….whippoor -will.",
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      "parent_permlink": "lenape",
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      "permlink": "hey-dad-what-s-a-whippoorwill",
      "title": "Hey Dad… What’s a Whippoorwill?",
      "body": "<h1>What’s a Whippoorwill?</h1>\n\n<p>There was a night not long ago when I sat out in the yard and realized something was missing. Something I hadn’t noticed was gone until the silence told me. The whippoorwill’s song was gone. So were the bobwhite quail.</p>\n\n<p>Even the crickets seemed more reserved, like they, too, knew something had passed.</p>\n\n<p>I could still hear the wind, but even that seemed confused, rushing past LED-lit warehouse walls instead of rustling through pines and mountain laurels.</p>\n\n<p>The soundscape of my younger days—nightingales, hoot owls, the soft echo of a distant train—was now just the hum of interstate traffic, warehouse construction, and lights that never blink.</p>\n\n<p>We used to play baseball all day in the summer in a field between my best friend’s house and mine. It was small, but the pitcher’s mound was regulation, and a home run meant clearing the telephone wires—only about 100 feet away. Even if the ball cleared the wires, the yellow line in the street was still center field. We could sit on it and wait for a pop fly to come down—because there were hardly any cars, and the few that did come by knew center field belonged to baseball first.</p>\n\n<p>Now, you can’t stand there for five seconds without getting run down by someone who looks like they got their license from a Cracker Jack box.</p>\n\n<p>A baseball was a treasure then. There weren’t many places close by to buy one. If we had one, it mattered. When the cover tore off, I’d go into my dad’s toolbox, dig out the black electrical tape, and wrap it tight—Just like he showed me, round and round until the whole thing looked like a lump of coal.</p>\n\nThat ball was waterproof. Indestructible. Ugly. Beautiful. It didn’t bounce right, and it sure didn’t fly straight. But it worked.  The game must go on! \n\n<p><em>Have you ever tried to catch a baseball the color of coal when it was thrown straight at you? After the sun went down behind all the trees a half hour before dark?</em></p>\n![2813310C-F61C-4233-8A9B-4246C8338382.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmc1KhP2iyxkYHCnLRiaphZhEwvR1DNRkStHAaYHcK7Lyk/2813310C-F61C-4233-8A9B-4246C8338382.png)\n\n\nWe had no helmets, \n\n<p>We loved baseball.</p>\n\n<p>We’d toss it high into the air at dusk and try to catch it against a sky still holding onto the last light.</p>\n\n<p>Until the whippoorwill started singing…  \n\n\n<br>That was baseball. That was summer. That was <em>before</em>.</p>\n\n<p>We walked to the lake to fish for pickerel, or catfish, and sometimes sunnies. Got our feet muddy in creeks stained amber from the tannic acid in the leaves.  \nI took my daughters once, years later, out to that same stream way out behind where we played ball—a meandering branch of the Metedeconk River, I believe. Still clear. Still beautiful. Still guarded by skunk cabbage and ghosts of cranberry bogs long since forgotten by the township planners.</p>\n\n<p>The woods were everything. Hundreds of acres behind the houses. They weren’t marked by signs or split rail fences. They just <em>were</em>. They surrounded us, hid deer and secrets, cooled the summer air. They were a playground, a refuge, a cathedral.</p>\n\n<p>And now, they’re going.  \nAnd in some places… already gone.</p>\n\n<h2>You want to see what replaced them?</h2>\n\n<p><strong>Look here:</strong></p>\n\n\n![IMG_1587.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmau1ptLcP8WcLztSdiJWJPWe28xKA5RAU1vRMZC5n99NX/IMG_1587.jpeg)\n\n\n<p>What you’re seeing isn’t just a development. It’s a displacement.  \nNot development, but colonization—the new gospel of progress. <strong>Coming Soon</strong>, they say.  \n![C7D53C03-78B5-4E6C-8DF0-7DBC167947E0.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmVUuF1wz93KoXRWvfUB6FdqA9R42G5ehD4e6FHnzVh3HH/C7D53C03-78B5-4E6C-8DF0-7DBC167947E0.jpeg)\n\n18,000–95,000 square feet of silence, flickering lights, and trucks—trucks all night long.  \nAnd the zoning boards and city commissioners and invaders all seem to agree.</p>\n\n<p><strong>The whippoorwills didn’t leave.</strong><br>  \nThey were <em>evicted</em>.</p>\n\n<p>Do you remember the <em>Lorax</em>?</p>\n\n<p>And I know the people building it didn’t grow up here. They couldn’t have.  \nThey can’t smell honeysuckle before they see it.  \nThey don’t know the difference between a skunk cabbage and a lily.  \nThey never fished for pickerel barefoot or picked huckleberries along a deer trail.  \nThey wouldn’t know that the mountain laurels bloom white and pink  \nright before the whippoorwills call.</p>\n\n<p>No, they don’t know it.  \nAnd worse—they don’t miss it.</p>\n\n<p>There was a trail or road here called Fish Road. It sort of ran east and west along what is now <strong>Commodore Highway</strong>, which also runs parallel to the interstate and the warehouses. But it was dirt back then, and it wound through the woods, surrounded by mountain laurels.  \nMy father told me it was once a Lenni Lenape trail—in fact, one of the last in the area.  \nThe township gave it to the developers.  \nThey put up a gate and started the bulldozers to help \"progress.\"</p>\n\n<p>When I get the mail now, it’s not letters from neighbors.  \nIt’s offers.  \nSlick paper, fake names, LLCs with friendly fonts.  \nFront organizations for developers who want my land—  \njust like they got many of my neighbors’.</p>\n\n<p><strong>But not me.</strong>  \nThe Family has been here too long.  \nLonger than my memory can reach.  \nTo sell would be to betray six or seven generations who fished here,  \nplanted here, hunted here, and remembered.</p>\n\n<p>The land I look at—my garden, my patch of high grass—  \nis worth more than anyone can imagine.  \nAnd not because of money.  \nBecause of memory.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I walk in what’s left of those woods still and listen…</p>\n\n<p>And behind that patch of grass now looms something  \nthat looks like the invasion of the Borg from <em>Star Trek</em>.  \nIt crouches at the edge of the field like an alien machine  \nthat swallowed the woods and spit out cinder blocks.</p>\n\n<p>And as I sit in the dusk, thinking all this,  \nmy youngest daughter walks up beside me.  \nShe leans over, reading something I’ve scribbled on a notepad.  \nA rough draft of a memory.  \nA requiem hymn for a way of life.</p>\n\n<p>She says,<br>  \n“Uh… hey Dad?”</p>\n\n<p>I turn and smile. “Hey, little one. What’s up?”</p>\n\n<p>She hesitates.</p>\n\n<p>“… What’s a whippoorwill?”</p>\n\n<p>And that—<br>  \nthat is when I feel it:<br>  \nthe sound of something ancient slipping past,<br>  \nand the ache of knowing<br>  \nit won’t be heard again.</p>\n\nWhip Poor Will\n\n\nwhipper will\nBobWhite\nBob White\n\n“You kind of have to wonder if that’s how the Lenape felt.”",
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  "timestamp": "2025-06-04T03:54:24",
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      "parent_author": "",
      "parent_permlink": "steemchurch",
      "author": "monetaryrealist",
      "permlink": "thou-shalt-not-steal-how-the-state-replaced-righteous-weights-with-rigged-tokens-and-taxed-you-for-believing-them",
      "title": "Thou Shalt Not Steal: How the State Replaced Righteous Weights with Rigged Tokens “And taxed you for believing them.”",
      "body": "![615AE0BB-613C-451C-ACBB-063F2C0351CD.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmbDvpiMWgx7oNzvgs5giLTbqXqt8amKv5Qoa8gB9TvJqj/615AE0BB-613C-451C-ACBB-063F2C0351CD.png)\n<h1>🇺🇸 Would You Believe… <em>The Rest of the Story?</em></h1>\n\n<hr />\n\n<h2>📎 From the Archives</h2>\n<p>Seven years ago, I first began exposing this same deception on steemit. That original post is still live on the blockchain, and it laid the groundwork for what you are going to read .</p>\n<p>Read the original here: <a href=\"https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@monetaryrealist/monetary-realist-merrill-me-jenkins-sr-debates-the-federal-reserve-guy-live-tv-and-totally-destroys-all-arguments-for-fiat\" target=\"_blank\">My Original 7-Year-Old Post on this Fiat Lie</a></p>\n<p><em>The more things change… the more we realize how long the lie has been with us.</em></p>\n\n<p><em>While I was preparing this I thought to myself  …”Self, you know this would sound great as one of those old Paul Harvey Commentaries we used to see on TV or read in a Magazine and so I put this together with that in mind. \n\nA Paul Harvey–style exposé of silver, lies, vending machines, and the theft of real money.</em></p>\n\n<hr />\n\n<h2>📻 Good day…</h2>\n<p>Would you believe… the dollar in your pocket isn’t a dollar at all?</p>\n<p>Would you believe… the government once promised never to take silver out of your coins — then paid a man to help them do just that?</p>\n<p>Would you believe… that the same government now taxes you not on what you earn… but on what <strong>they say</strong> you earned?</p>\n<p>And now you’ll know…<br><strong>The rest of the story.</strong></p>\n\n<hr />\n\n<h2>💰 Once Upon a Time, a Dollar Meant Something</h2>\n<p>Before 1965, U.S. coins were <strong>real money</strong> — 90% silver, backed by substance, not suggestion.</p>\n<p>This wasn’t just good economics — it was <strong>biblical law</strong>.</p>\n<blockquote>\n  “Ye shall do no unrighteousness in meteyard, in weight, or in measure… Just balances, just weights… shall ye have: I am the LORD your God.”<br>\n  — <strong>Leviticus 19:35–36</strong>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>And the <strong>Constitution</strong> agreed:</p>\n<blockquote>\n  “No State shall… make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts.”<br>\n  — <strong>U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 10</strong>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>But by 1965, something changed.</p>\n\n<hr />\n\n<h2>🧾 LBJ and the Coinage Act of 1965</h2>\n<p>President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the <strong>Coinage Act of 1965</strong>, officially removing silver from dimes and quarters, and reducing it in half dollars.</p>\n<p>He reassured the American people:</p>\n<blockquote>\n  “Our present silver coins won’t disappear — they won’t even become rarities.”<br><br>\n  “There will be no profit in holding them out of circulation.”\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>But within <strong>two years</strong>, silver coins vanished.<br>\nAnd those who <em>held</em> them?<br>\n<strong>Profited.</strong></p>\n\n<p>Meanwhile, the average American continued to receive base-metal “clad” coins — <strong>worthless tokens</strong> stamped with the memory of real money.</p>\n\n<hr />\n\n<h2>🛠️ The Vending Machine Deception</h2>\n<p>Here’s where the story takes a turn…</p>\n\n<p>The U.S. Treasury had a problem.<br>\nIf they removed silver, vending machines — which recognized coins by their <em>electrical and magnetic signature</em> — would <strong>reject the new ones</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>So they called a man whose name was <strong>Merrill M.E. Jenkins</strong>, a monetary engineer and vending expert.</p>\n<P> What they told Mr. Jenkins was that they were worried that vending machines and coin counters could be fooled into accepting counterfeit coins and so they asked him how that could be done so they could retool and adjust  and update machines do thwart the possibility…\n<p>Jenkins showed them how to:</p>\n<ul>\n  <li>Create a <strong>copper-nickel clad coin</strong> that mimicked the <em>electromagnetic signature</em> of silver.</li>\n  <li><strong> And That- would Fool the machines</strong>.</li>\n  <li>It seemed though that the treasury was more interested in Fooling the people.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>And they did.<br>\nThe Treasury minted those exact coins.</p>\n\n<p><strong>The machines were never updated.</strong><br>\nThe public never noticed.<br>\nThe silver disappeared.</p>\n<p><strong> Merrill Noticed and spent the rest of his life  telling folks about it.  Even debating the one of the heads of the Federal Reserve  on national TV, getting him to admit the entire system was a fraud.</P></strong>\n\nhttps://youtu.be/sGsFK52L0lk\n\n<blockquote>\n  “The deception was engineered, not accidental.”<br>\n  — <em>Merrill Jenkins, Money: The Greatest Hoax on Earth</em> (1971)\n</blockquote>\n\n<hr />\n\n<h2>💸 The IRS's Other Face</h2>\n<p>Fast-forward to today.</p>\n\n<p>Let’s say you sell a tool for <strong>a $1 Silver Eagle</strong> — a modern coin issued by the U.S. Mint, marked “One Dollar,” and recognized as legal tender under <strong>31 U.S. Code § 5103</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>You report $1 in income.<br>\nYou traded value for value.</p>\n\n<p>But the IRS says:</p>\n<blockquote>\n  “That coin is worth $35 — you owe tax on that!”\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Even though:</p>\n<ul>\n  <li>You made no profit.</li>\n  <li>You accepted legal tender at face value.</li>\n  <li>You gained <strong>nothing</strong> above what the government itself declared.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>This isn’t taxation.<br>\nIt’s <strong>confiscation through distortion</strong>.</p>\n\n<hr />\n\n<h2>⚖️ What the Supreme Court Actually Said</h2>\n\n<blockquote>\n  “The term ‘income’… must be given the same meaning in all of the Income Tax Acts of Congress.”<br>\n  — <strong>Brushaber v. Union Pacific R.R. Co.</strong>, 240 U.S. 1 (1916)\n</blockquote>\n\n<blockquote>\n  “Income may be defined as the gain derived from capital, from labor, or from both combined.”<br>\n  — <strong>Eisner v. Macomber</strong>, 252 U.S. 189 (1920)\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>But here's the hidden truth:</p>\n<p>“<strong>Derived from</strong>” means the income <em>comes from something else</em> — like investments, property, or the labor of others.</p>\n<p>It does <strong>not</strong> mean <em>your own time</em>, <em>your own hands</em>, or <em>your own honest trade</em>.</p>\n\n<p>So if you swap equal value — a silver coin for a good — and no gain is realized, then by their own legal standard:<br>\n<strong>You owe nothing.</strong></p>\n\n<p>Yet the IRS redefined “gain” to mean “anything you touch.”</p>\n\n<hr />\n\n<h2>🔁 Selective Law, Divers Weights</h2>\n\n<table>\n  <thead>\n    <tr><th>When You Owe the Government</th><th>Silver Coin = $1</th></tr>\n  </thead>\n  <tbody>\n    <tr><td>When They Tax You</td><td>Same Coin = $35</td></tr>\n  </tbody>\n</table>\n\n<p>They call it legal tender when it benefits them.<br>\nThey call it <strong>capital gains</strong> when it costs you.</p>\n\n<p>But the <strong>God of Scripture</strong>, and the <strong>founders of this Republic</strong>, called that <strong>an abomination</strong>.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n  “Divers weights, and divers measures, both of them are alike abomination to the LORD.”<br>\n  — Proverbs 20:10\n</blockquote>\n\n<hr />\n\n<h2>🧨 Let’s Recap…</h2>\n\n<table>\n  <thead>\n    <tr><th>Government Claim</th><th>Truth</th></tr>\n  </thead>\n  <tbody>\n    <tr><td>“Silver won’t disappear.”</td><td>It vanished in 2 years.</td></tr>\n    <tr><td>“Clad coins are just as good.”</td><td>They were <strong>engineered to fool machines</strong>, not preserve value.</td></tr>\n    <tr><td>“There’s no profit in hoarding silver.”</td><td>Hoarders made fortunes.</td></tr>\n    <tr><td>“Coins are legal tender.”</td><td>Only when <strong>they say so</strong>.</td></tr>\n    <tr><td>“All income is taxable.”</td><td>Not if it’s <strong>not derived</strong>.</td></tr>\n  </tbody>\n</table>\n\n<hr />\n\n<h2>📖 Biblical and Constitutional Truth</h2>\n\n<blockquote>\n  “A false balance is abomination to the LORD: but a just weight is his delight.” — Proverbs 11:1<br>\n  “Thou shalt not steal.” — Exodus 20:15<br>\n  “No State shall… make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts.” — U.S. Constitution, Art. I, Sec. 10\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Sound money is not nostalgia — it’s <strong>justice</strong>.<br>\nIt’s <strong>freedom from manipulation</strong>.</p>\n<p>And it is <strong>God’s standard</strong>, not the Fed’s.</p>\n\n<hr />\n\n<h2>🗣️ And Now You Know… The Rest of the Story</h2>\n\n<p>The silver is gone.<br>\nThe coins are counterfeit.<br>\nThe courts were once honest.<br>\nThe IRS is not.</p>\n\n<p>And somewhere, an old vending machine still takes a silver dime…<br>\nBecause it knows what we’ve forgotten:</p>\n\n<blockquote><strong>Real money rings different.</strong></blockquote>\n\n<hr />\n\n<h2>📚 Sources & Footnotes</h2>\n\n<ol>\n  <li><strong>Coinage Act of 1965</strong>: Public Law 89-81, 79 Stat. 254</li>\n  <li><strong>LBJ Speech</strong>: Remarks at the Signing of the Coinage Act, July 23, 1965 (<a href=\"https://www.lbjlibrary.org\" target=\"_blank\">LBJ Library</a>)</li>\n  <li><strong>Merrill Jenkins</strong>: <em>Money: The Greatest Hoax on Earth</em> (1971); <em>Free Money for Everybody</em></li>\n  <li><strong>Legal tender statute</strong>: 31 U.S. Code § 5103</li>\n  <li><strong>Supreme Court precedent</strong>:\n    <ul>\n      <li><em>Brushaber v. Union Pacific R.R.</em>, 240 U.S. 1 (1916)</li>\n      <li><em>Eisner v. Macomber</em>, 252 U.S. 189 (1920)</li>\n    </ul>\n  </li>\n  <li><strong>Biblical references</strong>: Leviticus 19:35–36, Deut. 25:13–16, Proverbs 11:1, 16:11, 20:10, Exodus 20:15</li>\n</ol>\n\n[Monetary Realist Merrill ME Jenkins Sr.  debates the FEDERAL RESERVE GUY LIVE TV and totally Destroys all Arguments for FIAT](https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@monetaryrealist/monetary-realist-merrill-me-jenkins-sr-debates-the-federal-reserve-guy-live-tv-and-totally-destroys-all-arguments-for-fiat)",
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  "timestamp": "2025-05-28T18:46:36",
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      "parent_author": "",
      "parent_permlink": "apache",
      "author": "monetaryrealist",
      "permlink": "the-sacredness-we-forget-oak-flat-indigenous-claims-and-the-cross-the-world-fears",
      "title": "The Sacredness We Forget: Oak Flat, Indigenous Claims, and the Cross the World Fears",
      "body": "The Sacredness We Forget: Oak Flat, Indigenous Claims, and the Cross the World Fears\n\nAcross the canyons of Arizona and the courtrooms of Washington, a battle is being fought over a mesa called Oak Flat. The Apache call it Chíchʼil Biłdagoteel, and for years, they have claimed it as sacred ground. The mining giants Rio Tinto and BHP seek to extract copper from beneath it—one of the largest deposits in the nation.[1]\n\n\n![IMG_2041.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmYz35N3aNnrcUdv5agWuCkKwR4W3La5e7TVyLkFpA5jty/IMG_2041.jpeg)\n\nTo the casual observer, this might seem like a clash between environmental justice and corporate greed. But a deeper examination reveals a more complicated, more ideological conflict: one that pits the sacredness of tribal ritual against the spiritual legacy of those who came proclaiming Christ.\n\nAnd in the court of modern opinion, only one kind of sacredness is allowed.\n\n⸻\n\n🪶 Who Was Really Here First?\n\nThe Apache, part of the Athabaskan language family, migrated south from Canada roughly between 1000 and 1500 AD.[2] When they arrived in the Southwest, they displaced or filled the vacuum left by the Hohokam, Mogollon, and Salado—earlier cultures whose complex irrigation systems and village life had mysteriously declined.[3]\n\nToday, Apache claims to Oak Flat are treated as absolute, while the land use, cultivation, and legacy of settlers who’ve lived here for 150–170 years is written off as illegitimate, colonial, or even evil.\n\nThis is a modern sacred double standard.\n\nIf sacredness comes from ceremony, memory, and multi-generational presence, why does the world venerate tribal rituals but despise the Baptist camp meeting, the family homestead, or the country church graveyard?\n\nWhat About the Settlers at Oak Flat?\n\nCritics often imply that American settlers in the Oak Flat area have no meaningful historical claim. But this, too, ignores the record:\n\t•\tAfter the Gadsden Purchase (1854), Oak Flat and surrounding regions became U.S. territory.\n\t•\tThe towns of Globe (1876), Miami (1907), and Superior (1870s) were founded by American miners, ranchers, and families, many of whom were multi-generational.[4]\n\t•\tNearby Pinal City, now a ghost town near the Resolution Copper site, was a silver mining settlement in the 1870s.\n\t•\tFamilies of Welsh, Cornish, Mexican, and Anglo-American descent have lived, worked, and worshiped in the region for over 150 years.\n\nWhile not 300–400 years old like Plymouth or Jamestown, these communities have deep roots, generational investment, and a cultural legacy often erased in modern debates.\n\nIf the nomadic Apache sanctified Oak Flat through their ceremony, settlers did so through labor, sacrifice, and community. I ask this question why aren’t  both deserving  to be acknowledged?\n\nThis situation is not only a North American one:\n\nSouth Africa: The Forgotten Builders\n\nThis same distortion plays out in South Africa, where the Boers—descendants of Dutch settlers like Kruger and Botha—built civilizations in territories that were largely unsettled and undeveloped.[5] Yet they’re now vilified, while tribal claims (some of which post-date the Boer presence) are elevated as morally superior.[6]\n\nWhy the selective memory? Why does Indigenous occupation sanctify, but European development desecrate?\n\nBecause this isn’t about land.\nIt’s about worldview.\n\n🔥 What the World Truly Hates\n\nWhat connects Oak Flat, South Africa, and countless other sites of conflict around the globe is not just culture or ethnicity—it is Christ.\n\nMissionaries who brought the gospel to remote tribes are now portrayed as invaders. Their message—repentance, forgiveness, the exclusivity of Christ—is viewed as cultural genocide.[7] But they didn’t bring bullets. They brought Bibles.\n\nThey didn’t conquer. They wept.\nThey didn’t enslave. They washed feet.\nThey didn’t exploit. They bled and died, not for gold or land, but for souls.\n\n🌍 The Hypocrisy of “Indigenous Protection”\n\nThe same global institutions that protect “sacred land” at Oak Flat also enforce laws prohibiting missionaries from reaching uncontacted tribes—like the Sentinelese of North Sentinel Island—even to save them from hell.[8] The world would rather a soul perish in spiritual darkness than risk hearing the name of Jesus.\n\nWhy?\nBecause Jesus doesn’t just challenge paganism.\nHe exposes the idolatry of the modern West too.\n\n⸻\n\n✝️ Indians Who Found Christ and Left Their “Sacred Ground”\n\nLet’s not forget: thousands of Native Americans have come to Christ. And when they did, they often walked away from ancestral spirits, sacred dances, and land-centered worship—not because they were forced, but because they saw something greater.\n\t•\tTom Claus, a Mohawk missionary, preached Christ throughout the U.S. and started ministries on many reservations.[9]\n\t•\tBilly Osceola, a Seminole, was among the first to bring Christianity to his people, even facing persecution for doing so.[10]\n\t•\tCountless others abandoned sweat lodges, vision quests, and syncretism—not because of white guilt or bribes, but because they met the Saviour who bled for them.\n\nThey didn’t desecrate their culture.\n fulfilled its deepest longings\n\nThey discovered that the truest sacred ground is not a mesa in Arizona or a mountain in the Andes. It’s the hill of Calvary, where a wooden cross stood, and God incarnate died to redeem every tribe and tongue.\n\n⸻\n\n🙏 The Only Sacred Ground That Lasts\n\nIf Oak Flat is sacred, it is only sacred because God made the earth. But when men refuse to worship the Creator and cling instead to the creation, they fall into idolatry.[11]\n\n“The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.”\n(Psalm 24:1)\n\nThe world rushes to protect the sacred ground of tribes, pagans, and cults, religious or otherwise—so long as it means keeping their eyes on the dirt, the sky, and the stars, but most of all, off the Cross.\n\nSacred lands? Possibly. But only when they point to the God who made them.\n\n“The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.”\n— Psalm 24:1, KJV\n\nThe real crime in today’s world is not the mining of copper. It’s the proclamation of Christ.\n\nThat’s why missionaries are slandered.\nThat’s why Christians are mocked.\nThat’s why Indigenous converts are erased from history.\n\nBecause in every generation, there is One Name that the world cannot tolerate:\n\n“There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”\n(Acts 4:12)\n\nThat name is Jesus. And He’s still the Rock that causes offense—whether at Oak Flat, in Johannesburg, or in your own living room.\n\n⸻\n\n📚 Sources\n\n[1] https://apnews.com/article/oak-flat-supreme-court-copper-apache-resolution-2025\n[2] Basso, Keith H. “Western Apache.” Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 10, Smithsonian Institution, 1983.\n[3] Fish, Paul R., and Suzanne K. Fish. The Hohokam Millennium. School for Advanced Research Press, 2007.\n[4] Arizona Historical Society Archives – Globe-Miami and Superior Settlement Timeline; Arizona: A History, Thomas Sheridan, University of Arizona Press, 1995.\n[5] Giliomee, Hermann. The Afrikaners: Biography of a People. University of Virginia Press, 2003.\n[6] Thompson, Leonard. A History of South Africa. Yale University Press, 2001.\n[7] Walls, Andrew F. The Missionary Movement in Christian History. Orbis Books, 1996.\n[8] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-46286215\n[9] https://www.firstnations.org/blog/remembering-dr-tom-claus/\n[10] Florida Memory Project, “Billy Osceola Oral History,” Seminole History Archives\n[11] Romans 1:21–25, KJV\n\nI used ChatGPT to help gather references and clean up grammar while putting this together. The thoughts, convictions, and message are fully my own—but the AI helped make it easier to focus on the heart of the matter.\n![IMG_5632.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmdrxmPHgxugrszbZzApL2FPBAWsBBDeX6HAtT49JgqJFo/IMG_5632.jpeg)\n\n\nHow’s that for a disclaimer. :-)",
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      "parent_permlink": "memorialday",
      "author": "monetaryrealist",
      "permlink": "graves-without-bitterness-a-memorial-day-poetry-collection",
      "title": "“Graves Without Bitterness: A Memorial Day Poetry Collection”",
      "body": "<h2 id=\"bluegray\">The Blue and the Gray</h2>\n<p><em>By Francis Miles Finch (1867)</em></p>\n\n<p>By the flow of the inland river,<br>\nWhence the fleets of iron have fled,<br>\nWhere the blades of the grave-grass quiver,<br>\nAsleep are the ranks of the dead—<br>\nUnder the sod and the dew,<br>\nWaiting the judgment-day—<br>\nUnder the one, the Blue;<br>\nUnder the other, the Gray.</p>\n\n<p>These in the robings of glory,<br>\nThose in the gloom of defeat,<br>\nAll with the battle-blood gory,<br>\nIn the dusk of eternity meet:<br>\nUnder the sod and the dew,<br>\nWaiting the judgment-day—<br>\nUnder the laurel, the Blue;<br>\nUnder the willow, the Gray.</p>\n\n<p>From the silence of sorrowful hours<br>\nThe desolate mourners go,<br>\nLovingly laden with flowers<br>\nAlike for the friend and the foe;<br>\nUnder the sod and the dew,<br>\nWaiting the judgment-day—<br>\nLove and tears for the Blue;<br>\nTears and love for the Gray.</p>\n\n<p>So, with an equal splendor,<br>\nThe morning sun-rays fall,<br>\nWith a touch impartially tender,<br>\nOn the blossoms blooming for all:<br>\nUnder the sod and the dew,<br>\nWaiting the judgment-day—<br>\nBroidered with gold, the Blue;<br>\nMellowed with gold, the Gray.</p>\n\n<p>So, when the summer calleth,<br>\nOn forest and field of grain<br>\nWith an equal murmur falleth<br>\nThe cooling drip of the rain:<br>\nUnder the sod and the dew,<br>\nWaiting the judgment-day—<br>\nWet with the rain, the Blue;<br>\nWet with the rain, the Gray.</p>\n\n<p>Sadly, but not with upbraiding,<br>\nThe generous deed was done;<br>\nIn the storm of the years that are fading,<br>\nNo braver battle was won:<br>\nUnder the sod and the dew,<br>\nWaiting the judgment-day—<br>\nUnder the blossoms, the Blue;<br>\nUnder the garlands, the Gray.</p>\n\n<p>No more shall the war-cry sever,<br>\nOr the winding rivers be red;<br>\nThey banish our anger forever<br>\nWhen they laurel the graves of our dead!<br>\nUnder the sod and the dew,<br>\nWaiting the judgment-day—<br>\nLove and tears for the Blue;<br>\nTears and love for the Gray.</p>\n\n\n![51147B46-4571-4EBE-BF94-DC1E6373C1D3.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmVQjt26GTmqh3KezsysSG68KbFuni7HAVWT4w9rmknkmk/51147B46-4571-4EBE-BF94-DC1E6373C1D3.png)\n.\n<h2 id=\"womenofsouth\">The Women of the South</h2>\n<p><em>By Howard Glyndon (Laura C. Redden Searing)</em></p>\n\n<p>They have no bitter words to say,<br>\nBut only tears and flowers today;<br>\nThey strew the graves of those who fell<br>\nAlike for those who fought so well.</p>\n\n<p>No thought of triumph, no disdain,<br>\nNo pride of conquest, no disdain;<br>\nBut tender hands and hearts that feel<br>\nThe wounds that time can never heal.</p>\n\n<p>They see no flags, they hear no drums,<br>\nNo martial music hither comes;<br>\nBut only silence, deep and still,<br>\nThat speaks of sorrow's utmost thrill.</p>\n\n<p>Oh, noble hearts! Oh, women true!<br>\nWho gave your best, your bravest too;<br>\nAnd now with gentle hands and brave,<br>\nYou deck the unknown soldier's grave.</p>\n\n<p>No matter if he wore the blue,<br>\nOr gray, your tears are for the true;<br>\nAnd in your hearts no hatred dwells,<br>\nBut only love that sorrow tells.</p>\n\n<p>So let the world take heed and learn,<br>\nFrom you, who to the past can turn,<br>\nAnd find amid its darkest hours,<br>\nThe grace to strew with love the flowers.</p>\n![F2FEA97C-415B-457F-A743-EA545F9ED835.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmVedbt6apAqcb4GC6Ri1i8Doc5VWxdaKbKpTXyXQ4zaBG/F2FEA97C-415B-457F-A743-EA545F9ED835.png)\n<h2 id=\"killedattheford\">Killed at the Ford</h2>\n<p><em>By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow</em></p>\n\n<p>He is dead, the beautiful youth,<br>\nThe heart of honor, the tongue of truth,<br>\nHe, the life and light of us all,<br>\nWhose voice was blithe as a bugle call,<br>\nWhom all eyes followed with one consent,<br>\nThe cheer of whose laugh, and whose pleasant word,<br>\nHushed all murmurs of discontent.</p>\n\n<p>Only last night, as we rode along,<br>\nDown the dark of the mountain gap,<br>\nTo visit the picket-guard at the ford,<br>\nLittle dreaming of any mishap,<br>\nHe was humming the words of some old song:<br>\n\"Two red roses he had on his cap,<br>\nAnd another he bore at the point of his sword.\"</p>\n\n<p>Sudden and swift a whistling ball<br>\nCame out of a wood, and the voice was still;<br>\nSomething I heard in the darkness fall,<br>\nAnd for a moment my blood grew chill;<br>\nI spoke in a whisper, as he who speaks<br>\nIn a room where some one is lying dead;<br>\nBut he made no answer to what I said.</p>\n\n<p>We lifted him up to his saddle again,<br>\nAnd through the mire and the mist and the rain<br>\nCarried him back to the silent camp,<br>\nAnd laid him down on his bed of pain.<br>\nHis lips with the dying murmur moved<br>\nAs if to answer the prayer we said,<br>\nAnd he faintly smiled as he bowed his head.</p>\n\n<p>He is dead, the beautiful youth,<br>\nThe heart of honor, the tongue of truth;<br>\nHe, the life and light of us all,<br>\nWhose voice was blithe as a bugle call,<br>\nWhom all eyes followed with one consent,<br>\nThe cheer of whose laugh, and whose pleasant word,<br>\nHushed all murmurs of discontent.</p>\n![C41EAE14-E210-4D2F-8257-10E649DEC08A.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQme56wpvdDqgsSYfAFXXhyjKjmsJkay2xqV9vqJHvQPq2g/C41EAE14-E210-4D2F-8257-10E649DEC08A.png)\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"odememorial\">Ode for Memorial Day</h2>\n<p><em>By Paul Laurence Dunbar</em></p>\n\n<p>Done are the toils and the wearisome marches,<br>\nDone is the summons of bugle and drum.<br>\nSoftly and sweetly the sky overarches,<br>\nShelt’ring a land where Rebellion is dumb.<br>\nDark were the days of the country’s derangement,<br>\nSad were the hours when the conflict was on,<br>\nBut through the gloom of fraternal estrangement<br>\nGod sent his light, and we welcome the dawn.</p>\n\n<p>O’er the expanse of our mighty dominions,<br>\nSweeping away to the uttermost parts,<br>\nPeace, the wide-flying, on untiring pinions,<br>\nBringeth her message of joy to our hearts.</p>\n\n<p>Ah, but this joy which our minds cannot measure,<br>\nWhat did it cost for our fathers to gain!<br>\nBought at the price of the heart’s dearest treasure,<br>\nBorn out of travail and sorrow and pain;<br>\nBorn in the battle where fleet Death was flying,<br>\nSlaying with sabre-stroke bloody and fell;<br>\nBorn where the heroes and martyrs were dying,<br>\nTorn by the fury of bullet and shell.</p>\n\n<p>Ah, but the day is past: silent the rattle,<br>\nAnd the confusion that followed the fight.<br>\nPeace to the heroes who died in the battle,<br>\nMartyrs to truth and the crowning of Right!</p>\n\n<p>Out of the blood of a conflict fraternal,<br>\nOut of the dust and the dimness of death,<br>\nBurst into blossoms of glory eternal<br>\nFlowers that sweeten the world with their breath.<br>\nFlowers of charity, peace, and devotion<br>\nBloom in the hearts that are empty of strife;<br>\nLove that is boundless and broad as the ocean<br>\nLeaps into beauty and fullness of life.</p>\n\n<p>So, with the singing of paeans and chorals,<br>\nAnd with the flag flashing high in the sun,<br>\nPlace on the graves of our heroes the laurels<br>\nWhich their unfaltering valor has won!</p>\n![825097A9-4493-4B10-AEC5-81F492F6FFDE.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmP7Bu7LyFd7pBpj7P5DjGS2ymoC2pBjA7ahw5FdnccWaS/825097A9-4493-4B10-AEC5-81F492F6FFDE.png)",
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      "parent_permlink": "memorialday",
      "author": "monetaryrealist",
      "permlink": "a-memorial-day-or-disposable-patriotism",
      "title": "A Memorial Day Or Disposable Patriotism",
      "body": "<h1>Disposable Patriotism: The Paper Plate Republic</h1>\n<h3>A Memorial Day Reflection on Mourning, Memory, and Meaning</h3>\n<hr>\n![IMG_7131.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmcz3KXQvnD3EofDeghjwmMRVNGzmQnSSNw8XeEFWDrJ1V/IMG_7131.jpeg)\n\n\n<h2>Another Day of Flags and Fireworks?</h2>\n<p>Memorial Day — a day once set aside for solemn remembrance — has become another opportunity for patriotic branding and barbecue sales.</p>\n<p>Flag napkins and plastic tablecloths are mass-produced in Chinese sweatshops. Paper plates painted like Old Glory are tossed in the garbage while the sacred Flag Code is openly violated by those who claim to honor it.</p>\n<p>All while politicians praise “sacrifice,” and the nation forgets who started this day — and why.</p>\n<p>But beneath the shallow slogans and retail discounts lies a legacy written in tears, ashes, and broken bodies. And it began not in Washington, but in the South, among the widows of the Confederacy, walking the ruined fields of a war they didn’t really start — but could not escape.</p>\n\n<hr>\n<h2>Memorial Day: A Legacy Rooted in Reconciliation and Remembrance</h2>\n<h3>Origins in the South</h3>\n![IMG_7552.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmVHM85QcMW1zFKJw2KaxQeD8QMLV8x8DXMtt4MthqoFqW/IMG_7552.jpeg)\n\n\n<p>In the aftermath of the Civil War, the South was devastated — physically, economically, and spiritually. With over 260,000 Confederate soldiers dead, it was often Southern women who took up the burden of remembrance.</p>\n\n<p>They formed Ladies’ Memorial Associations (LMAs) across the South — in Richmond, Charleston, Atlanta, and small towns alike — organizing efforts to locate, exhume, and properly bury the remains of Confederate soldiers left rotting in fields and ditches, many still in the uniforms in which they fell.</p>\n\n<p>They did more than bury their own. In places like Columbus, Mississippi (April 25, 1866), these women decorated the graves of both Union and Confederate soldiers, refusing to let even their enemies be left for the crows. This act of grace inspired the famous poem “The Blue and the Gray” by Francis Miles Finch — and helped lay the foundation for a national day of remembrance.</p>\n\n<strong>These women understood something we’ve forgotten:<br>\nBurial is not about politics — it is about dignity.</strong>\n\n<hr>\n<h3>Biblical Foundations for Burial and Honor</h3>\n\n<p>Throughout Scripture, the burial of the dead is treated not as a formality — but as a sacred obligation.</p>\n<ul>\n<li>Abraham purchased a tomb for Sarah in Machpelah (Genesis 23)</li>\n<li>Joseph asked that his bones be carried to Canaan (Genesis 50:24–26)</li>\n<li>Joseph of Arimathaea buried Jesus in his own tomb (Luke 23:50–53)</li>\n<li>Jesus fulfilled prophecy by being buried with the rich (Isaiah 53:9)</li>\n</ul>\n\n<strong>Burial is not just about death. It is a declaration of the worth of the person — and a hope beyond the grave.</strong>\n\n<p>So when the South buried her dead, and even Union boys with them, she was living out a truth as old as Abraham and as sacred as the tomb of Christ.</p>\n\n<hr>\n<h3>General John A. Logan’s Proclamation</h3>\n\n<p>Moved by these acts of compassion, General John A. Logan, Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, issued General Order No. 11 on May 5, 1868, designating May 30 as a day of remembrance.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n“The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion… We are organized, comrades, as our regulations tell us, for the purpose… of preserving and strengthening those kind and fraternal feelings which have bound together the soldiers, sailors, and marines who united to suppress the late rebellion.”\n\n<br><br>\n\n![IMG_1817.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmTrzJxvFDoTuzsRvNuufs9FAuQsfHsTtyRu5tZ9JSHBnE/IMG_1817.jpeg)\n\n\nLet no neglect, no ravages of time, testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten… Let us then, at the time appointed, gather around their sacred remains… and garland the passionless mounds above them with the choicest flowers of springtime.”\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Logan openly credited the Southern women for inspiring the tradition, stating that they had honored their dead with such grace and consistency that the North ought to do the same.</p>\n\n<hr>\n<h3>The Aftermath of Gettysburg: Who Was Buried, and Who Wasn’t</h3>\n\n<p>The Battle of Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863) left over 50,000 casualties. The Union quickly established the Gettysburg National Cemetery — consecrated by Abraham Lincoln — to bury Union dead.</p>\n\n<p>But the Confederate dead were left behind, buried in shallow trenches, many unmarked and unhonored.</p>\n\n![IMG_7865.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmPYUzik1pLQcsUmhsjbrdZWTf7CufdAsdtUkCx3dqgdwe/IMG_7865.jpeg)\n\n\n<p>It was not until the 1870s that Ladies’ Memorial Associations and Southern families exhumed thousands of Confederate remains, reinterring them in cemeteries across the South. Their bodies were claimed not by the government, but by grieving mothers and daughters with shovels and wagons.</p>\n\n<hr>\n<h3>Arlington Cemetery: A Graveyard Chosen for Vengeance</h3>\n\n<p>Arlington National Cemetery sits on the grounds of the Lee family estate — the home of Mary Anna Custis Lee and her husband, Confederate General Robert E. Lee.</p>\n\n<p>The Union government seized the property during the war and began burying soldiers in Lee’s front yard, intentionally desecrating the estate so it could never be lived in again.</p>\n\n<p>Quartermaster General Montgomery Meigs, a staunch Unionist who hated Lee, ordered burials to take place close to the house, including the rose garden and front steps. His goal: to turn Lee's home into a monument to Union dominance.</p>\n\n<p>After the war, Lee’s son, George Washington Custis Lee, sued the government. In United States v. Lee (1882), the Supreme Court ruled that the seizure was unconstitutional and awarded the family $150,000 in compensation — a large sum at the time.</p>\n\n<hr>\n<h3>A Pool, a Fence, and the Weight of Memory</h3>\n\n<p>When I was small, Memorial Day wasn’t about slogans.</p>\n\n<p>It was when my grandfather — a World War II veteran of the South Pacific — opened the swimming pool he built for his grandchildren.</p>\n\n<p>Not for his own kids. Not for prestige. He and his sons dug it by hand. Poured concrete to the fence.</p>\n\n<p>Every grandchild’s hands and feet pressed into the concrete, with names scratched beside.</p>\n\n<p>Each Memorial Day, we’d measure our hands. Mine got bigger every year. And every year, I wondered when mine would match his.</p>\n\n<p>He died when I was 13.</p>\n\n<p>But I remember that pool — 15 by 30 feet. Rubber liner. Diving board. One ladder. A yellow-painted walkway, sloped so water would run off.</p>\n\n<p>And in the pool shed — a 30-gallon vat of chlorine powder. He told us: “Don’t let even one drop of water touch it. It’ll explode.”</p>\n\n<p>And we believed him. Because he never lied. Maybe exaggerated — but never lied.</p>\n\n<p>He flew an American flag out front. He wasn’t flashy.</p>\n\n<p>If you asked about the war, he’d tell you just enough. Kamikazes. Torpedoes that missed because the ship wasn’t loaded.</p>\n\n<p>He didn’t talk about gore. But he didn’t glamorize it either. He carried it in his eyes.</p>\n\n<p>Later I learned more — from my uncle. My grandfather had told him about a day on deck, behind an anti-aircraft gun, watching a speck on the horizon get larger. A Japanese plane. Straight at them.</p>\n\n<p>They were using their planes as missiles. And one man was torn apart in front of him — but there wasn’t time. He pulled the body from the seat, grabbed the blood-slick handles, and fired until the wreckage passed by.</p>\n\n<p>He didn’t brag about it. Didn’t seek medals. He just built a pool. Laid down concrete. And let his grandkids compare hands every year.<p>\n\n<hr>\n<h3>And There Were Others</h3>\n![IMG_8485.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmbwqtZ8YZQxdJ5sL5gpUqqMssNMy86LcUxA4tSucv4ryN/IMG_8485.jpeg)\n\n\n<p>His brothers-in-law? Five brothers — all in Europe. Battle of the Bulge. Liberators of camps. They all came home. But not all whole.</p>\n\n<p>Uncle Jack came back with shrapnel in his head. Good at first — handsome, strong. But a routine VA check dislodged the metal. Touched the wrong place in his brain. He spent the rest of his life in a mental institution.</p>\n\n<p>I never met him in person. But I talked to him on the phone. He sounded normal.</p>\n\n<p>My mother told me of a day when she went with my grandmother to Marlboro hospital to visit Uncle Jack. She was warned that Jack did not seem to have a problem — however, he did. My mom told me years later how good looking he was and how normal he seemed while they sat out in the yard at a picnic table.</p>\n\n<p>My grandmother excused herself to go inside for some reason and left my mother alone with Uncle Jack for a few minutes. And that’s when Jack leaned over to whisper to my mom that the squirrels were Black people, and they were spies — but not to tell his sister because it would only upset her.</p>\n\n<p>That’s when I understood. He didn’t leave the war. The war stayed in him.</p>\n\n<hr>\n<h3>What Memorial Day Meant — And What We’ve Made of It</h3>\n\n<p>None of these men talked much about killing, though I know they did. None of them wanted to be remembered with slogans. They wanted their friends remembered.</p>\n\n<p>Memorial Day wasn’t political. It was sacred. It wasn’t about what party you voted for — it was about what your soul still carried.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Disposable flags.</li>\n<li>Discounts at chain stores.</li>\n<li>Barbecues on flag napkins made in countries that hate us.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>But back then? A flag flew because someone bled for it, and the pool opened not for luxury, but for legacy.</p>\n\n<hr>\n<h3>Final Words</h3>\n\n<p>I suppose in some way I do carry a small portion of the weight they carried — though certainly not the scars. I suppose we all should.</p>\n\n![IMG_7865.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmPYUzik1pLQcsUmhsjbrdZWTf7CufdAsdtUkCx3dqgdwe/IMG_7865.jpeg)\n\n\n<p>And maybe that’s what Memorial Day should still be:<br>\nNot a celebration,<br>",
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    {
      "parent_author": "",
      "parent_permlink": "africa",
      "author": "monetaryrealist",
      "permlink": "thou-art-the-man-france-the-franc-and-the-prophetic-cry-against-globalist-exploitation",
      "title": "“Thou Art the Man”: France, the Franc, and the Prophetic Cry Against Globalist Exploitation",
      "body": "“More Right Than She Knew”: France, Africa, and the Prophetic Voice of an Italian Prime Minister\n\n\n![9E7DBA8B-3797-4290-A3D2-77586A0451CB.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmX2DJQpu2VqwPX5Gnz2qCaina6rPTY3hpmEnTezcaKUEb/9E7DBA8B-3797-4290-A3D2-77586A0451CB.jpeg)\n\n\nColonialism is too soft a word. This is globalist economic slavery—and Giorgia Meloni may have spoken more like a prophet than a politician.\n\n⸻\n\nA Strange Moment of Truth on Live TV\n\nWatch Meloni’s 2019 remarks on the CFA franc:\nYouTube: Giorgia Meloni exposes France’s exploitation of Africa \nhttps://youtu.be/q-C8ogD6E8c\n\nIn a 2019 television appearance, Italian MP Giorgia Meloni held up a CFA franc note and declared that France was exploiting African nations by printing their money, seizing their reserves, and benefiting from their suffering. She showed a photograph of a child working in a gold mine in Burkina Faso.\n\nThe world was shocked. Critics scoffed. The press fact-checked. But very few asked the real question:\n\nWhat if she was more right than even she realized?\n\nJust as Saul once prophesied among the prophets, or Caiaphas unwittingly spoke the plan of redemption, Meloni may have struck a far deeper chord—a prophetic indictment of a beast-like system cloaked in diplomacy, finance, and Enlightenment rhetoric.\n\n⸻\n\nColonialism? No. This Is Globalist Sharecropping\n\nMany call it “colonialism,” but that term doesn’t go far enough. What France and its allies enforce is not the overt conquest of land—it’s the covert conquest of sovereignty through ledgers, treaties, and currencies.\n\nWhat is the CFA Franc system?\n\t•\t14 African countries use a currency controlled by France.\n\t•\t50% of their foreign reserves are held by the French Treasury.\n\t•\tThey receive back only ~0.75%–1.25% interest, and must ask permission to access their own money.\n\t•\tThis includes wealth from gold, oil, cocoa, and other hard exports.\n\nFrance, in turn, earns credit, international clout, and a false sense of stability—off the backs of nations it no longer governs, but still controls.\n\nThat’s not colonialism. It’s a “feudal-fascist” system—a form of sharecropping by bank.\n\n⸻\n\nFractional Reserve Slavery\n\nThis is where the globalist machine kicks in. France, like all fiat economies, doesn’t “use” those African deposits in a traditional sense. Instead:\n\t•\tThey book them as assets,\n\t•\tUse them to issue more credit,\n\t•\tAnd inflate France’s own economic position, all while telling Africa to remain “fiscally disciplined.”\n\nThey do this with real wealth—gold, oil, human labor—while giving back permission slips to use it.\n\n⸻\n\nThe Rotten Fruit of the Enlightenment\n\nThis entire system is built on the godless rationalism of the French Enlightenment:\n\t•\tMan is supreme.\n\t•\tReason is king.\n\t•\tGod is irrelevant.\n\t•\tMorality is measured by utility.\n\t•\t“Liberty” is defined by control, not by conscience.\n\nIt’s the same philosophy that birthed the guillotine, suppressed Christian missions, and today suppresses true Gospel work in Africa—replacing it with NGOs, IMF policy, climate religion, and LGBTQ colonialism.\n\nThey don’t just want Africa’s gold. They want its soul.\n\n⸻\n\nWhen the Beast Speaks in Diplomatic Tones\n\nThis is not just about money. It’s about the system of the Beast:\n\t•\tBuy and sell only with approval (Revelation 13:17),\n\t•\tEconomic worship enforced by allegiance,\n\t•\tGlobal institutions masquerading as saviors, while draining the lifeblood of entire peoples.\n\nWe now have:\n\t•\tDigital currencies on the rise,\n\t•\tSurveillance “infrastructure” disguised as inclusion,\n\t•\tEntire regions spiritually and economically subjugated to a one-world financial religion.\n\n⸻\n\nA Word from an Unlikely Prophetess\n\nMeloni may not be a theologian. But when she held up that CFA franc and shouted “this is colonialism!”, she was echoing the tone of the prophets—not in eloquence, but in truth.\n\nShe was more right than she knew.\n\n“And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto them… it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people.”\n— John 11:49–50\n\n“Is Saul also among the prophets?”\n— 1 Samuel 10:11\n\nHistory is filled with unwitting instruments of God’s judgment, and perhaps in this moment, Giorgia Meloni became one.\n\n⸻\n\nFrance’s Real Product: Debt and Hypocrisy\n\nAsk yourself: What does France actually produce that the world needs today?\n\t•\tCheese?\n\t•\tWine?\n\t•\tFashion and bureaucracy?\n\nNot industry. Not freedom. Not truth.\n\nWhat they do produce—quietly and devastatingly—is:\n\t•\tDebt-backed domination,\n\t•\tDigital fascism in disguise, and\n\t•\tA financial plantation economy exported through the IMF, the EU, and the WEF.\n\n⸻\n\nThe Real Gospel vs. the Beast System\n\nWhat Africa needs is not IMF loans or French “partnerships.”\nIt needs freedom in Christ.\n\t•\tReal freedom.\n\t•\tEconomic liberty rooted in just weights and measures (Leviticus 19:36).\n\t•\tPolitical self-rule.\n\t•\tAnd the Gospel that sets captives free, not manages them like commodities.\n\n⸻\n\nConclusion: The Time for Choosing\n\n“France’s foreign policy is a rotted trunk built on stolen branches.”\n\nMeloni’s outburst was not just political—it was providential.\n\nNow the world must choose:\n\t•\tTruth over tyranny,\n\t•\tSovereignty over servitude,\n\t•\tChrist over Caesar,\n\t•\tKingdom over global cartel.\nDisclaimer:\nThis post was created with the assistance of AI tools for research, sourcing, and formatting. All arguments, opinions, and interpretations are my own.\n\nEpilogue: It’s Not Just France. It’s the Spirit of the Age.\n\nTo focus only on France would be to miss the greater reality:\nFrance is the figurehead. The system is global. The spirit is ancient.\n\nThis is not just about Paris, the Banque de France, or even the CFA franc. What we are witnessing is the unfolding of a worldwide economic system rooted in the same spirit that built Babel—a system that:\n\t•\tCentralizes power,\n\t•\tControls wealth,\n\t•\tSuppresses truth,\n\t•\tAnd enslaves the conscience.\n\nFrom the IMF’s debt shackles, to CBDCs and programmable currencies, to the WEF’s “stakeholder capitalism” that makes corporations into unelected governments—this is not the evolution of democracy. It’s the rise of technocratic tyranny.\n\n“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”\n— Ephesians 6:12\n\nFrance is the visible villain. But the Beast is multinational. And its master is not of flesh.\n\nWhat’s at stake is not just monetary policy—it is the soul of nations.\n\nAnd while Meloni spoke as one shocked by injustice, she may have unknowingly echoed the cry of every prophet before her:\n\n“Thou art the man.”",
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      "title": "Mark 12:1-12  Looking at the madness of Rebellion:",
      "body": "<h1>He Will Come</h1>\n<p><em>A Devotional Narrative on Mark 12:1–12 and the Return of the King</em></p>\n<hr>\n\n<p><strong>Text:</strong> <a href=\"https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Mark-12-1_12/\" target=\"_blank\">Mark 12:1–12 (KJV)</a></p>\n<blockquote>\n  “And he began to speak unto them by parables. A certain man planted a vineyard, and set an hedge about it, and digged a place for the winefat, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country…”<br>\n  <em>(Full passage: <a href=\"https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Mark-12-1_12/\" target=\"_blank\">Mark 12:1–12</a>)</em>\n</blockquote>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h2>A Boy’s Understanding of Ownership</h2>\n\n<p>When I was just a young boy, I didn’t need a law book to understand property rights.<br>\nI knew my house, my Nana and Pop’s house, and what “Don’t touch that” meant.<br>\nRules were understood. And pretty much universal and so  Not debated. Not resented or even thought about all that much. There was order, and there was peace because of it.</p>\n\n<p>In our house, my mother and father made the rules. In my grandparents’ house, they did and on either side of the family it was pretty much the same . If Pop said to stay out of the garden, we did—and not just me, but anyone who came over. “That’s Pop’s garden” was enough. Stay out of the garage? Done. Don’t wander off? Understood. Don’t touch the gun? It wasn’t mine—it was Dad’s or Pop’s. It was theirs. That meant something.</p>\n\n<p>And we weren’t afraid—we were anchored. Authority didn’t threaten us. It kept us safe.</p>\n\n<p>I remember the old Grants department store where my Nana ( My Mothers mother) had her shop—G.J. Wigs. It was a whole little world in itself. She had a section aet up in the store she rented space based on the number of floor tiles it took up. Department stores back then did that sort of thing, and everyone knew her. She ran her place like a queen runs her castle. She hired girls to help  out, but every once in a while, someone would try to cheat her, take over, or run a little competition on the side. That never ended well. Nana had contracts. She had a right to be there. And when someone crossed the line, they  would prefer security to my grandmother to help them leave the store. She didn’t lose her booth—she held her ground. Because it was hers and she worked hard for it.</p>\n\n<p>I remember that was even a restaurant in Grants—so going there wasn’t just shopping, it was an event. My mom worked nights, and sometimes she’d take us to visit Nana. If she needed to try on clothes, we’d sit in the dressing room and play with wooden blocks they kept for kids. The air smelled like cosmetics, coffee, and new shoes. I didn’t worry about where we were or what might happen. We didn’t have to understand the world—we just had to know who we were with.</p>\n\n<p>We knew Mom loved us. Nana owned her booth. And Dad , he worked for my other grandfather and he would be home when we got there.<br>\nThat was enough.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h2>The Madness of the Murderers</h2>\n\n<p>That’s why the parable Jesus told in <a href=\"https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Mark-12-1_12/\" target=\"_blank\">Mark 12</a> stings so deeply. He speaks of a vineyard—a place prepared, hedged, cultivated, protected. A tower. A winepress. It was someone’s property—built with care, let out to tenants who didn’t own it, but were given stewardship.</p>\n\n<p>Then came harvest.</p>\n\n<p>The owner sent servants to collect what was rightfully his. But the tenants beat one, stoned another, killed another. Finally, he sends his son, his beloved, thinking, Surely they will reverence him.</p>\n\n<p>But they said:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n  “This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours.”<br>\n  —<a href=\"https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Mark-12-7/\" target=\"_blank\">Mark 12:7</a>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>That’s not just criminal. That’s delusional. And it’s exactly what sin does to the soul.<br>\nIt convinces you that you can kill the rightful heir and inherit the kingdom.<br>\nIt forgets that there’s still a Father. That He still holds the deed. That He will come.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n  “What shall therefore the lord of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the husbandmen, and will give the vineyard unto others.”<br>\n  —<a href=\"https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Mark-12-9/\" target=\"_blank\">Mark 12:9</a>\n</blockquote>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h2>They Knew—And Still Rejected</h2>\n\n<p>This wasn’t vague or symbolic. Verse 12 tells us:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n  “And they sought to lay hold on him, but feared the people: for they knew that he had spoken the parable against them…”<br>\n  —<a href=\"https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Mark-12-12/\" target=\"_blank\">Mark 12:12</a>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>They knew.<br>\nThey knew the parable was about them.<br>\nThey knew the Son in the parable was standing right in front of them.</p>\n\n<p>But like Cain killing Abel and thinking no one would know…<br>\nLike Judas betraying Jesus with a kiss and thinking it could be covered up…<br>\n\nLike fools storming a home and thinking the man of the house won’t come back…</p>\n\n<p>They moved forward with hatred in their hearts and rebellion that induces the kind of madness that convinces the fool that in their rebellion they actually serve God.</p>\n\n<p>Even after witnessing Lazarus raised from the dead:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n  “The chief priests consulted that they might put Lazarus also to death; because that by reason of him many of the Jews went away, and believed on Jesus.”<br>\n  —<a href=\"https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/John-12-10_11/\" target=\"_blank\">John 12:10–11</a>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>That is the logic of sin:<br>\nIf we can’t destroy the truth, we’ll destroy the evidence.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h2>The Old Paths and the Order of Things</h2>\n\n<p>The men I grew up around—the Greatest Generation and the one before it—were quiet, but fierce.<br>\nThey were farmers, welders, well-drillers, hunters. They kept gardens. They minded their business.<br>\nThey owned rifles , shotguns and horses, not to make a statement—but to protect life.</p>\n\n![F5BDAC8E-CF82-4D94-B02B-642115EFC637.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmfPSPCiPTvQuvMwntxDwDKjpacNVfV77JNPtph8Undz9a/F5BDAC8E-CF82-4D94-B02B-642115EFC637.png)\n\n<p>My grandfather—who served in the South Pacific during World War II—had an M1 carbine mounted on his bedroom wall. Fully loaded. Not for show. Not out of fear. But in case order needed to be enforced.</p>\n\n<p>None of these men were crazy. None would have dreamed of walking into another man’s home, killing his family, and thinking they could just take over. That was unthinkable. It was moral insanity.</p>\n\n<p>And yet, in Jesus’ parable, that’s exactly what they did.<br>\nAnd it’s exactly what the chief priests tried to do to Christ.<br>\nThey said, “We will not have this man to reign over us.”<br>\n—<a href=\"https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Luke-19-14/\" target=\"_blank\">Luke 19:14</a></p>\n\n<p>But the Vineyard is not vacant.<br>\nThe Father is not dead.<br>\nAnd the Son is not defeated.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h2>And So—He Will Come</h2>\n\n<p>Jesus wasn’t just telling a parable about Israel’s history.<br>\nHe was warning every heart that thinks it can reject the King and still rule the kingdom.</p>\n\n<p>He was warning us.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n  “Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him…”<br>\n  —<a href=\"https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Revelation-1-7/\" target=\"_blank\">Revelation 1:7</a>\n</blockquote>\n\n<blockquote>\n  “And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me…”<br>\n  —<a href=\"https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Revelation-22-12/\" target=\"_blank\">Revelation 22:12</a>\n</blockquote>\n\n<blockquote>\n  “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout…”<br>\n  —<a href=\"https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/1-Thessalonians-4-16/\" target=\"_blank\">1 Thessalonians 4:16</a>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>He’s not coming back to argue.<br>\nHe’s not returning to ask permission.<br>\nHe’s not sending another messenger.</p>\n\n<p><strong>He will come.</strong></p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h2>A Final Word</h2>\n\n<p>I come quickly—<br>\nWith reward in my hand and fire in my eyes.</p>\n\n<p>I come surely—<br>\nAnd every eye shall see Me.<br>\nThey that pierced Me shall mourn,<br>\nAnd none shall stand who once stood against Me.</p>\n\n<p>I come eternally—<br>\nTo reign with those who confessed Me.<br>\nTo vindicate the martyrs.<br>\nTo crush the rebellion.<br>\nTo claim the vineyard.</p>\n\n<p>And to all who once said,<br>\n“We will not have this man to reign over us…”</p>\n\n<p><strong>I will come.</strong></p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h2>An Invitation: Before He Comes</h2>\n\n<p>Dear soul,<br>\nWhy risk the Revelation when you can receive the Resurrection?</p>\n\n<p>Why face the wrath of the returning King when you could kneel now before the crucified Lamb?</p>\n\n<p>Christ has already come once—not to condemn, but to save.<br>\nHe bore your sin. He took your punishment. He died your death.<br>he Became sin for you that you might become the righteousness of God in Him<br>\nAnd He rose again, not as a defeated martyr, but as the victorious Son of God.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n  “He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.”<br>\n  —<a href=\"https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/John-5-24/\" target=\"_blank\">John 5:24</a>\n</blockquote>\n\n<blockquote>\n  “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”<br>\n  —<a href=\"https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Romans-10-13/\" target=\"_blank\">Romans 10:13</a>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Don’t wait for Him to come in judgment when today He comes in mercy.<br>\nDon’t harden your heart like the husbandmen who killed the heir.<br>\nYou don’t own the vineyard—but you’ve been invited into it.</p>\n\n<p>If you’re lost, repent and believe the gospel.<br>\nIf you’ve wandered, return while there’s time.<br>\nIf you’ve doubted, look again to Calvary.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Jesus is coming.</strong><br>\nThe only question is—will you face Him as Judge or welcome Him as Savior?</p>\n\n<p><strong>He will come.</strong><br>\nAnd <strong>today is the day of salvation.</strong></p>",
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      "permlink": "can-you-behold-the-lamb-will-you-john-1-29",
      "title": "Can you Behold the Lamb … Will You? John 1:29",
      "body": "<p><strong>Text: John 1:29</strong><br>\n“The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”<a id=\"ref1\" href=\"#fn1\"><sup>[1]</sup></a></p>\n\n<p><img src=\"https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmSUXYx2kwGAmpKir3g6RaxsJqXifKb2wgzAWuqsGPw5xN/D444F9E9-487B-4FD2-95AC-5B000C23122B.png\" alt=\"Lamb looking up at the cross\" /></p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h3><strong>A Voice, a Vision, and a Victorious Lamb</strong></h3>\n\n<p>Brethren, the heavens had been as brass for four hundred years.<a id=\"ref2\" href=\"#fn2\"><sup>[2]</sup></a> No prophet’s voice had broken through the gloom. No divine oracle had stirred the soul of Israel. The lamp flickered in the holy place,<a id=\"ref3\" href=\"#fn3\"><sup>[3]</sup></a> but gave no clear light to the nation’s path—until, in the wilderness, there arose a voice.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Behold the lamb….</strong></p>\n\n<p>That voice belonged not to a nobleman, nor to a priest robed in luxury, but to a man clothed in camel’s hair, eating locusts and wild honey<a id=\"ref4\" href=\"#fn4\"><sup>[4]</sup></a>—John the Baptist. Sent of God. Filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother’s womb.<a id=\"ref5\" href=\"#fn5\"><sup>[5]</sup></a></p>\n\n<p>His was a voice of thunder before the rain.</p>\n\n<p>His ministry was brief, but it shook the kingdom. On this day, he sees Jesus—yea, Jesus!—and cries,</p>\n\n<p><strong>“Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world!”</strong><a href=\"#fn1\"><sup>[1]</sup></a></p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>What dear brethren was he saying to them and to us today?</p>\n\n<p>He said, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness.”<a id=\"ref6\" href=\"#fn6\"><sup>[6]</sup></a> A voice—not the Word.<a id=\"ref7\" href=\"#fn7\"><sup>[7]</sup></a> A witness—not the Judge.<a id=\"ref8\" href=\"#fn8\"><sup>[8]</sup></a> A forerunner—not the Bridegroom.<a id=\"ref9\" href=\"#fn9\"><sup>[9]</sup></a> An Harbinger - not the Messiah.</p>\n\n<p>John the Baptist stood not only as a forerunner with feet dusted by the desert’s path, but as a harbinger whose very voice was a thunderclap of divine warning and divine welcome. A forerunner prepares the road,<a id=\"ref10\" href=\"#fn10\"><sup>[10]</sup></a> but a harbinger declares the hour! In John, both callings kissed—he hewed the path with repentance and cried aloud the advent of the Lamb. His garments were rough,<a href=\"#fn4\"><sup>[4]</sup></a> his words were sharp,<a id=\"ref11\" href=\"#fn11\"><sup>[11]</sup></a> but his mission was golden; for he came not to build an altar, but to point to the Sacrifice.</p>\n\n<p>O beloved, take heed—this is the posture of every true preacher of righteousness. We are not the message.<a id=\"ref12\" href=\"#fn12\"><sup>[12]</sup></a> We are the messengers. We are not the light. We bear witness of the light.<a id=\"ref13\" href=\"#fn13\"><sup>[13]</sup></a> John was content to be forgotten so long as Christ was magnified. “He must increase, but I must decrease.”<a id=\"ref14\" href=\"#fn14\"><sup>[14]</sup></a></p>\n<p>Oh, what a tragedy that in our age men make much of themselves and little of Christ! We are not merely living in Generation X or Alpha or Beta—we are drowning in the Selfie Generation—a people intoxicated with their own image, addicted to the altar of their own admiration. They behold not the Lamb, but their own reflection!</p>\n\n<p>No memory of the past, no fear of God, no care for eternity—just a momentary snapshot of pride, filtered and framed. Oh, the madness of a generation that stares into its own face and never sees its own soul!</p>\n\n<p>But John cried not, “Behold yourselves,” but “Behold the Lamb of God!”<a href=\"#fn1\"><sup>[1]</sup></a> And until this world turns from gazing at man to gazing upon Christ, there shall be no hope, no healing, and no heaven.</p>\n\n<p>And what shall we say of this modern clergy, these selfie shepherds, whose sermons are more memoir than message—more story than Scripture? They stand not as heralds of holiness but as influencers of irreverence, more eager to share their journey than to declare Jesus. John would have none of it. He cried not, “Behold my ministry, my movement, my following,” but “Behold the Lamb of God!”</p>\n\n<p>Ah, but how shall they preach the Lamb when they cannot even define a man?<a id=\"ref15\" href=\"#fn15\"><sup>[15]</sup></a> How shall they proclaim the Christ when they do not know the Creator?<a id=\"ref16\" href=\"#fn16\"><sup>[16]</sup></a> Their gods are fashioned by algorithms, their theology fed through artificial minds, and lo—they emerge with a deity made in their own image: soft on sin, fluid in truth, absent of wrath, and blind to Calvary.<a id=\"ref17\" href=\"#fn17\"><sup>[17]</sup></a></p>\n\n<p>We must return—return to the wilderness, where one man with heaven’s burden and burning lungs still cries, “Behold the Lamb of God.”</p>\n\n<p>What kind of eyes does it take to truly behold the Lamb? While others saw only a carpenter’s son from Nazareth,<a id=\"ref18\" href=\"#fn18\"><sup>[18]</sup></a> John saw the Lamb of God.</p>\n\n<p>Now, consider the weight of this phrase. It is not mere poetry. It is pregnant with prophecy and drenched in divine blood. It hearkens to Abraham and Isaac on Mount Moriah—“God will provide himself a lamb.”<a id=\"ref19\" href=\"#fn19\"><sup>[19]</sup></a> It reaches back to the Passover in Egypt,<a id=\"ref20\" href=\"#fn20\"><sup>[20]</sup></a> when the blood of a spotless lamb stayed the death angel’s hand. It echoes through the temple sacrifices<a id=\"ref21\" href=\"#fn21\"><sup>[21]</sup></a> and trembles in the voice of Isaiah,<a id=\"ref22\" href=\"#fn22\"><sup>[22]</sup></a> who declared, “He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter.”</p>\n\n<p>But lo! Now the shadows flee. The types are fulfilled. For God hath provided Himself a Lamb—not from the flock, not from among men, but from the bosom of the Father.<a id=\"ref23\" href=\"#fn23\"><sup>[23]</sup></a></p>\n\n<p><img src=\"https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmWryZrvpKbY5nEUi5Y9UDZDPbEuSphh1YhhwsmEHfwfE4/BDDEF795-649B-4A15-9472-2F3422283780.png\" alt=\"Victorious Lamb with Banner\"></p>\n\n<p>Jesus is that Lamb—spotless,<a id=\"ref24\" href=\"#fn24\"><sup>[24]</sup></a> sinless,<a id=\"ref25\" href=\"#fn25\"><sup>[25]</sup></a> suitable,<a id=\"ref26\" href=\"#fn26\"><sup>[26]</sup></a> and sufficient.<a id=\"ref27\" href=\"#fn27\"><sup>[27]</sup></a> The Father sent the Son,<a id=\"ref28\" href=\"#fn28\"><sup>[28]</sup></a> the Son offered Himself through the eternal Spirit,<a id=\"ref29\" href=\"#fn29\"><sup>[29]</sup></a> and the Lamb of God, slain from the foundation of the world,<a id=\"ref30\" href=\"#fn30\"><sup>[30]</sup></a> fulfills every shadow, satisfies every demand, and secures eternal redemption for all who behold Him in faith.</p>\n<hr>\n\n<p><strong>Let me address the accusation—or assertion if you will—that Jesus was merely one way, and that sin could have been paid for by some other means, through some other man, or some other method.</strong></p>\n\n<p>I will address this through proclamation—and without apology.</p>\n\n<p><img src=\"https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmWkzXVhnRrTozgyitTCxg48kD2hmnEX4UNPepr1qzAu87/A3147FB9-E54D-40F3-AD88-6D85FC0BB026.png\" alt=\"Lamb crowned and victorious\" /></p>\n\n<p><strong>If not Jesus, then who?</strong></p>\n\n<p>Shall it be <strong>Mohammed</strong>, who took wives by force and sanctioned the sword but bore no cross and shed no blood for sin?<br>\nShall it be <strong>Buddha</strong>, who taught detachment from suffering but offered no substitute for the guilty soul?<br>\nShall it be <strong>Confucius</strong>, who imparted wisdom but never claimed to bear the sins of the world?<br>\nShall it be <strong>Joseph Smith</strong>, who brought confusion and contradiction, and died for his own cause, not yours?<br>\nShall it be <strong>Charles Taze Russell</strong>, who denied the cross's power and rewrote Scripture to suit his theology?<br>\nShall it be <strong>the Pope</strong>, who wears a robe of tradition but has no righteousness to clothe your naked soul?<br>\nShall it be <strong>yourself</strong>—the ever-failing, ever-falling sinner, who cannot even cleanse your thoughts for a day, let alone your heart for eternity?</p>\n\n<p><strong>No! A thousand times no!</strong></p>\n\n<p>None of these can bear your sin. None of these can stand in your stead. None of these ever claimed to take away the sin of the world—nor could they if they tried.</p>\n\n<p>All are sinners. All are dead. All are dust. There is only One who is spotless,<a href=\"#fn24\"><sup>[24]</sup></a> sinless,<a href=\"#fn25\"><sup>[25]</sup></a> suitable,<a href=\"#fn26\"><sup>[26]</sup></a> and sufficient.<a href=\"#fn27\"><sup>[27]</sup></a></p>\n\n<p><strong>Only Jesus.</strong></p>\n\n<p>All else is vanity and broken cisterns.<a id=\"ref53\" href=\"#fn53\"><sup>[53]</sup></a> Rituals may touch the flesh, but they leave the soul unwashed. Works may polish the surface, but the heart remains unclean.<a id=\"ref54\" href=\"#fn54\"><sup>[54]</sup></a></p>\n\n<p>Why would you trust a Jesus who cannot take away sin?<br>\nWhy settle for a form of godliness that denies the power thereof?<a id=\"ref55\" href=\"#fn55\"><sup>[55]</sup></a></p>\n\n<p>Some perfumes are not sold by the ounce because they are not worth the bottle that holds them. Some religions sell cheap grace because their gods are powerless to save. But we preach Christ crucified—the power of God and the wisdom of God.<a id=\"ref56\" href=\"#fn56\"><sup>[56]</sup></a> He is the Lamb. The only Lamb.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h3>Conclusion</h3>\n\n<p>John said, “I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God.”<a id=\"ref57\" href=\"#fn57\"><sup>[57]</sup></a></p>\n\n<p>Friend, have you seen Him?</p>\n\n<p>He taketh away the sin of the world. That means yours.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Come. Behold the Lamb.</strong></p>\n\n<p><img src=\"https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmbYhFq3gmR96vMThrZNDyLPyRfhtJRxtDw2ZzDqEFp2RH/F170E1BF-7DE4-4DA4-A803-4F5BB19FC6C1.png\" alt=\"Crowned Lamb in Glory\" /></p>\n\n<hr> <h4>Footnotes:</h4>\n\n<p><a id=\"fn1\" href=\"#ref1\"><sup>[1]</sup></a> John 1:29, KJV.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn2\" href=\"#ref2\"><sup>[2]</sup></a> Amos 8:11; cf. Malachi 4:5–6.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn3\" href=\"#ref3\"><sup>[3]</sup></a> 1 Samuel 3:3.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn4\" href=\"#ref4\"><sup>[4]</sup></a> Matthew 3:4; Mark 1:6.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn5\" href=\"#ref5\"><sup>[5]</sup></a> Luke 1:15.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn6\" href=\"#ref6\"><sup>[6]</sup></a> John 1:23; Isaiah 40:3.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn7\" href=\"#ref7\"><sup>[7]</sup></a> John 1:1, 14.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn8\" href=\"#ref8\"><sup>[8]</sup></a> John 5:22; Revelation 20:12.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn9\" href=\"#ref9\"><sup>[9]</sup></a> John 3:29.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn10\" href=\"#ref10\"><sup>[10]</sup></a> Matthew 3:1–2.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn11\" href=\"#ref11\"><sup>[11]</sup></a> Matthew 3:7–10.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn12\" href=\"#ref12\"><sup>[12]</sup></a> Romans 10:15.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn13\" href=\"#ref13\"><sup>[13]</sup></a> John 1:7–8.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn14\" href=\"#ref14\"><sup>[14]</sup></a> John 3:30.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn15\" href=\"#ref15\"><sup>[15]</sup></a> Genesis 1:27; Matthew 19:4.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn16\" href=\"#ref16\"><sup>[16]</sup></a> John 1:10–11; Romans 1:21–25.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn17\" href=\"#ref17\"><sup>[17]</sup></a> 2 Timothy 4:3–4.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn18\" href=\"#ref18\"><sup>[18]</sup></a> John 6:42.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn19\" href=\"#ref19\"><sup>[19]</sup></a> Genesis 22:8.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn20\" href=\"#ref20\"><sup>[20]</sup></a> Exodus 12:3–13.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn21\" href=\"#ref21\"><sup>[21]</sup></a> Exodus 29:38–39; Numbers 28:3–4.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn22\" href=\"#ref22\"><sup>[22]</sup></a> Isaiah 53:7.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn23\" href=\"#ref23\"><sup>[23]</sup></a> John 1:18.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn24\" href=\"#ref24\"><sup>[24]</sup></a> 1 Peter 1:19.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn25\" href=\"#ref25\"><sup>[25]</sup></a> Hebrews 4:15.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn26\" href=\"#ref26\"><sup>[26]</sup></a> Hebrews 7:26.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn27\" href=\"#ref27\"><sup>[27]</sup></a> Hebrews 10:14.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn28\" href=\"#ref28\"><sup>[28]</sup></a> 1 John 4:14.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn29\" href=\"#ref29\"><sup>[29]</sup></a> Hebrews 9:14.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn30\" href=\"#ref30\"><sup>[30]</sup></a> Revelation 13:8.</p> <p><a id=\"fn31\" href=\"#ref31\"><sup>[31]</sup></a> Romans 3:29.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn32\" href=\"#ref32\"><sup>[32]</sup></a> Micah 7:19; Psalm 103:12.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn33\" href=\"#ref33\"><sup>[33]</sup></a> John 3:14–16.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn34\" href=\"#ref34\"><sup>[34]</sup></a> John 10:16.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn35\" href=\"#ref35\"><sup>[35]</sup></a> Revelation 22:17.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn36\" href=\"#ref36\"><sup>[36]</sup></a> Romans 5:6–8.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn37\" href=\"#ref37\"><sup>[37]</sup></a> 2 Samuel 12:13; Psalm 51.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn38\" href=\"#ref38\"><sup>[38]</sup></a> Luke 8:2.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn39\" href=\"#ref39\"><sup>[39]</sup></a> Luke 22:61–62; John 21:15–17.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn40\" href=\"#ref40\"><sup>[40]</sup></a> Isaiah 63:1; Zephaniah 3:17.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn41\" href=\"#ref41\"><sup>[41]</sup></a> 1 Peter 2:24.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn42\" href=\"#ref42\"><sup>[42]</sup></a> 2 Corinthians 5:21.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn43\" href=\"#ref43\"><sup>[43]</sup></a> Matthew 3:16–17.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn44\" href=\"#ref44\"><sup>[44]</sup></a> 1 Samuel 16:13.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn45\" href=\"#ref45\"><sup>[45]</sup></a> Leviticus 8:12.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn46\" href=\"#ref46\"><sup>[46]</sup></a> Isaiah 61:1–2; Hebrews 5:1–10.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn47\" href=\"#ref47\"><sup>[47]</sup></a> Hebrews 9:12; Hebrews 10:10.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn48\" href=\"#ref48\"><sup>[48]</sup></a> Mark 2:7; Hebrews 4:14–16.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn49\" href=\"#ref49\"><sup>[49]</sup></a> Titus 3:5.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn50\" href=\"#ref50\"><sup>[50]</sup></a> Acts 4:12.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn51\" href=\"#ref51\"><sup>[51]</sup></a> Colossians 2:8.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn52\" href=\"#ref52\"><sup>[52]</sup></a> Ephesians 2:8–9.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn53\" href=\"#ref53\"><sup>[53]</sup></a> Jeremiah 2:13.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn54\" href=\"#ref54\"><sup>[54]</sup></a> Matthew 23:27–28.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn55\" href=\"#ref55\"><sup>[55]</sup></a> 2 Timothy 3:5.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn56\" href=\"#ref56\"><sup>[56]</sup></a> 1 Corinthians 1:23–24.</p>\n<p><a id=\"fn57\" href=\"#ref57\"><sup>[57]</sup></a> John 1:34.</p>",
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      "parent_permlink": "jesus",
      "author": "monetaryrealist",
      "permlink": "can-you-behold-the-lamb-will-you-john-1-29",
      "title": "Can you Behold the Lamb … Will You? John 1:29",
      "body": "<p><strong>Text: John 1:29</strong><br>\n“The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”</p>\n\n\n![D444F9E9-487B-4FD2-95AC-5B000C23122B.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmSUXYx2kwGAmpKir3g6RaxsJqXifKb2wgzAWuqsGPw5xN/D444F9E9-487B-4FD2-95AC-5B000C23122B.png)\n\n<hr>\n\n<h3><strong>A Voice, a Vision, and a Victorious Lamb</strong></h3>\n\n<p>Brethren, the heavens had been as brass for four hundred years. No prophet’s voice had broken through the gloom. No divine oracle had stirred the soul of Israel. The lamp flickered in the holy place, but gave no clear light to the nation’s path—until, in the wilderness, there arose a voice.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Behold the lamb….</strong></p>\n\n<p>That voice belonged not to a nobleman, nor to a priest robed in luxury, but to a man clothed in camel’s hair, eating locusts and wild honey—John the Baptist. Sent of God. Filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother’s womb.</p>\n\n<p>His was a voice of thunder before the rain.</p>\n\n<p>His ministry was brief, but it shook the kingdom. On this day, he sees Jesus—yea, Jesus!—and cries,</p>\n\n<p><strong>“Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world!”</strong></p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>What dear brethren was he saying to them and to us today?</p>\n\n<p>He said, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness.” A voice—not the Word. A witness—not the Judge. A forerunner—not the Bridegroom. An Harbinger - not the Messiah</p>\n\n<p>John the Baptist stood not only as a forerunner with feet dusted by the desert’s path, but as a harbinger whose very voice was a thunderclap of divine warning and divine welcome. A forerunner prepares the road, but a harbinger declares the hour! In John, both callings kissed—he hewed the path with repentance and cried aloud the advent of the Lamb. His garments were rough, his words were sharp, but his mission was golden; for he came not to build an altar, but to point to the Sacrifice. The forerunner went before Him, and the harbinger declared, “Behold!”—and thus, heaven’s trumpet sounded through one man who knew it was not about himself, but all about the Christ.</p>\n\n<p>O beloved, take heed—this is the posture of every true preacher of righteousness. We are not the message. We are the messengers. We are not the light. We bear witness of the light. John was content to be forgotten so long as Christ was magnified. “He must increase, but I must decrease.”</p>\n\n<p>Oh, what a tragedy that in our age men make much of themselves and little of Christ! We are not merely living in Generation X or Alpha or Beta—we are drowning in the Selfie Generation—a people intoxicated with their own image, addicted to the altar of their own admiration. They behold not the Lamb, but their own reflection!</p>\n\n<p>No memory of the past, no fear of God, no care for eternity—just a momentary snapshot of pride, filtered and framed. Oh, the madness of a generation that stares into its own face and never sees its own soul!</p>\n\n<p>But John cried not, “Behold yourselves,” but “Behold the Lamb of God!” And until this world turns from gazing at man to gazing upon Christ, there shall be no hope, no healing, and no heaven.</p>\n\n<p>And what shall we say of this modern clergy, these selfie shepherds, whose sermons are more memoir than message—more story than Scripture? They stand not as heralds of holiness but as influencers of irreverence, more eager to share their journey than to declare Jesus. John would have none of it. He cried not, “Behold my ministry, my movement, my following,” but “Behold the Lamb of God!” Ah, but how shall they preach the Lamb when they cannot even define a man? How shall they proclaim the Christ when they do not know the Creator? Their gods are fashioned by algorithms, their theology fed through artificial minds, and lo—they emerge with a deity made in their own image: soft on sin, fluid in truth, absent of wrath, and blind to Calvary. How shall a generation behold the Lamb when the pulpits have traded blood-stained altars for padded platforms and Holy Ghost fire for social consensus? God help us.</p>\n\n<p>We must return—return to the wilderness, where one man with heaven’s burden and burning lungs still cries, “Behold the Lamb of God.”</p>\n\n<p>What kind of eyes does it take to truly behold the Lamb? While others saw only a carpenter’s son from Nazareth, John saw the Lamb of God.</p>\n\n<p>Now, consider the weight of this phrase. It is not mere poetry. It is pregnant with prophecy and drenched in divine blood. It hearkens to Abraham and Isaac on Mount Moriah—“God will provide himself a lamb.” It reaches back to the Passover in Egypt, when the blood of a spotless lamb stayed the death angel’s hand. It echoes through the temple sacrifices where lambs were offered morning and evening without ceasing. It trembles in the voice of Isaiah, who declared, “He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter.”</p>\n\n<p>But lo! Now the shadows flee. The types are fulfilled. For God hath provided Himself a Lamb—not from the flock, not from among men, but from the bosom of the Father.</p>\n\n![BDDEF795-649B-4A15-9472-2F3422283780.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmWryZrvpKbY5nEUi5Y9UDZDPbEuSphh1YhhwsmEHfwfE4/BDDEF795-649B-4A15-9472-2F3422283780.png)\n\n\n<p>Jesus is that Lamb—spotless, for no sin ever touched His nature; sinless, for He did always those things that pleased the Father; suitable, for He alone could bridge the chasm between God and man; and sufficient, for His one offering perfected forever them that are sanctified. When Abraham lifted up his eyes on Moriah and declared, “God will provide himself a lamb,” he spoke better than he knew. For in Jesus Christ, God not only provides a lamb—He provides Himself. The Father sent the Son. The Son offered Himself through the eternal Spirit. And the Lamb of God, slain from the foundation of the world, fulfills every shadow, satisfies every demand, and secures eternal redemption for all who behold Him in faith.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p><strong>Let me address the accusation—or assertion if you will—that Jesus was merely one way, and that sin could have been paid for by some other means, through some other man, or some other method.</strong></p>\n\n<p>I will address this through proclamation—and without apology.</p>\n![A3147FB9-E54D-40F3-AD88-6D85FC0BB026.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmWkzXVhnRrTozgyitTCxg48kD2hmnEX4UNPepr1qzAu87/A3147FB9-E54D-40F3-AD88-6D85FC0BB026.png)\n\n\n<p><strong>If not Jesus, then who?</strong></p>\n\n<p>Shall it be <strong>Mohammed</strong>, who took wives by force and sanctioned the sword but bore no cross and shed no blood for sin?<br>\nShall it be <strong>Buddha</strong>, who taught detachment from suffering but offered no substitute for the guilty soul?<br>\nShall it be <strong>Confucius</strong>, who imparted wisdom but never claimed to bear the sins of the world?<br>\nShall it be <strong>Joseph Smith</strong>, who brought confusion and contradiction, and died for his own cause, not yours?<br>\nShall it be <strong>Charles Taze Russell</strong>, who denied the cross's power and rewrote Scripture to suit his theology?<br>\nShall it be <strong>the Pope</strong>, who wears a robe of tradition but has no righteousness to clothe your naked soul?<br>\nShall it be <strong>yourself</strong>—the ever-failing, ever-falling sinner, who cannot even cleanse your thoughts for a day, let alone your heart for eternity?</p>\n\n<p><strong>No! A thousand times no!</strong></p>\n\n<p>None of these can bear your sin. None of these can stand in your stead. None of these ever claimed to take away the sin of the world—nor could they if they tried.</p>\n\n<p>All are sinners. All are dead. All are dust. There is only One who is spotless, sinless, suitable, and sufficient.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Only Jesus.</strong></p>\n\n<p>All else is vanity and broken cisterns.<sup>[53]</sup> Rituals may touch the flesh, but they leave the soul unwashed. Works may polish the surface, but the heart remains unclean.<sup>[54]</sup></p>\n\n<p>Why would you trust a Jesus who cannot take away sin?<br>\nWhy settle for a form of godliness that denies the power thereof?<sup>[55]</sup></p>\n\n<p>Some perfumes are not sold by the ounce because they are not worth the bottle that holds them. Some religions sell cheap grace because their gods are powerless to save. But we preach Christ crucified—the power of God and the wisdom of God.<sup>[56]</sup> He is the Lamb. The only Lamb.</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h3>Conclusion</h3>\n\n<p>John said, “I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God.”<sup>[57]</sup></p>\n\n<p>Friend, have you seen Him?</p>\n\n<p>He taketh away the sin of the world. That means yours.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Come. Behold the Lamb.</strong></p>\n\n<hr>\n![F170E1BF-7DE4-4DA4-A803-4F5BB19FC6C1.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmbYhFq3gmR96vMThrZNDyLPyRfhtJRxtDw2ZzDqEFp2RH/F170E1BF-7DE4-4DA4-A803-4F5BB19FC6C1.png)\n\n\n<h4>Footnotes:</h4>\n<p><sup>[1]</sup> John 1:29, KJV.</p>\n<p><sup>[2]</sup> Amos 8:11; cf. Malachi 4:5–6.</p>\n<p><sup>[3]</sup> 1 Samuel 3:3.</p>\n<p><sup>[4]</sup> Matthew 3:4; Mark 1:6.</p>\n<p><sup>[5]</sup> Luke 1:15.</p>\n<p><sup>[6]</sup> John 1:23; Isaiah 40:3.</p>\n<p><sup>[7]</sup> John 1:1, 14.</p>\n<p><sup>[8]</sup> John 5:22; Revelation 20:12.</p>\n<p><sup>[9]</sup> John 3:29.</p>\n<p><sup>[10]</sup> Matthew 3:1–2.</p>\n<p><sup>[11]</sup> Matthew 3:7–10.</p>\n<p><sup>[12]</sup> Romans 10:15.</p>\n<p><sup>[13]</sup> John 1:7–8.</p>\n<p><sup>[14]</sup> John 3:30.</p>\n<p><sup>[15]</sup> Genesis 1:27; Matthew 19:4.</p>\n<p><sup>[16]</sup> John 1:10–11; Romans 1:21–25.</p>\n<p><sup>[17]</sup> 2 Timothy 4:3–4.</p>\n<p><sup>[18]</sup> John 6:42.</p>\n<p><sup>[19]</sup> Genesis 22:8.</p>\n<p><sup>[20]</sup> Exodus 12:3–13.</p>\n<p><sup>[21]</sup> Exodus 29:38–39; Numbers 28:3–4.</p>\n<p><sup>[22]</sup> Isaiah 53:7.</p>\n<p><sup>[23]</sup> John 1:18.</p>\n<p><sup>[24]</sup> 1 Peter 1:19.</p>\n<p><sup>[25]</sup> Hebrews 4:15.</p>\n<p><sup>[26]</sup> Hebrews 7:26.</p>\n<p><sup>[27]</sup> Hebrews 10:14.</p>\n<p><sup>[28]</sup> 1 John 4:14.</p>\n<p><sup>[29]</sup> Hebrews 9:14.</p>\n<p><sup>[30]</sup> Revelation 13:8.</p>\n<p><sup>[31]</sup> Romans 3:29.</p>\n<p><sup>[32]</sup> Micah 7:19; Psalm 103:12.</p>\n<p><sup>[33]</sup> John 3:14–16.</p>\n<p><sup>[34]</sup> John 10:16.</p>\n<p><sup>[35]</sup> Revelation 22:17.</p>\n<p><sup>[36]</sup> Romans 5:6–8.</p>\n<p><sup>[37]</sup> 2 Samuel 12:13; Psalm 51.</p>\n<p><sup>[38]</sup> Luke 8:2.</p>\n<p><sup>[39]</sup> Luke 22:61–62; John 21:15–17.</p>\n<p><sup>[40]</sup> Isaiah 63:1; Zephaniah 3:17.</p>\n<p><sup>[41]</sup> 1 Peter 2:24.</p>\n<p><sup>[42]</sup> 2 Corinthians 5:21.</p>\n<p><sup>[43]</sup> Matthew 3:16–17.</p>\n<p><sup>[44]</sup> 1 Samuel 16:13.</p>\n<p><sup>[45]</sup> Leviticus 8:12.</p>\n<p><sup>[46]</sup> Isaiah 61:1–2; Hebrews 5:1–10.</p>\n<p><sup>[47]</sup> Hebrews 9:12; Hebrews 10:10.</p>\n<p><sup>[48]</sup> Mark 2:7; Hebrews 4:14–16.</p>\n<p><sup>[49]</sup> Titus 3:5.</p>\n<p><sup>[50]</sup> Acts 4:12.</p>\n<p><sup>[51]</sup> Colossians 2:8.</p>\n<p><sup>[52]</sup> Ephesians 2:8–9.</p>\n<p><sup>[53]</sup> Jeremiah 2:13.</p>\n<p><sup>[54]</sup> Matthew 23:27–28.</p>\n<p><sup>[55]</sup> 2 Timothy 3:5.</p>\n<p><sup>[56]</sup> 1 Corinthians 1:23–24.</p>\n<p><sup>[57]</sup> John 1:34.</p>",
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      "title": "“Behold Thy Mother”: A Mother’s Day Reflection on What We’ve Lost—and Must Restore",
      "body": "@@ -161,16 +161,181 @@\n 2 (KJV)%0A\n+!%5BFC03395F-4991-4CF4-842B-576DD05AF0AC.png%5D(https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmYzQFb6g7vTdP8DHzqXzabdT8F7MADVhgpzrCom2MtctU/FC03395F-4991-4CF4-842B-576DD05AF0AC.png)%0A%0A\n %0ABefore \n@@ -905,16 +905,182 @@\n other?%0A%0A\n+!%5B048E924B-FC99-4162-9425-28D97984C5B7.png%5D(https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmVF1VTuuqqZuDyARwFxDQtmRHHysEGkEECpTyHP7KQLAV/048E924B-FC99-4162-9425-28D97984C5B7.png)%0A%0A%0A\n Because \n@@ -1359,16 +1359,17 @@\n heart.%0A%0A\n+%0A\n No, not \n@@ -4212,16 +4212,181 @@\n 1:30%0A%0A%E2%B8%BB%0A\n+!%5B1B67F587-AF2B-48D3-87EF-41DF6CA4744B.png%5D(https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmS7zNM4wwq12tyLopAjEbcpPcLg6Esi86DH5rSgzxfzRn/1B67F587-AF2B-48D3-87EF-41DF6CA4744B.png)%0A%0A\n %0ABehold \n@@ -5600,16 +5600,182 @@\n tacle.%0A%0A\n+!%5B5860B387-AF69-4F5E-9CCE-972D956E6941.png%5D(https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmfKKvPtTKARZzC9zU2bDWzjqyY3xM62jbjVKKS6sCxcJe/5860B387-AF69-4F5E-9CCE-972D956E6941.png)%0A%0A%0A\n This is \n@@ -8321,24 +8321,189 @@\n y, 1942.%0A%0A%E2%B8%BB%0A\n+!%5BFC03395F-4991-4CF4-842B-576DD05AF0AC.png%5D(https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmYzQFb6g7vTdP8DHzqXzabdT8F7MADVhgpzrCom2MtctU/FC03395F-4991-4CF4-842B-576DD05AF0AC.png)%0A%0A\n %0AThe Path Ba\n@@ -9110,16 +9110,16 @@\n d say:%0A%0A\n-\n %E2%80%9CBlessed\n@@ -9116,12 +9116,177 @@\n %0A%0A%E2%80%9CBlessed.%E2%80%9D\n+%0A%0A!%5BBC50393E-12D7-48C1-8735-D5117ED1FFF8.png%5D(https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmZapBuk9B7nPSebpbgZvu2Bt2V5eBWR1yqfyqbTWQckv5/BC50393E-12D7-48C1-8735-D5117ED1FFF8.png)\n",
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      "title": "This Day in",
      "body": "“Honour Thy Father and Thy Mother”\n\n“Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.”\n—Exodus 20:12 (KJV)\n\nBefore there were schools, therapists, or Sunday morning sermons, there were fathers and mothers—ordained by God to raise the next generation in truth and love. To honor one’s parents isn’t optional. It is one of the Ten Commandments, written by the very finger of God, and the first command with a promise attached: that your days may be long and full upon the earth.\n\nOver the years, I’ve told my daughters—and anyone who has ever asked me about a future spouse—the same two things:\n\t1.\tAre they saved—and are they truly serving the Lord?\n\t2.\tHow do they treat their mother?\n\nBecause you can tell nearly everything about a man by the way he treats the woman who gave him life. Not just on birthdays or holidays, but in quiet moments, in conflict, and in sacrifice. And yes, the same goes for women: how she speaks of the one who bore her shows much of her heart.\n\nNo, not every parent is worthy of full trust, and not every home was godly—but honor is a command rooted not in perfection, but in position. And on this day, we turn our hearts especially toward motherhood—not as the world defines it, but as God does: selfless, sacred, and enduring. \n\nAnd Now……..\n\n“Behold Thy Mother”: A Mother’s Day Reflection on What We’ve Lost—and Must Restore\n\n“Behold thy mother.” —John 19:27\n\nIt is sobering to look back on the original intent of Mother’s Day and compare it to what it has become.\n\nAnna Jarvis envisioned a day not to celebrate biology, but to honor the lifelong, sacrificial labor of good mothers—those who raised, nurtured, taught, and loved their children with steadfast devotion.\n\nMother’s Day was never meant to be a reward for giving birth.\nIt was a day of gratitude, where children, molded by loving hands and godly instruction, would rise up and call their mothers blessed.\n\n“Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her.”\n—Proverbs 31:28 (KJV)\n\n⸻\n\nFrom Motherhood to Birthing-Hood\n\nToday, in an age of abandoned children, abortions on demand, and delegated parenting, Mother’s Day has too often evolved into a shallow ritual—a reward for reproduction rather than a recognition of true motherhood.\n\nWe now honor those who have given birth, but not always those who have given themselves—their time, tears, truth, and discipline—to raise the next generation in love and righteousness.\n\nMotherhood is not an event. It is a calling.\nNot a moment of conception, but a lifetime of covenant.\nNot a title bestowed, but a life lived in sacrifice.\n\n⸻\n\nThe Bible’s Vision of a Mother\n\n1. The Mother Who Would Rather Lose Than Harm (1 Kings 3)\n\nWhen Solomon faced two women claiming the same baby, he offered to divide the child in two. One woman said, “Yes,” but the true mother cried out:\n\n“O my lord, give her the living child, and in no wise slay it.”\n—1 Kings 3:26\n\nThat wrenching moment revealed the real mother—not by blood, but by self-sacrifice.\nAnd Solomon, in godly wisdom, gave the child to her.\nHe rewarded her motherhood, not her claim.\n\n2. The Woman Who Pleaded for the Womb (1 Samuel 1)\n\nHannah, barren and ridiculed, wept in prayer and vowed to dedicate her child to the Lord if only He would hear her.\n\n“For this child I prayed; and the Lord hath given me my petition… therefore also I have lent him to the Lord.”\n—1 Samuel 1:27–28\n\nHer motherhood began in the temple, not just the womb. And she kept her vow—even when it meant giving Samuel back to God.\n\n3. The Crown of the God-Fearing Woman (Proverbs 31)\n\nShe is not praised for bearing children, but for teaching them, serving them, loving them, and walking with the fear of the Lord.\n\n“Favor is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.”\n—Proverbs 31:30\n\n⸻\n\nBehold Thy Mother\n\nAnd then—there is the moment at the foot of the cross.\n\nIn His final breaths, Jesus looked down and saw His mother.\nHe didn’t turn to Rome. He didn’t instruct a temple official.\nHe gave her to His disciple—John. And gave John to her.\n\n“Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home.”\n—John 19:27\n\nIt was not a casual gesture, but a sacred command:\nHonor her. Care for her. Love her.\nNot because she bore Him—but because she stood by Him to the end, faithful, full of sorrow, yet full of grace.\n\n⸻\n\nA History They Would Weep Over\n\nBefore we move toward that grace, we must pause and remember the history of this “holiday”—because the women who gave it to us would not only be rolling in their graves for what it has become; they were, in fact, driven to those graves in anguish and poverty trying to preserve its dignity.\n\nAnna Jarvis, the daughter who founded Mother’s Day to honor her godly mother, spent her final years fighting the holiday’s political and commercial corruption. She was committed to an asylum, dying blind, broke, and childless, betrayed by the very people who had twisted her creation into a profit-making spectacle.\n\nThis is no secular holiday to be trampled underfoot,\nlike so many others we’ve defiled—\nTurning Memorial Day into a drunken excuse for sports, fireworks, and debauchery…\nReducing Resurrection Sunday to chocolate bunnies and retail discounts…\nAnd now Mother’s Day?\nInto a mere card in the mail, bought from Christ-rejecting merchants and printed in soulless Chinese factories.\n\nGod help us if we cannot see the sacred in what He intended to be holy.\n\n⸻\n\nA Refrain of Compassion and Truth\n\nLet us be clear—\nWe are not talking about perfect mothers.\n\nWe are not honoring mothers who have done everything right every day of their lives—\nFor such women, like perfect wives, would be rare indeed.\n\nWe are talking about the mothers who did their very best—\n\t•\tMothers who raised their children under dire circumstances,\n\t•\tMothers abandoned by their husbands,\n\t•\tMothers who sacrificed to raise their children with no father at all,\n\t•\tAnd yes, mothers with a loving husband by their side who still bore the weight of motherhood with grace.\n\nWe are talking about the mothers who have shielded their children from harm,\nAnd even those who, despite failures not fully their own,\nHave clung to love with trembling hands.\n\nSome mothers have lost their children through tragedy or mistakes—\nAnd still love them with every breath.\n\nLife is complex.\nI have met women in prison, women homeless, women separated by the state—\nWho have never stopped loving their children.\nSome gave their children away with regret,\nAnd in some cases, even needfully, for protection or provision.\n\nAnd then, yes—\nThere are those who have treated motherhood as a transaction—\nState-supported breeders more concerned with their own ambition\nthan the well-being of the children they bore.\nThey speak of “hard decisions,”\nBut what they mean is selfish choices.\n\nI do not say this to judge—\nGod is the Judge.\n\nBut when you see the horrors,\nWhen you witness the tragedies,\nWhen you feel the weight of real brokenness…\nYou learn to speak with tears, not stones.\n\n“Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb?\nYea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.”\n—Isaiah 49:15\n\nAnd that mother who stood before Solomon—\nWilling to let go of her child rather than let him be harmed—\nShe still teaches us today.\nShe did not win an argument.\nShe won a reward: the recognition of true motherhood.\n\nAnd as for me—I thank God for my mother,\nWho always loved me.\nAnd whom I cherish always.\n\nToday would have been her birthday—born on Mother’s Day, 1942.\n\n⸻\n\nThe Path Back\n\nIf we are to restore meaning to Mother’s Day, we must return to that kind of honor.\n\t•\tNot the Hallmark sentiment,\n\t•\tNot the brunch table flattery,\n\t•\tBut the biblical model of selfless, godly, courageous motherhood.\n\nLet us behold not just those who bore children—but those who raised them in love and truth, those who stood before God like Hannah, who laid their own claim aside like Solomon’s mother, who walked the hard road like Mary.\n\nThat is the mother who must be honored.\n\nThat is the mother who will be remembered.\n\nAnd that is the mother whose children will, in God’s time, rise up and say:\n\n“Blessed.”",
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      "title": "This day in History May 8 1945 V.E. Nazis Defeated and The Day the Beast Got a New Suit",
      "body": "<h2><em>May 8, 1945: The Day the Beast Got a New Suit</em></h2>\n<b>\nHow Victory in Europe Gave Birth to a New Empire—Dressed in Diplomacy, Powered by Deception</b> \n\n<p>On this day in 1945, Europe marked <strong>Victory in Europe Day</strong>. Two treaties were signed—one the day prior, and another on May 8—to ensure the Soviet Union could participate in the ceremony. The war was over, at least on paper. But the long shadow of what came next had already begun to fall.</p>\n![184872DB-0D74-4712-808D-FD41446B352A.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmcQ7UbNhT9yP933iV2gaej71afwahDtVdLHbt2qyvitW2/184872DB-0D74-4712-808D-FD41446B352A.png)\n\n\n<p>World War II never should have happened. It was the consequence of decades of economic corruption, failed policies, and quiet alliances in dark places. In the 1920s and ’30s, fascist regimes rose not in a vacuum, but with the blessing—often formal—of institutions like the Vatican. Concordats were signed. Silence was kept. Eyes were averted. And Europe, blind and brutalized, plunged into a war that would leave millions exterminated—many forgotten.</p>\n\n<p>Before the bombs fell, **Spain had already been tested**. Francisco Franco, Italy’s Mussolini, and Germany’s Hitler had their rehearsal: civil war, imperial invasion, ideological unity. Mussolini’s rise and conquest of Ethiopia was met with applause in Rome. And when he shook hands with Hitler, they dreamed aloud of **a united Europe**, a new empire, a “Third Reich” that would last 1,000 years. It was meant to be a new Rome. It ended in ruin.</p>\n\n<p>The Great Depression—the result of reckless banking speculation—along with the disastrous Treaty of Versailles, the fall of the Russian Tsar, and the rise of Communism, all set the stage. But in the chaos that followed, **Rome remained untouched, sitting above it all**. The Pope, a monarch in white, had bishops and cardinals blessing both Nazi altars and Notre Dame pulpits, shaking hands in Berlin and Chicago alike. The Vatican watched as Europe burned—quiet, diplomatic, and calculating.</p>\n\n<p>My own family bore the weight of that war. My grandfather’s brothers and my grandmother’s brothers served—most of them D-Day survivors. One uncle marched across Europe in General Patton’s army and was present at the liberation of **Buchenwald**. He told of the horror. He told of how, when the Nazi guards had vanished, the soldiers asked Patton what to do. According to my uncle, Patton sent word: <em>“Shoot the fat prisoners.”</em> A grim riddle. Perhaps he meant collaborators. Perhaps something darker.</p>\n\n<p>They all came home good Irish Catholics. But they didn’t come home blind. They saw what had been done. Yet in the United States—in New York and Chicago—<strong>the media muted the Church’s complicity</strong>. The Vatican’s deals with Hitler and Mussolini were downplayed. Franco, once labeled the “ideal Catholic monarch,” was preserved, not purged. Rome emerged with clean hands, while blood still dried on Europe’s soil.</p>\n\n<hr />\n\n<h3><em>A Word from the Author – Patriotism, Not Papacy</em></h3>\n\n<p>I don’t want anyone to misunderstand what I’m sharing here. I count myself a patriot—a constitutional patriot. When I speak of patriotism, I don’t mean blind nationalism. I mean something rooted: something ancestral and accountable. I follow the Fathers—<strong>not the “Holy Father” in Rome</strong>, but <strong>my Heavenly Father</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>I believe our country’s founding fathers did an extraordinary thing. They didn’t establish perfection—but they built a framework for liberty and justice that was meant to be preserved through vigilance and virtue. I am proud of my relatives who fought in World War II—some in the South Pacific, like my grandfather, and others, like his brother and my grandmother’s brothers, who fought across Europe. One of them helped liberate **Buchenwald**. I can’t imagine the horror they faced, or the courage it required.</p>\n\n<p>They weren’t fighting for global finance or Vatican diplomacy or secret treaties. They were fighting evil. **Hitler was a bad guy. Mussolini was a bad guy. Lenin, Stalin, Mao—bad men doing wicked things.** But over time, I’ve come to see something deeper: there were worse forces not because they built camps, but because they financed them. Because they looked away. Because they profited in silence.</p>\n\n<p>Behind the slogans and symbols, behind the flags and treaties, you find the same old cabals—**secret societies**, elite bankers, global councils, conclaves, and cloisters. Whether at the Vatican or Bohemian Grove, there are doors we aren’t allowed behind. Why do files on the assassination of RFK still remain sealed? Why are parts of the Lincoln, McKinley, and MLK investigations still classified? Why does the truth hide until every witness is dead and the consequences no longer matter?</p>\n\n![BBB3B39A-A8DD-463F-B42D-A147FE5160C7.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmZfqUJh475tgqEXCFLoUiqbGpP7TEuqKEeE4bAKZB17ix/BBB3B39A-A8DD-463F-B42D-A147FE5160C7.png)\n\n\n<p>They call it “conspiracy” like it’s a curse word. But **if there’s nothing to hide, why is it still hidden?**</p>\n\n<p>Maybe FDR said it best: <em>“In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.”</em></p>\n\n<p>I believe in honoring those who fought, in loving this land God has allowed us to steward. But patriotism doesn’t mean silence. And discernment doesn’t make you a cynic. If anything, it calls you to shine a brighter light.</p>\n\n<p>That’s all I’m trying to do here.</p>\n<hr />\n\n<h3><em>It’s Not the People—It’s the System</em></h3>\n\n<p>Let me be plain: I’m not talking about the Catholic church down the road, or your Muslim neighbor, or your Baptist cousin. I'm not pointing fingers at individuals, many of whom are faithful, kind, and deeply sincere. What I’m addressing is <strong>the system</strong>—<strong>the machinery</strong> behind the curtain that uses all of us, regardless of denomination, ethnicity, or sincerity, to push forward an agenda that is <strong>anti-Christ</strong> in its design and deception.</p>\n\n<p>You can be Catholic, Muslim, Baptist, atheist, or agnostic and still be a patriotic American. But you can also, without knowing it, be <strong>used by systems of control</strong> that stretch far beyond ballots and borders. <strong>That’s the danger of Babylon</strong>—it doesn’t announce itself with horns and red robes. It whispers through diplomacy, media, currency, and culture.</p>\n\n<p>That’s why the Word says: <em>“Wisdom is profitable to direct.”</em> (Ecclesiastes 10:10)</p>\n\n<p>The time for ignorance is over. The days of casually dismissing history’s warnings have passed. Yet we live in a generation hypnotized by <strong>dance trends</strong>, <strong>selfie filters</strong>, and the fantasy that <strong>men can give birth</strong>. These are not just social quirks. They are **signposts**.</p>\n\n<p>When people lose the ability to reason, to see what is plainly in front of them, we are close to the day when God says: <strong>“Fine, have it your way.”</strong> That’s when the **strong delusion** comes—not simply as punishment, but as confirmation. Because they loved not the truth.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n<p>“And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie.” – 2 Thessalonians 2:11</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>So this isn’t about blaming our neighbors. It’s about **warning our brothers**. It’s about recognizing the system—Rome, finance, global governance, false religion—and seeing how it is dressing itself in the robes of unity, peace, and progress. But underneath it all… the beast is still breathing.</p>\n\n<p>In the aftermath, we occupied Japan and Germany. We rebuilt with Marshal Plans and hollow hope. But something else emerged—<strong>a new economic order</strong>. On European toys and plates, even in the antique shops today, you’ll find the imprint: “Made in Occupied Germany – 1946.” Beneath that, something more lasting was being minted.</p>\n\n<p>In 1942, the Vatican founded a new kind of bank. Bretton Woods redefined global finance. And what Hitler and Mussolini could not do with tanks, the **European Union would begin to accomplish with treaties, bureaucracy, and fiat currency**. The Reich failed. The Beast got a new suit.</p>\n\n<p>And now we live beneath its peace.</p>\n<h2><em>The Face on the Coin: How the Pope Became Europe’s Uncrowned King</em></h2>\n<hr />\n\n<h2><em>From Occupation to Obedience: The Kings of the Earth and One Throne in Rome</em></h2>\n\n<p>When the guns fell silent in 1945, the world did not return to its senses—it simply **shifted its loyalties**. Within years, the **United Nations** was established, claiming to represent “the peoples of the world,” though no one elected its leaders. Soon after, **NATO** became the military spine of the Western order—an empire without a name, defended by weapons, guided by treaties, but ruled by no single flag.</p>\n\n<p>Yet amid this carefully balanced tower of technocrats and presidents, monarchs and ministers—whether **Jew or Gentile**, **democrat or dictator**—a pattern emerged:</p>\n\n<p>They all eventually make their way to **Rome**.</p>\n\n<p>Not to the **Archbishop of Canterbury**,  \nNot to the **Patriarch of Constantinople**,  \nNot to the **Chief Rabbi**, nor even the **Ecumenical heads of Geneva**.</p>\n\n<p>But to **Rome’s monarch**—a man crowned in white, not by ballot, but by conclave—**the Pope**.</p>\n\n<p>U.S. Presidents from both parties fly across oceans and bow—not figuratively, but literally—to **kiss a ring**. They do not ask for policy advice. They seek **blessing**.  \nPrime Ministers of secular nations refer to him as “<em>His Holiness</em>.”  \nThe media, even in nations with a **First Amendment**, call him “<em>Holy Father</em>.”</p>\n\n<p>Even when visiting Japan—home to Shinto emperor-worship—or entertaining the Dalai Lama, a figure of mystical Eastern theosophy, our leaders grope for **spiritual approval**. But when they walk into the Vatican, it’s different.</p>\n\n<p>They don’t come to counsel.  \nThey don’t come to debate.  \nThey come to **acknowledge**.</p>\n\n<p>The modern world, for all its claims of democracy, secularism, and open society, still kneels before a throne. **And it is not Christ’s**.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n<p>“All the kings of the earth shall praise thee, O LORD, when they hear the words of thy mouth.” – Psalm 138:4  \n(But they do not yet.)</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>The pope doesn’t need to hold office in Brussels. He already rules in symbolism, in conscience, and in the quiet surrender of world leaders who claim no religion, yet bow to a man with a cross and a crown.</p>\n\n<p>What Hitler failed to do with tanks, and what bankers have done with treaties, **Rome now prepares to inherit with reverence**. The world is not secular. It is spiritual—**and deceived**.</p>\n\n<p>On <strong>May 8, 1945</strong—Victory in Europe Day—the world celebrated the fall of Hitler’s Third Reich. But beneath the ashes of fascism, a more refined empire was already taking shape—one not built on bullets, but on banking, treaties, and symbolic religion.</p>\n\n<hr />\n\n<h3>He Has No Army, Yet He Has a Throne</h3>\n\n<p>The <strong>Vatican City State</strong>—the smallest nation in the world—has no military, no GDP to boast of, and no obligation to the European Union. Yet today it <strong>uses the Euro</strong>, mints coins with the <strong>Pope’s face</strong>, and sits at the center of every major European ideological debate: migration, ethics, economics, and religion.</p>\n\n<p>By all measures, the Vatican is an <strong>outsider</strong>. But by its influence, it is more like an <strong>insider kingmaker</strong>—invited to the table, yet never accountable to it.</p>\n\n<hr />\n\n\n<h3>The Coin That Speaks</h3>\n\n![IMG_5312.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmWwgLaujKSoivXMHMcdmDrqxuF8Rkd5D4RJ5rJNXc2dTH/IMG_5312.jpeg)\n\n\n<p>No other religious leader in modern history has had his image printed on a continent’s common currency. Not Luther, not Calvin, not even kings. But the Pope’s face graces the Euro, legal tender across Italy, and collectible throughout Europe.</p>\n\n<p>This is more than symbolism. It is <strong>acceptance. Acquiescence. Allegiance</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>Though the Vatican is not a member of the EU, it has more influence than most member states. It has a **monetary treaty**, **diplomatic channels**, and an army of **spiritual loyalists** in nearly every European capital. In a time of crisis, who better to unify the fractured European order?</p>\n\n<hr />\n![388D9C88-0EAD-43E5-AEB3-77BB36AC0462.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmTu9JQzYYio8YDVJsQXUMYCELipqUrTRbfLYr1Yi5tvbj/388D9C88-0EAD-43E5-AEB3-77BB36AC0462.png)\n\n\n<h3>A Throne Reserved?</h3>\n\n<p>In the EU, the Presidency of the Council rotates. But the deeper integration grows, the more **a single, enduring voice of moral clarity** is desired. If the Vatican were granted observer status—or honorary elevation—**the Pope could be positioned as a neutral spiritual unifier**, leading a coalition of kings, technocrats, and bankers.</p>\n\n<p>And with his face already stamped on their money, who could say no?</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n<p>“They have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.” — Revelation 17:13</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>The old fascism fell. But what arose was not liberty—it was globalism, bureaucracy, and religious technocracy. And at its center stands a throne still cloaked in white, still speaking peace, but preparing for power.</p>\n\n<p>Not with tanks. But with treaties. Not by force. But by consent.</p>\n\n<p>And he already has a coin.</p>\n<hr />\n<h3><em>A Prophetic Snapshot: From Empire to Antichrist</em></h3>\n\n<p>The scriptures warned us long before the smoke of Berlin cleared.</p>\n\n<p>Daniel saw a kingdom diverse from all the rest—<strong>iron mixed with clay</strong>, strong in bureaucracy, weak in unity. John saw ten kings who receive power one hour with the beast, and a woman—<strong>drunken with the blood of the saints</strong>—riding upon that beast. He saw a system, clothed in scarlet and purple, full of gold and precious stones. He saw a spiritual force disguising itself as peace, but leading to destruction.</p>\n\n<p>And what do we see?</p>\n\n<ul>\n  <li>A Europe unified by treaties, not truth.</li>\n  <li>A currency held together by debt and deception.</li>\n  <li>World leaders—presidents, monarchs, ministers—kneeling before a throne not of Christ, but of compromise.</li>\n  <li>A religious figure whose power is not political, but moral and mystical—<strong>ready to step in “for peace” when war shakes the nations again</strong>.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>This is not speculation. It’s repetition. Babylon doesn’t need to reinvent itself. It just needs to modernize. <strong>The beast is the same—it simply speaks now in technocratic tones, wears a papal robe, and signs agreements instead of invasions.</strong></p>\n![EA9DBB77-AD16-4F46-892E-81677A24F354.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmepscfNB1LEJYhj8Fg6PGo9tKcUtfTv6kLNXvjxDKke9F/EA9DBB77-AD16-4F46-892E-81677A24F354.png)\n\n\n<p>But the time is coming—soon—when the false unity will collapse. When the Antichrist will rise. When Jacob’s trouble will begin. And when Christ Himself will return not as a suffering lamb, but as <strong>the King of kings with fire in His eyes</strong>.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n<p>“And then shall that Wicked be revealed… whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming.” — 2 Thessalonians 2:8</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>The treaties are signed. The coins are minted. The kings are aligned.  \n<strong>All that remains is the revealing.</strong></p>\n<hr />\n<h3><em>Watch, Stand, and Speak</em></h3>\n\n<p>We are not called to rewrite history—but to <strong>remember it rightly</strong>, speak it boldly, and live as if truth matters more than comfort. The kingdoms of this world are falling into place. The man of sin will rise. But so will the cry of God’s watchmen.</p>\n\n<p>May 8, 1945 was not the end. It was the unveiling.  \n<strong>The beast now wears a suit.</strong> But his heart is unchanged.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n<p>“Be not deceived… for the mystery of iniquity doth already work.” — 2 Thessalonians 2:7</p>\n</blockquote> \n\n\n<hr />\n<h3><em>Sidebar: Mussolini—the Man Who Gave the Vatican Its Throne</em></h3>\n\n<p>Most people don’t realize that **Vatican City—the world’s smallest country and religious superpower—was created by a fascist.** On February 11, 1929, Benito Mussolini, dictator of Italy, signed the <strong>Lateran Treaty</strong> with Pope Pius XI, formally establishing the Vatican as a sovereign state.</p>\n\n<ul>\n  <li>He gave the Pope political sovereignty.</li>\n  <li>He paid the Church 1.75 billion lire in cash and bonds.</li>\n  <li>He helped set up the Vatican’s financial and banking autonomy.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>This was not just a handshake. It was a pact between **Roman Catholicism and Italian fascism**—a trade of power for legitimacy. Mussolini got religious credibility. The Pope got a throne, a treasury, and a passport to global influence.</p>\n\n<p>And so the Vatican—<strong>cloaked in religion, built on gold, and untouched by war</strong>—stepped into the modern world not by revival, but by treaty with tyranny.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n<p>“Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's.” – Matthew 22:21</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>But what happens when Caesar and the Church sign contracts?</p>\n\n![750BF86B-B30D-476E-AA68-F010627A847A.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmfYgChnAKyTMJXZdoEvtXRGcmLkFmRhGLwHhiAtsYijN5/750BF86B-B30D-476E-AA68-F010627A847A.png)",
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      "parent_permlink": "communism",
      "author": "monetaryrealist",
      "permlink": "may-7-1920-this-day-in-history-the-treaty-of-moscow",
      "title": "May 7 1920 This day in History. The treaty of Moscow",
      "body": "<h1>The Betrayal That Birthed a Beast: May 7, 1920</h1>\n<h3><em>Georgia, Moscow, and the Pin That Lit the Fuse</em></h3>\n\n<p><strong>“Without Georgia’s fall, the Soviet machine might never have survived long enough to starve Ukraine<sup>[3]</sup>, defeat Hitler, or threaten the world with Cold War tyranny.”</strong></p>\n\n<hr />\n\n<p>As a young man—a teenager really—I knew nothing of the <strong>1920 Treaty of Moscow</strong><sup>[1]</sup>, or the betrayal of Georgia by the Bolsheviks. History textbooks didn’t teach it. Churches rarely preached it. And even among patriotic circles, this early bloodstain in Soviet expansion was largely ignored.</p>\n\n<p>When I was a kid, my dad had a lot of books from the <strong>John Birch Society</strong>. I remember those small paperbacks—maybe four by six inches—scattered around the house. Titles like <em>None Dare Call It Treason</em> by John Stormer, and <em>None Dare Call It Education</em>, which I believe was by Sally Reid with a foreword by Anita Bryant. \n![56726880070__4987791F-49DD-4FE6-B1EC-292C59796F26.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmNaJDSftCQbMnFDwYBAecf7Dk2kC2tvrGUv4AL6tTzNb9/56726880070__4987791F-49DD-4FE6-B1EC-292C59796F26.jpeg)\nThose Cold War-era books were staunchly anti-Communist, anti-UN, and deeply skeptical of centralized global power. I read through them as a young man, along with a steady stream of others—most written in the 1950s and ’60s.</p>\n\n<p>Later, Stormer updated his book, and I called him. He was a pastor by then, and I had the privilege of interviewing him on the radio—twice, maybe three times. Brilliant guy. My dad had most of those books too, and while they were passionate and patriotic, I began to realize something deeper: <strong>Most of them stopped short of the real answer</strong>. They saw the disease but not the cure. Because without <strong>Christ settling the heart</strong>—without that inner lens to see rightly—all you're really doing is replacing one terrible system with another that may only be slightly less awful.</p>\n\n![61B843A6-FA15-41A3-861C-12FFADB510E4.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmToFrVthYrvSdgCY87VBRVTKfMx6hZ68auCT7vrmyS59L/61B843A6-FA15-41A3-861C-12FFADB510E4.png)\n\n\n<p>Meanwhile, above all of it, you had (and still have) the strange fellowship of elites: <strong>Bohemian Grove attendees, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderbergs, Freemasons, the Jesuits, the Illuminati, even the Vatican itself</strong>—all playing at being enemies while quietly advancing a shared agenda. It’s a world that breeds strange bedfellows. And the common thread tying them together is this: <strong>they are united in their rejection of Christ</strong>.</p>\n\n![A2EC977C-7855-41FA-8A3C-50FA6EEB244E.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmYpDqjZofUxHBYydxtAnHzSdmTBQZgDVA3JVtfE2qEzo3/A2EC977C-7855-41FA-8A3C-50FA6EEB244E.png)\n\n<p>And that’s where the Georgia betrayal finally makes sense. The <strong>Treaty of Moscow</strong><sup>[1]</sup> on <strong>May 7, 1920</strong> wasn’t just a broken agreement. It was a carefully planned move in a much older game—one that has been playing out since Babel. It allowed the Bolsheviks to secure the southern corridor, gain access to vital oil routes, and set the stage for every major act of Communist tyranny that followed:</p>\n\n<ul>\n  <li>The <strong>Holodomor</strong><sup>[3]</sup>—Stalin’s man-made famine in Ukraine</li>\n  <li>The <strong>Great Purge</strong> and mass executions</li>\n  <li>The <strong>survival of the USSR through WWII</strong>—holding off Hitler with brutal resilience</li>\n  <li>The rise of a nuclear, totalitarian Cold War empire that threatened the world for half a century</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Books like these helped me piece it all together:</p>\n\n<ul>\n  <li><strong><em>The Creature from Jekyll Island</em></strong> by G. Edward Griffin – A masterwork on the Federal Reserve and the monetary machinery of tyranny. I’ve spoken with Griffin.</li>\n  <li><strong><em>Thieves in the Temple</em></strong> by Andre Eggelletion – A bold call-out of economic slavery and central bank deception.</li>\n  <li><strong><em>None Dare Call It Treason</em></strong> by John A. Stormer – The Cold War classic that opened the eyes of a generation.</li>\n  <li><strong><em>None Dare Call It Education</em></strong> by Sally Reid – A devastating exposé of the NEA and the ideological corruption of public schooling.</li>\n  <li><strong><em>The Gulag Archipelago</em></strong> by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn – Required reading on the brutal logic of tyranny.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<hr />\n\n<h2>The Treaty Was Signed—And Then Shattered</h2>\n\n<p>The <strong>Treaty of Moscow</strong><sup>[1]</sup>, signed on <strong>May 7, 1920</strong>, was supposed to guarantee Georgia’s independence. The Bolsheviks—masters of manipulation—recognized Georgia’s sovereignty on paper while plotting to overthrow it in secret. Less than a year later, in February 1921, the Red Army invaded. The treaty was worth nothing. And Georgia’s Menshevik-led government was swept aside in weeks.</p>\n\n<p>This was the nature of Communism from the beginning. And that’s why a little book I read later in life, called <strong><em>You Can Trust the Communists (to Be Communists)</em></strong><sup>[2]</sup> by Dr. Fred Schwarz, remains one of the most honest titles ever printed. The Communist doesn’t betray his nature when he lies, breaks treaties, or murders his allies. <strong>He fulfills it.</strong></p>\n\n<blockquote>\n<p>“The only morality of Communism is what advances the revolution. If truth works, use truth. If lies work better, lie.” — Dr. Fred C. Schwarz</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Georgia’s leaders thought they could find ideological common ground with Lenin. They were Socialists too, after all. But they forgot what the Tsar’s family learned the hard way: <strong>revolution eats everything in its path</strong>—especially those who try to tame it.</p>\n\n<hr />\n\n<h2>The Children of the Crown and the Blood of Betrayal</h2>\n\n![9B4A7E00-855F-495C-8FFD-1C95367AEDFD.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmYgKkXGNeHjJTqPDVvc7UXfDZWPjdqXbmDD6kdyoGp4vM/9B4A7E00-855F-495C-8FFD-1C95367AEDFD.png)\n\n<p>We forget that the last Russian Tsar, <strong>Nicholas II</strong>, was a cousin of <strong>Kaiser Wilhelm II</strong> and <strong>King George V</strong>. All three were grandsons of <strong>Queen Victoria</strong><sup>[4]</sup>. The monarchs of the major powers in World War I were literally blood relatives. But instead of peace, it led to a world war that crushed the old world and gave birth to something darker.</p>\n\n<p>When the Bolsheviks took power in 1917, <strong>not all was silence</strong>. The <strong>United States, Britain, France—even Japan</strong> (who had humiliated the Russian Empire just a decade earlier in the 1904 Russo-Japanese War)—each sent troops, supplies, and advisors to support the <strong>White Russian armies</strong> fighting the Communists. One of the early hopes of the White movement was to <strong>rescue the Tsar and his family</strong>, restore order, and prevent the Soviet nightmare from being born.</p>\n\n<p>But by the time Allied support truly took shape—late 1918 into 1919—it was <strong>already too late</strong>. On <strong>July 17, 1918</strong>, Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra, and their five children were <strong>executed in a cellar in Yekaterinburg</strong>—murdered by Bolsheviks who feared the advancing Whites might liberate them. The bodies were burned, disfigured, and buried in secret. When White forces finally reached the city, they were <em>days too late</em>.</p>\n\n![IMG_5249.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmeFmB7j13txysokhxfQGJd2Vm5PENPxbqhhKZPRpUZ4i8/IMG_5249.jpeg)\n\n<p>So yes—there was an effort to save him. But it came <strong>after betrayal had already sealed the fate of an empire</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>This is what happens when evil moves quickly, and good reacts slowly. This is what happens when <strong>treaties with liars are trusted</strong> instead of resisted. And perhaps worst of all, it was a betrayal not just of Russia’s monarch, but of a family of monarchs—<strong>Queen Victoria’s grandchildren</strong>, who all held power, and yet did nothing in time. Maybe because by then, even the crowns had grown weary of defending old values. The new world they were helping to build—whether through war or welfare—was less about thrones and more about <strong>Fabian ideology</strong> and bureaucratic control.</p>\n\n<p>Victoria’s grandchildren abandoned the majesty of moral order for ideologies—some wore uniforms, some wore suits, but many began to act like <strong>Fabian socialists with fangs</strong>. The Fabians in Britain pushed for slow, bureaucratic takeover. The Bolsheviks didn’t wait. But both wanted the same thing: <strong>a man-made utopia, ruled from above</strong>, without God or gospel.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n<p>“Mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted... hath lifted up his heel against me.” — Psalm 41:9</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>And just like that, the Romanovs were gone. Their deaths opened the door for Lenin’s Russia to become Stalin’s Soviet Union—and for the rest of the world to fall into a Cold War trap that still haunts us today. And it all started with betrayal. Georgia believed the lie. And the world paid the price.</p>\n\n<hr />\n\n![0BE5FB6C-2A92-4A1F-AA50-88686783569E.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmbCEGKLrneVyAwugc9m2ZitY16CYdDfkBfLcvuCSTsxks/0BE5FB6C-2A92-4A1F-AA50-88686783569E.png)\n\n\n\n<h2>When the World Was Ruled by German Cousins</h2>\n\n<p>There was a time, not so long ago, when <strong>three German cousins</strong> ruled most of the known world. The British Empire, the Russian Empire, and the German Empire—each led by grandsons of <strong>Queen Victoria</strong><sup>[4]</sup>, each fluent in German, and each raised in palaces built by the same web of aristocracy and finance.</p>\n\n<p>And yet, for all their power and family ties, they <strong>couldn’t preserve peace</strong>. They couldn’t save the world from war. In fact, it was their pride, suspicion, and worldliness that helped bring the entire structure down. The <strong>House of Romanov</strong> was slaughtered in a basement. The <strong>House of Hohenzollern</strong> collapsed in defeat. And the <strong>House of Windsor</strong> survived by changing its name and outsourcing its sovereignty.</p>\n\n<p>But this is what happens to <strong>kingdoms without the true King</strong>. Whether they wear crowns or wave banners, whether they claim divine right or democratic mandate—if they reject <strong>the Lord’s Christ</strong>, they will fall. Their treaties will fail. Their armies will fail. Their revolutions will fail.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n<p>“The Lord bringeth the counsel of the heathen to nought: he maketh the devices of the people of none effect.” — Psalm 33:10</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<h2>The Final Empire and the Coming King</h2>\n\n<p>And yet, all of this—the betrayals, the wars, the empires—are just a <strong>prelude</strong> to something greater and more terrible. For the world is not done with its towers of Babel. One more kingdom is rising, and it will dwarf all that came before it. The prophet Daniel saw it. John saw it. And Christ warned of it.</p>\n\n<p><strong>The Antichrist’s empire will be global, digital, and total.</strong> It won’t need family trees or royal blood—it will be powered by surveillance, deception, and spiritual darkness. But like all the rest, it will be a kingdom <strong>without the true King</strong>. A throne built on sand. And it too will fall.</p>\n\n<p>But before it does, there will come a time unlike any other: <strong>Jacob’s Trouble</strong><sup>[5]</sup>—a time of purging, tribulation, and testing for Israel and for all the world. And in that hour, there will be no more backroom betrayals, no more hidden treaties, no more Masonic cloaks and Vatican daggers.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Revelation will be just that—revelation.</strong> Every eye shall see. The Son of Man will appear in glory. The Lamb that was slain will come as the Lion who reigns. And the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n<p>“Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him…” — Revelation 1:7<sup>[6]</sup></p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>Not in secret. Not negotiated by Illuminists or traitorous Vicars. Not through compromise or council vote. But <strong>by fire, by glory, and by truth</strong>.</p>\n\n<p><strong>The King is coming.</strong></p>\n \nYou have a choice you can trust a Communist to be Communist \n Or\nYou can Trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and Be Saved!\n\n<hr />\n\n<h3>Footnotes</h3>\n<ol>\n  <li><strong>Treaty of Moscow:</strong> The Treaty of Moscow (1920) was signed between Soviet Russia and the Democratic Republic of Georgia, recognizing Georgia's independence before it was invaded in 1921.</li>\n  <li><strong>You Can Trust the Communists:</strong> Dr. Fred Schwarz’s 1958 book warning about the ideological nature of communism and its deceptive strategies.</li>\n  <li><strong>Holodomor:</strong> The Holodomor (1932–1933) was a man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine that killed millions, widely recognized as genocide.</li>\n  <li><strong>Queen Victoria:</strong> Queen Victoria (1819–1901), matriarch of many European royal families, including Britain, Germany, and Russia.</li>\n  <li><strong>Jacob’s Trouble:</strong> A biblical term from Jeremiah 30:7 referring to a time of great distress for Israel in the end times.</li>\n  <li><strong>Revelation 1:7:</strong> A prophecy of Christ's visible, global return: “Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him…”</li>\n</ol>",
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      "permlink": "this-day-in-history-may-6-1937-the-mighty-hindenburg-and-my-family-oh-the-humanity",
      "title": "This day in History May 6 1937 The Mighty Hindenburg, and my Family.  Oh the Humanity!",
      "body": "@@ -3450,317 +3450,48 @@\n ong%3E\n-Emma%3C/strong%3E, a young secretary at 17, was riding her bike along the dusty roads of Route 571 from Pleasant Plains. She felt the ground tremble. She saw the sky ignite above the trees. The airship exploded before her eyes, its fall witnessed from the roadside.%3C/p%3E%0A%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EAnd then there was Aunt Emma, a\n+And then there was Aunt Emma.%3C/strong%3E A\n t th\n@@ -3502,18 +3502,28 @@\n me of th\n-is\n+e Hindenburg\n  disaste\n@@ -3523,16 +3523,17 @@\n disaster\n+,\n  she kne\n@@ -3558,14 +3558,9 @@\n ly. \n-Many y\n+Y\n ears\n@@ -3565,17 +3565,17 @@\n rs later\n- \n+,\n  her sis\n@@ -3596,16 +3596,20 @@\n d marry \n+Ben%E2%80%94\n my Uncle\n@@ -3622,72 +3622,64 @@\n e%E2%80%99s \n-Brother Ben but now it was\n+youngest brother%E2%80%94but in\n  1937\n- and\n+,\n  Emma\n-%3C/strong%3E,was  a\n+ was just 17. A\n  young \n- \n secr\n@@ -3687,35 +3687,39 @@\n tary\n- at 17, was riding her bike\n+, she rode her bicycle each day\n  alo\n@@ -3749,16 +3749,17 @@\n oute 571\n+,\n  from Pl\n@@ -3776,23 +3776,20 @@\n ins \n-NJ which is now\n+(now part of\n  Tom\n@@ -3795,20 +3795,25 @@\n ms River\n+)\n  to \n+the \n Lakehurs\n@@ -3835,68 +3835,84 @@\n tion\n-. That was \n+%E2%80%94\n about \n-7\n+seven\n  miles \n-or so .She road that every day  . S\n+each way.%3C/p%3E%0A%0A%3Cp%3EThat day, as she pedaled toward work, s\n he m\n@@ -3992,17 +3992,16 @@\n The \n-%0A\n Hindenb\n-e\n+u\n rg e\n@@ -4011,83 +4011,148 @@\n oded\n- \n+%E2%80%94\n and \n-the sky changed before her eyes\n+everything changed. She stood at the roadside\n , \n+w\n it\n-s fall witnessed from the roadside.\n+nessing one of the greatest disasters of the modern age unfold in fire and smoke.%3C/p%3E\n %3C(ht\n",
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      "title": "This day in History May 6 1937 The Mighty Hindenburg, and my Family.  Oh the Humanity!",
      "body": "@@ -3435,17 +3435,305 @@\n ay.%3C/p%3E%0A\n-%0A\n+%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EEmma%3C/strong%3E, a young secretary at 17, was riding her bike along the dusty roads of Route 571 from Pleasant Plains. She felt the ground tremble. She saw the sky ignite above the trees. The airship exploded before her eyes, its fall witnessed from the roadside.%3C/p%3E%0A%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3E\n And then\n@@ -3811,17 +3811,101 @@\n  family.\n-.\n+ Many years later  her sister Helen would marry my Uncle George%E2%80%99s Brother Ben but now\n  it was \n@@ -3913,28 +3913,16 @@\n 937 and \n-%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3E\n Emma%3C/st\n@@ -3932,32 +3932,33 @@\n g%3E,was  a young \n+ \n secretary at 17,\n@@ -4228,24 +4228,25 @@\n  trees. The \n+%0A\n Hindenberg e\n",
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      "permlink": "this-day-in-history-may-6-1937-the-mighty-hindenburg-and-my-family-oh-the-humanity",
      "title": "This day in History May 6 1937 The Mighty Hindenburg, and my Family.  Oh the Humanity!",
      "body": "<h1>This Day in History – May 6, 1937</h1>\n<h2>“Oh, the Humanity”: The Day My Family Watched the Sky Fall in Fire</h2>\n\n![IMG_5178.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmaAi4XXnGUb6bgaum9qNpPuJgYv9kohbXCDvAKWAvchWP/IMG_5178.jpeg)\n\n<em>When modern pride met its match in a spark of static and a gust of wind</em><p>On a spring evening in 1937, the pride of Nazi Germany’s air fleet—the LZ 129 Hindenburg—exploded in a ball of fire over Lakehurst, New Jersey. But to me, it’s more than a chapter in a history book. My grandfather’s brother George Johnson was there, a lineman  on the ground helping to guide the great floating zeppelin into place. It was not his first time, and he was a civilian.  But on that day, while fighting the wind and the hydrogen, he saw This 803 foot 7 million cubic foot hydrogen filled symbol of aeronautic genius Explode, he felt the fire, he saw with his own eyes the chaos, and as men and woman fell from the burning wreak and ran from the caged flame he heard the screams. \n\nHe was there when the sky cracked open and rained flame.\n\n<p>It was supposed to be the future—graceful, efficient, awe-inspiring. The <strong>LZ 129 Hindenburg</strong>, pride of Nazi Germany’s air fleet, floated like a silver cathedral across the Atlantic, carrying passengers in opulence and speed. But on the evening of <strong>May 6, 1937</strong>, as it hovered above the airfield in <strong>Lakehurst, New Jersey</strong>, something went terribly wrong.</p>\n\n<p>At <strong>7:25 PM</strong>, with the ground crew grasping the mooring lines, the great airship burst into flames. Within seconds, it was engulfed. Thirty-six lives were lost. The world was stunned. And the voice of radio announcer <strong>Herbert Morrison</strong> echoed across the decades: <em>“Oh, the humanity!”</em></p>\n\n<p>But for my family, this was more than a broadcast. It was a memory. A grief. A moment passed down in stories and shadows for generations..</p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<h2>Family in the Fire</h2>\n\n<p>My grandfather’s brother, <strong>George Johnson</strong>, was there that day—part of the <em>line crew</em> assigned to guide the Hindenburg to the mooring tower. A WWI private turned airship handler,I was told that it took over 200 men to guide those great Airships in and the me. Would line up for the 1$ a day they could make if they were chosen.My grand uncle George stood among the men holding the ropes that day with a dollar in his pocket when the sky cracked open and flame consumed the giant. He saw it with his own eyes.</p>\n\n<p>My grandfather told me about that day. How horrible it was. How George carried the weight of what he saw for the rest of his life. He later suffered from Parkinson’s and grew feeble, but never unkind. He kept horses near the barn, and I have a photo of him there, giving rides to nieces in a carriage when he still could.\n\n  \n![IMG_5212.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmXaKdriHdwcT4fXG5ridP4RKGHNEf7WqNyXS2unbFzSat/IMG_5212.jpeg)\n(This is George’s Brother, but this is the sleigh they used in the winter and the barn in the background)\n\n<p><strong>Preston Brower</strong>, married to my grandfather’s sister Dot, was a <em>fireman</em> in Lakehurst at the time. He was there too—rushing into the blaze to rescue, to respond, to fight the inferno. Another relative, a fireman and grandson of <strong>my great-great-uncle Abe Johnson</strong> (himself gassed at Lorraine in WWI), joined the fight that day.</p>\n\nAnd then there was Aunt Emma, at the time of this disaster she knew none of our family.. it was 1937 and \n<p><strong>Emma</strong>,was  a young secretary at 17, was riding her bike along the dusty roads of Route 571 from Pleasant Plains NJ which is now Toms River to Lakehurst Naval Air Station. That was about 7 miles or so .She road that every day  . She may have felt the ground tremble. She saw the sky ignite above the trees. The Hindenberg exploded and the sky changed before her eyes, its fall witnessed from the roadside.<(https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmVaXqT2hQ7tQ5aFk9RZj1A9rCNhDYBrxBwtUk8cEMTRsg/E713951C-F77E-4E33-9843-3C95F1D52BD6.png)\n\n\n<p>Decades later, my <strong>mother</strong>—George’s niece—became a nurse at <strong>Paul Kimball Hospital</strong> in Lakewood, NJ, the very hospital where the wounded and dying were taken after the crash. She started there in 1962. I was born there in 1964. Even as a boy, when we drove past the Lakehurst hangar, the stories came back: the shadow of the zeppelin, the horror of that day, and again—<em>“Oh, the humanity!”</em></p>\n\n<p>My cousin told me of other relatives along the Jersey Shore who recalled seeing the Hindenburg in the sky earlier that day—huge, majestic, fateful.</p>\n\n\n![IMG_5187.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmY3Xj79abyG3sjjDGU6rNm2TnRBGADjX3JUk3zxqsa89C/IMG_5187.png)\n\n![IMG_16158B35-8496-4F2A-9EB6-F8D9AEEA05B2.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmQbtBkzczNzgiynwY6nPLEuzAgUoSJPKb36NmGb6EwQAn/IMG_16158B35-8496-4F2A-9EB6-F8D9AEEA05B2.jpeg)\n\n\n\n  \nFunny how folks are all kind of tied together like that sometimes. Not consciously or even noticeably at least not right away.  And how a common thread weaves in the collected memory and emotions even after 88 years. Somethings just live in infamy and some in history  but to me they live in my memory even though I was born almost 3 decades after the fact. And as I hear my grandparents in my mind it make me tear up as though I were there. \n\n \n<p>And I remember, as a child of five, seeing the later military blimps patrol the coast—smaller than the mighty <em>Shenandoah</em> or <em>Akron</em> or the doomed <em>Hindenburg</em>, but still casting great shadows. We'd look up and remember. And the stories would begin again.</p>\n\n\n![IMG_5189.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmbzt5DUAjPD2mgGg156vrhD93AzKqYmaAUdXvKxHc3j14/IMG_5189.png)\n\n\n<hr>\n\n<h2>The Broadcast Heard in Eden</h2>\n\n<p>As a historian and believer, I cannot help but hear another voice behind Morrison’s haunting cry. For if ever there was a disaster greater than the Hindenburg—more devastating, more lasting—it was the Fall of Man. And if heaven had had a radio broadcast that day in Eden, perhaps it would’ve sounded like this:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n<h2>Broadcast from Eden – “Oh, the Humanity!”</h2>\n\n<blockquote>\n  <p>Good evening, host of Heaven… I bring you now to the Garden of Eden. Behold the great and wonderful work of God: man—Adam and Eve—created in the very image and likeness of the Almighty. Amazing, aren’t they?</p>\n\n  <p>But—what is this I see? Oh my—</p>\n\n  <p><strong>“It’s Adam, and he is crashing!</strong> He’s taken of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—he’s biting into the fruit! <strong>Oh, the humanity!</strong> This is the worst catastrophe in the history of creation! Oh—he is crashing… Eve had reached into the Tree toward the sky, and she has given to Adam… It’s a terrific fall.</p>\n\n  <p>Angels and Archangels… Cherubim and Seraphim—what can I say? There’s sin, and there are flames. <strong>Hell is enlarging now, and the gates are open.</strong> Adam is crashing to the ground… <strong>Oh, the humanity!</strong> I—I can’t talk anymore… Honest, he is just hiding there—a mass of dying wreckage. I can hardly breathe and talk… Honest—I can hardly breathe. I’m going to step away where I cannot see it…”</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>But then—</p>\n\n<p>We hear the footsteps of the Father in the garden.</p>\n\n<p>And the promise: <em>“The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head.”</em><br>\nAnd the Lamb, slain from before the foundation of the world.<br>\nAnd the great Lineman—<strong>Christ Himself</strong>—pulling the mooring line of mercy in a world set ablaze.</p>\n\n\n\n<hr>\n\n<h2>Redemption from the Fire</h2>\n\n<p>The Hindenburg fell. So did Adam. And so shall every empire of pride and rebellion. But the story doesn’t end in smoke and ruin.</p>\n\n\nMost of the Hindenberg wound up in a scrap yard in Perth Amboy NJ, souvenir hunters and scavengers got a bunch and the locals sold pieces like they were relics from an ancient grave, even fabricating fakes for the curious tourists, I can still remember occasionally coming across items from the wreckage at flea markets back in the 70s . \n\n<p>And the most bitter irony of all: <strong>Germany could have used helium</strong>—a non-flammable gas. The Hindenburg was designed for it. But the United States, the world's only major supplier, refused to export helium to the Nazi regime out of concern that it would be used for war. So the ship flew with <em>hydrogen</em> instead: unstable, explosive, deadly.</p>\n\n<p>Yet, despite denying Germany the safer gas, <strong>America still allowed the Hindenburg to fly her skies</strong>. With swastikas emblazoned on its tail and German pride billowing above, it became a <em>spectacle</em>—a floating circus for the modern age. Crowds gathered in awe. Children pointed skyward. The airship passed low and majestic over cities and coastlines, not as an emissary of peace but as a freakish marvel of power and propaganda.</p>\n\n<p>It was a sideshow.  A parade of steel and and canvas and hydrogen, floated on compromise. A dragon with a belly full of flame, drifting overhead with practiced elegance—until the moment came when the music stopped, the tent caught fire, and the whole illusion came crashing down.</p>\n\n\nI tell you all that that I might share with you this…\n\n\n<p>There is a Kingdom not lifted by hydrogen but by the Holy Ghost. A vessel not filled with gas but with grace. A crown not forged in Germany, but in Gethsemane. A King not lifted by mooring lines, but raised from death itself.</p>\n\n<p>And the voice that once cried out in Eden’s ruin now speaks again from Calvary’s hill: <br>\n<em>“It is finished.”</em></p>\n\n<p>Oh, the humanity.<br>\nOh, the mercy.</p>\n\n\n![IMG_5235.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmSpMdTsugCGTj8HYTn6w3Kd9YX8vLTczVkVdCeSq8twvN/IMG_5235.jpeg)\n\n\n<hr>\n\n<h3>Footnotes:</h3>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Hindenburg disaster time:</strong> The airship caught fire at approximately 7:25 PM on May 6, 1937.</li>\n<li><strong>Herbert Morrison Broadcast:</strong> Recorded live and aired later; one of the most iconic news reports in history.</li>\n<li><strong>Lakehurst Naval Air Station:</strong> Site of the disaster; still standing today with memorials and the original hangar.</li>\n<li><strong>Paul Kimball Hospital:</strong> Main area hospital where victims were taken. It operated in Lakewood, NJ until its closure.</li>\n<li><strong>WWI Reference:</strong> The Meuse-Argonne Offensive and the Battle of Lorraine were among the deadliest for U.S. troops. Gas warfare caused long-term neurological damage.</li>\n<li><strong>Airships of the era:</strong> The USS Akron and Shenandoah were among the largest American-built airships; both were lost in separate crashes.</li>\n</ol>",
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      "title": "This day in History May 5 1821 Napoleon Who Crowned Himself  Died",
      "body": "<h1>This Day in History – May 5</h1>\n<h2>“The Emperor Who Crowned Himself”</h2>\n<em>Napoleon’s death in exile, and the lesson of those who rise by ambition, but fall by unseen hands</em>\n \n\n![B11CA53F-8663-4505-8BA0-753D7B93E354.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmTfpjAavyCxy3DyxqdgkBi7B4tL2CumVSiMuMGogBDwZB/B11CA53F-8663-4505-8BA0-753D7B93E354.png)\n\n<p>Once upon a time, in the age when thrones were cracking and altars were burning, a child was born in Corsica—neither fully French nor fully foreign. His name was Napoleon Bonaparte, and the world he entered was breaking apart. The kings of Europe were uneasy, the priests were unsure, and the people were hungry for a new messiah. By the time he was a man, the guillotine had replaced the crucifix in France, and blood cried out from revolutionary streets.<sup>1</sup></p>\n\n<p>He was brilliant—no one denies that. A military mind of staggering clarity, a strategist who turned chaos into empire. But more than tactics, he had timing. When the Revolution had devoured its children, the nation turned to him: a man not born of blue blood, but forged by fire and ambition. And so he became the head of the French nation—by sword, by referendum, by necessity.<sup>2</sup> He was the <em>insider-outsider</em>: Corsican and Emperor, Catholic and skeptic, hailed as a Christian liberator while keeping close ties with Masonic leaders and secular reformers.<sup>3</sup></p>\n\n<p>All around him, the smoke of hidden fires swirled. The Jesuits, long masters of strategy and shadow, whispered still behind pulpits and thrones.<sup>4</sup> The Illuminati—though officially disbanded—had already sown their doctrines into Masonic lodges across Europe.<sup>5</sup> Brotherhoods met in candlelit chambers, rewriting man in their own image, whispering of reason and light, even as the scaffold creaked beneath their enemies. “Off with their heads,” they cried—liberty by the sword, and peace through blood.<sup>6</sup></p>\n\n<p>Into that atmosphere came Napoleon, sword in hand. Was he their pawn? Their product? Perhaps he thought he could steer the whirlwind. Perhaps he believed he was its master. But the longer he reigned, the clearer it became: <strong>he was being used</strong>, not merely served. No royal house truly embraced him. They allied when needed, then turned when convenient. Russia betrayed.<sup>7</sup> Sweden betrayed.<sup>8</sup> Even France, at last, turned her face away.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Waterloo should have been won.</strong><sup>9</sup> His second return should have succeeded. But something stayed the tide. Something unseen. And so he was exiled again—this time not to Elba, but to <strong>Saint Helena</strong>, a damp and bitter rock in the Atlantic.<sup>10</sup> There he sat in a house painted with arsenic and hung with lead-soaked wallpaper, breathing poison and pondering betrayal.<sup>11</sup></p>\n\n<p>Strange, isn’t it, when we crown ourselves emperor? At least he understood what the popes had forgotten: the Vicar of Christ had no authority to crown kings. So he took the crown from the Pope’s hands and placed it on his own head.<sup>12</sup> Even <strong>Beethoven</strong>, who had begun dedicating his <em>Third Symphony</em> to Napoleon, withdrew the honor when he heard. “So, he’s just another tyrant,” Beethoven muttered, and tore the page.<sup>13</sup></p>\n\n<p>On May 5, 1821, Napoleon Bonaparte died in exile. He had conquered more of Europe than any man since Charlemagne, yet he died without a throne, without a friend, without a kingdom.<sup>14</sup></p>\n\n<h2>The Unseen Hands</h2>\n\n<p>Two hands were always at work behind the curtain. One—the hand of Satan, ever whispering, ever offering the kingdoms of the world to any who would bow. The other—the hand of God, restraining, permitting, guiding history toward a judgment throne. Napoleon never quite understood which hand shaped his fate. Perhaps neither do we.</p>\n\n<p>But we do know this: “<strong>God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent</strong>” (Numbers 23:19). All who rise by deceit will fall. All who grasp the crown without grace will taste exile. And all empires—whether crowned by popes or blood—will be broken by the stone cut without hands (Daniel 2:34).</p>\n\n<p>On this day, remember: the true King crowned Himself—not with gold, but with thorns. He did not take the nations by sword, but by sacrifice. And His Kingdom shall have no end.</p>\n\n<p><em>C’est la vie?</em> No—<strong>c’est la vérité.</strong></p>\n  \n\n![02A4146F-8893-4759-839C-E312BD557E9A.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmbgAbhiZinrtsyecuoECaSgz2Aj8kB3x3GGb4Rn2xt6jG/02A4146F-8893-4759-839C-E312BD557E9A.png)\n\nNapoleon and the Two Unseen Hands\n\nHe rose like a comet across the ashes of kings—self-crowned, self-driven, self-deceived.\nOne hand lifted him with the promise of empire.\nAnother restrained him with the weight of eternity.\n\nThe first whispered, “All these kingdoms will I give thee, if thou wilt bow…”\nThe second said, “Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above.”\n\nHe knew not whose hand moved him more—only that neither answered to him.\n\nSo the Emperor of men stood on the edge of the sea,\nWatching a world he could never again command,\nWhile the heavens prepared a judgment he could not outrun.\n\n<hr><h2>Epilogue: Napoleon and the King He Could Never Be</h2>\n\n<p>In his final exile, the man who had crowned himself Emperor began to see more clearly the throne he would never sit upon. His mind, softened by the slow poison of arsenic and age, turned from strategy to eternity.</p>\n\n<p>“<em>I know men, and I tell you that Jesus Christ is not a man.</em>” So he said, in his own reflection. “<em>Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I have founded empires. But on what did we rest the creation of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded His empire upon love; and at this hour millions of men would die for Him.</em>”<sup>1</sup></p>\n\n<p>In the end, he knew: all his power was borrowed, all his glory hollow. He could command armies, redraw borders, humble kings—but he could not change hearts. Christ did not reign from a palace but from a cross—and yet His kingdom endures, while Napoleon’s crumbled in his own lifetime.</p>\n\n<p>Napoleon’s last words, they say, were: <em>“France, the army, head of the army, Joséphine...”</em> Words of longing. Words of loss. He died with a vision of power on his lips—but perhaps a hint of regret in his heart.</p>\n\n<p>He could not escape the Unseen Hand.</p>\n\n<p><em>Neither can we.</em></p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<strong>1.</strong> Reported by General Bertrand in *Memoirs of Napoleon at St. Helena*, Vol. 2. Though not a verbatim transcript, these reflections are widely attributed to Napoleon by those who knew him in exile.</strong>\n\n<h3>Footnotes:</h3>\n<ol>\n<li>Napoleon was born in Corsica in 1769, just after its annexation by France. The French Revolution (1789–99) executed Louis XVI and launched widespread dechristianization and bloodshed.</li>\n<li>He came to power through the Coup of 18 Brumaire (1799), declared himself First Consul, then Emperor by popular vote in 1804.</li>\n<li>Though raised Catholic, Napoleon used religion pragmatically. He signed the 1801 Concordat with the Pope but surrounded himself with Enlightenment and Masonic-aligned ministers.</li>\n<li>The Jesuits were suppressed in 1773 but operated through informal influence until restored by Pope Pius VII in 1814.</li>\n<li>Abbé Augustin Barruel and John Robison both claimed in the 1790s that the Illuminati had infiltrated Masonic lodges and influenced the French Revolution.</li>\n<li>The Reign of Terror (1793–94) involved mass executions in the name of revolutionary ideals. “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” was the banner, while thousands died by guillotine.</li>\n<li>Tsar Alexander I of Russia allied with Napoleon before breaking ties and defeating him after the failed 1812 invasion.</li>\n<li>Napoleon's former marshal, Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, became Crown Prince of Sweden and joined the coalition against him in 1813.</li>\n<li>At Waterloo (1815), Napoleon came close to victory. His delayed start and the late arrival of Prussian troops under Blücher turned the tide against him.</li>\n<li>After Waterloo, he was exiled to Saint Helena in the South Atlantic by the British, where he remained until his death.</li>\n<li>Longwood House, where Napoleon lived in exile, was decorated with green arsenic-laced wallpaper, which may have contributed to his death.</li>\n<li>Napoleon crowned himself emperor in Notre-Dame Cathedral in 1804, taking the crown from Pope Pius VII’s hands and placing it on his own head to symbolize self-derived authority.</li>\n<li>Beethoven initially dedicated his Symphony No. 3 (Eroica) to Napoleon but rescinded it in fury after Napoleon declared himself emperor.</li>\n<li>Napoleon died on May 5, 1821. Official cause: stomach cancer. Alternate theories suggest arsenic poisoning from his environment or deliberate exposure.</li>\n</ol>",
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      "title": "This day I’m History May 4 1916 Germany, Submarines, and the Quiet Language of Deception",
      "body": "<h1>This Day in History – May 4</h1>\n<h2>“When the Ships Sank and the Truth Was Buoyed”</h2>\n\n![3AA8E260-1087-49A6-9214-4085D866286D.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmX1skkPbxnzpuH6MsUDJkQMMeSr6w3Xa2Qg5PVPiqsXwd/3AA8E260-1087-49A6-9214-4085D866286D.png)\n\n<em>Germany, Submarines, and the Quiet Language of Deception</em>\n\n<p>On <strong>May 4, 1916</strong>, the German Empire officially agreed to limit its policy of unrestricted submarine warfare in response to diplomatic pressure from the United States. The agreement was seen as a temporary measure to avoid war with America, after a series of submarine attacks on merchant and passenger vessels—including the infamous sinking of the RMS <em>Lusitania</em> in 1915.</p>\n\n<p>Yet behind the public diplomacy, a deeper and less comfortable truth lay submerged: American neutrality had already become a veil. The Lusitania, far from being a harmless passenger ship, was secretly carrying munitions. While this was denied at the time, later discoveries—including U.S. documents and dives to the wreck—confirmed that <strong>contraband weaponry was indeed on board</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>Thus, what seemed like a moral demand from the U.S. to Germany—to cease its “barbaric” warfare—was in part a political maneuver to protect a double standard: shipping arms beneath civilian flags, while calling foul when those arms were struck.</p>\n\n<h2>The Language of Power and Pretense</h2>\n\n<p>What took place was not merely a clash of submarines and steamships—but of language and meaning. One side used public statements to <strong>signal resolve and restraint</strong>, while the other side, under pressure, agreed outwardly but with deep internal dissent. Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, chief of the German navy and architect of the submarine campaign, resigned in March 1916 in protest, believing the concession would cost Germany the war.</p>\n\n<p>This event is more than historical—it serves as a parable for all who would understand the difference between <strong>literal truth</strong> and <strong>symbolic declarations</strong>. When governments speak, they often speak in riddles, pledges, and performance. A promise to “preserve peace” might mean war is near. A call to “protect civilians” might be a cover for protecting supply lines.</p>\n\n<h2>Biblical Parallels and Prophetic Irony</h2>\n\n<p>In the Scriptures, the prophets often spoke plainly to a people steeped in flattering lies. “<em>Peace, peace;</em> when there is no peace,” cried the false prophets (Jer. 6:14). Meanwhile, men like Isaiah and Amos spoke hard truths that were dismissed as fanaticism or treason.</p>\n\n<p>Like the nations of old, the empires of our modern world often prefer appearance to substance. They sacrifice truth on the altar of expedience, and cloak ambition in the language of morality. The wise will see the pattern. The remnant will discern the difference.</p>\n\n<h2>Conclusion: The Surface and the Depths</h2>\n\n<p>May 4, 1916 reminds us that in the great oceans of world affairs, it is often not the visible that is most dangerous—but the unseen. Beneath the surface of diplomatic statements, of “neutrality,” and of carefully curated narratives, there is often a deeper current: one of duplicity, of ambition, and of hidden war.</p>\n\n<p>But even deeper still—beneath the torpedoes, beneath the politics—is the sovereignty of God. And He is not deceived by any flag, any speech, or any silence.</p>\n\n<h2>Invitation: The God Who Does Not Lie</h2>\n\n<p>“<strong>God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent</strong>” (Numbers 23:19). The world’s promises sink under their own weight, but His word stands forever. He does not cloak His purpose. He has spoken plainly through His Son: “<strong>I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me</strong>” (John 14:6).</p>\n\n<p>If the weight of this world has wearied you—if you are tired of half-truths and false peace—then hear the voice of the One who walked on water and calmed the storm. His name is Jesus Christ. He is the Truth you’ve been searching for, and the only Captain who will not betray His crew.</p>\n\n![448BEE0F-CEF9-41E0-986F-6304E65A0AAF.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmYGifPz1DFKyiaqGMGfXx42G6P18ZjG112XBZD3eeHr9e/448BEE0F-CEF9-41E0-986F-6304E65A0AAF.jpeg)\n\n<p>For a deeper exploration of the Lusitania, deception, and the eternal war for the soul, see this companion piece:</p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https://steemit.com/peace/@monetaryrealist/the-ship-that-sank-the-truth-lusitania-house-and-the-war-for-your-soul\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>The Ship That Sank the Truth: Lusitania House and the War for Your Soul</strong></a></p>",
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      "parent_permlink": "japan",
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      "permlink": "this-day-in-history-may-3-1946-when-the-sun-god-s-son-bowed-to-mortal-men",
      "title": "This day in History May 3  1946 When the Sun god’s Son Bowed to Mortal Men",
      "body": "<h1>This Day in History – May 3</h1>\n<h2>“When the Sun God’s Son Bowed to Mortal Men (or So They Said)”</h2>\n<em>A Tragedy in the East—Played Out Beneath the Rising Sun</em>\n<br>\n<img src=\"https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmfYALEkwMXVDCfzozcVdbbF3KjbEnPrnqjYFcCmXrQsSg/F0C4EC74-9297-4AEB-B09A-C5C9E1052EA6.png\" alt=\"Emperor Image\"><br>\n\n<p><strong>The war in the Pacific was over.</strong></p>\n\n<p>Japan—once roaring like a dragon across the East—was smoldering. From Manchuria to the Pacific Rim, her empire—built on ancient gods, divine bloodlines, and imperial fire—cracked under the weight of modern wrath.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Hiroshima and Nagasaki</strong> still hissed with radioactive silence, the ghostly breath of judgment. And across the sea, President Truman held more bombs—<em>ready to drop them all</em> until Japan bent the knee.<sup><a href=\"#fn1\">[1]</a></sup></p>\n\n<p>On <strong>January 1, 1946</strong>, Emperor Hirohito read what became known as the <em>Humanity Declaration</em>. He claimed before the world, “I am not divine.”<sup><a href=\"#fn2\">[2]</a></sup></p>\n\n<p>But on <strong>May 3, 1947</strong>, it became <em>law</em>. Japan’s new Constitution came into force—stripping the emperor of political power and enthroning Western democracy.</p>\n\n<p>It was not repentance. It was damage control.</p>\n<p>A political concession—written in careful Western hands, spoken in tones that still carried ancient incense.</p>\n<p>The world cheered. But heaven did not.</p>\n\n<p><em>And as the first rays of dawn broke across the islands of Nippon, the people turned—as they always had—to their emperor, hoping to feel the warmth of heaven through his voice.</em></p>\n\n<p>But this time, he too turned eastward, squinting into the void, looking for the face of his <strong>great-great-great-great-great-grandmother</strong>—the goddess of the sun… Just to say <em>good morning</em>.</p>\n\n<p>But the sky was silent. And the myth began to smolder.</p>\n\n<h3>I. They Truly Believed This</h3>\n\n<p>You don’t train young men to scream <strong>“Tora! Tora! Tora!”</strong><sup><a href=\"#fn3\">[3]</a></sup></p>\n<p>You don’t perform <em>seppuku</em> with a death poem in your mouth.</p>\n<p>You don’t launch <em>kamikaze</em> oaths to your ancestors... unless you <strong>believe</strong>.</p>\n\n<br><img src=\"https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmaqSzeNhZKW6w1xhA9EUwyzD53CsYb2UDTTWhJ6NZKvTZ/A4BAA4EB-AFAB-473D-8D54-CB5060F43E4E.png\" alt=\"Kamikaze Image\"><br>\n\n<p>The Japanese empire was not just political. It was <strong>theological</strong>.</p>\n<p>Every plane. Every shrine. Every flag with the rising sun—declared that their people came from heaven, and their emperor <em>was heaven’s son</em>.</p>\n<p>And when that myth was exposed, they didn’t kill it. They <strong>mutated</strong> it.</p>\n\n<h3>II. The Gospel That Was Not the Gospel</h3>\n\n<p>Long before the bombs fell, Japan met a <em>form</em> of Christianity. But it wasn’t the gospel of Christ. It was the gospel of <strong>Rome</strong>—delivered in <em>robes, rituals, and power</em>.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li>Jesuits like <strong>Francis Xavier</strong> brought crucifixes and cathedrals.<sup><a href=\"#fn4\">[4]</a></sup></li>\n<li>But along with the cross came papal supremacy, statues of Mary, and a foreign throne pretending to speak for heaven.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>To the Shogun, it was just another imperial threat.</p>\n<blockquote>“This isn’t a Savior—it’s a Caesar in clerical garb.”</blockquote>\n\n<p>And so Japan crushed the faith—not because it knew Jesus—but because it had only ever seen a <strong>politicized Christ</strong>, offered by a rival emperor with a golden cup.</p>\n<p>They rejected the impostor—and in doing so, <strong>hardened their hearts</strong> against the real King when Protestant missionaries arrived centuries later.</p>\n\n<p>They never met Jesus. They only met <strong>Rome</strong>.<sup><a href=\"#fn5\">[5]</a></sup></p>\n\n<br><img src=\"https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmYaBggfoeAi3bW47nTfVBk55N4j9jphVrp2U5E4KZDTno/C9454A59-64C9-46F8-AC76-05F67BD170AD.png\" alt=\"Statue and Cross Image\"><br>\n\n<h3>III. A Beast from the Sea</h3>\n\n<p>In 1954, just seven years after Hirohito’s declaration, something rose from the sea.</p>\n\n<p>It wasn’t a god. It wasn’t a man. It was something in between.</p>\n\n<p>It was <strong>Godzilla</strong>.<sup><a href=\"#fn6\">[6]</a></sup></p>\n\n<p>A radioactive dragon. Born from war. Bathed in silence. And <strong>beloved by the very nation he destroyed</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>He crushed cities. He defeated other monsters. But he never called for repentance.</p>\n\n<blockquote>This is <strong>Godzillism</strong>—a theology of pain without a cross. A doctrine of wrath without the Lamb.</blockquote>\n<h3>IV. Japan Will Deal With This</h3>\n\n<p>And while the beast rose and roared, <strong>the West stayed silent</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>In every film, in every retelling—<strong>America never helps</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>There are no jets from Washington. No gospel in the ruins. No savior from overseas.</p>\n\n<blockquote>“Japan will deal with this.”</blockquote>\n\n<p>And so they did. Not with repentance. Not with revival. But with nationalism, technology, and polite atheism.</p>\n<p>They bowed to defeat. But never bowed to Christ.</p>\n\n<h3>V. The Flag Still Flies</h3>\n\n<p>And through it all—<strong>the rising sun still burns</strong> on Japan’s flag.</p>\n\n<p>Westerners see a red circle. But to Japan, it is the <strong>visible legacy of Amaterasu</strong>.</p>\n<p>The mark of divine origin. The declaration that Nippon is still <em>from heaven</em>.</p>\n\n<p>They didn’t burn their beast. They <strong>stitched it into silk</strong>.</p>\n\n<h3>VI. The Other Thrones Still Standing</h3>\n\n<ul>\n  <li><strong>Germany</strong>: Symbols banned. Leaders executed.</li>\n  <li><strong>China</strong>: The emperor fell, but the Party rose.</li>\n  <li><strong>Britain</strong>: Anoints monarchs as if divine.</li>\n  <li><strong>Rome</strong>: Still drinks from the golden cup.<sup><a href=\"#fn7\">[7]</a></sup></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Each nation preserved its beast. Each prepares the world for the <strong>final Beast</strong>.</p>\n\n<blockquote>“And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea…” — Revelation 13:1</blockquote>\n\n<h3>VII. The King They Forgot</h3>\n\n<blockquote>“Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.” — Hebrews 13:8</blockquote>\n\n<p>He was never crowned by men. He was crucified by them.</p>\n<p>And He will return—not as a lamb—but as the <strong>Lion of Judah</strong>.</p>\n\n<blockquote>“That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow… and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord…” — Philippians 2:10–11</blockquote>\n\n<p>Yes—even the emperor of Japan who refused to repent in 1946 will bow.  \nAnd <strong>so will you</strong>.</p>\n\n<h3>VIII. Final Invitation</h3>\n\n<p>The question is not <em>if</em> you will bow. The question is <strong>when</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>Will you bow now—while your heart still beats?</p>\n<p>Or will you wait… until you are dragged from the depths of hell to confess what you spent your life denying?</p>\n\n<p><strong>Jesus is Lord.</strong></p>\n<p><strong>Every throne will fall. Every myth will burn. And the King will reign forever.</strong></p>\n\n<hr>\n<h2>Epilogue: When the Gospel Followed the Fire</h2>\n\n<p>There was a glimmer of Christ in the ashes.</p>\n\n<p>After the war—after Hiroshima, after Nagasaki, after the emperor bowed to political pressure but not to God—<strong>then</strong> the missionaries came.</p>\n\n<p>Not with demands, but with <strong>Bibles</strong>.  \nNot with empire, but with <em>a kingdom not of this world</em>.</p>\n\n<p>And in the quiet places of ruin, <strong>a few believed</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>Churches sprang up in borrowed rooms.  \nHymns rang out under the rising sun.  \nThe blood of the Lamb was preached where once only the blood of warriors had mattered.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\nThere were baptisms in Nagasaki.<br>\nThere were prayers in Hiroshima.<br>\nThere was hope, however faint.\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>But even now—<strong>decades later</strong>—how few are truly reached.</p>\n\n<p>The congregations still lean foreign.<br>\nThe pulpits often still speak with foreign tongues.<br>\nAnd native sons still bow more easily to ancestor and emperor than to Christ.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\nThe soil was broken by bombs,<br>\nbut the hearts remain hard.\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>There was a glimmer of Christ in the chaos…  \nBut the myth still lingers.  \nThe sun still rises on the flag.  \nAnd the Cross, for most, is still unwelcome.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Yet the call still goes forth:</strong></p>\n\n<blockquote>\n<em>Repent. Believe. Bow now—while mercy still waits.</em><br>\n<em>For the day is coming when every knee shall bow… and for many, it will be too late.</em>\n</blockquote>\n\n<hr>\n<p><strong>Disclaimer:</strong> This post speaks of <em>biblical Christianity</em>—faith in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ, salvation by grace through faith, and the authority of Scripture. It does not refer to cults or sects such as Mormonism (LDS), Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Science, or Roman Catholicism pretending to be the church of Christ. True Christianity is not a denomination, but a <strong>new birth</strong> through the finished work of Jesus Christ alone.</p>\n\n<h4>Footnotes:</h4>\n<ol>\n  <li id=\"fn1\"><a href=\"https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/bombing-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki\" target=\"_blank\">Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing details and postwar plans.</a></li>\n  <li id=\"fn2\"><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ningen-sengen\" target=\"_blank\">The Humanity Declaration of January 1, 1946.</a></li>\n  <li id=\"fn3\"><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tora!_Tora!_Tora!\" target=\"_blank\">The meaning behind “Tora! Tora! Tora!”.</a></li>\n  <li id=\"fn4\"><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Xavier\" target=\"_blank\">Francis Xavier and Jesuit missions to Japan.</a></li>\n  <li id=\"fn5\"><a href=\"https://www.britannica.com/event/Christianity-in-Japan\" target=\"_blank\">Christian persecution during the Tokugawa era.</a></li>\n  <li id=\"fn6\"><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla_(1954_film)\" target=\"_blank\">1954 Godzilla film and its symbolism.</a></li>\n  <li id=\"fn7\"><a href=\"https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+17&version=KJV\" target=\"_blank\">Revelation 17 on the Whore of Babylon.</a></li>\n</ol>\n\n<hr>\n<h3>Still Worshiped in Shadow</h3>\n\n<p>Though the emperor publicly renounced his divinity in 1946, the rituals tell another story.</p>\n\n<ul>\n  <li><strong>Daijosai (大嘗祭):</strong> A secretive Shinto rite where the new emperor offers rice and prayers to the sun goddess Amaterasu, reaffirming his sacred lineage.</li>\n  <li><strong>Presentation of the Three Sacred Treasures:</strong> The sword, mirror, and jewel are symbols of divine authority, handed down from the gods—never displayed publicly, only venerated.</li>\n  <li><strong>Sojoden-no-gi:</strong> A funeral rite where Shinto priests transfer power to the new emperor with prayer, incense, and ancestral presence.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>Even in modern Japan, these rites continue—not as history, but as living theology. The emperor is still seen as the bridge between earth and heaven, the <em>\"High Priest of the Nation\"</em>.</p>\n\n<blockquote>\nHe may wear a suit instead of armor,  \nbut he still walks in the shadow of the sun.\n</blockquote>\n\n<br>\n<img src=\"https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmWZ75kCYuSb57E8BCYBhJpoBQvcUhoCMRZdxqof6GXuaR/F563E274-D837-4890-9BE5-3C9BFC2F0110.png\" alt=\"Emperor Ritual Image\"><br>",
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      "title": "This day in History May 2 1611 / 1983  The KJV and Microsoft Word",
      "body": "<center><h2>In the Beginning Was the Word… and Then Came Word</h2>  \n<h4>KJV 1611 vs Microsoft Word — Two Revolutions in Language, Legacy, and Authority</h4>  \n<i>Published May 2 — A Tale of Two Worlds, Two Words, and Two Legacies</i></center>\n\n---\n![564ECF9F-E8D7-4162-BC03-AE6214D3493A.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmZCfLdrL8SS8tqDFH3iyBqsmNggnEbQUbGwNwQofZ41KQ/564ECF9F-E8D7-4162-BC03-AE6214D3493A.png)\n\n\n<center>“Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.”  \n— <b>Matthew 24:35, KJV</b></center>\n\n---\n\n## I. A Tale of Two Words, Two Worlds\n\nOn **May 2, 1611**, the **King James Bible** was published in London.  \nOver 370 years later, in **May 1983**, **Microsoft Word** launched—ushering in the digital age of written expression.\n\nTwo different “Word” systems.  \nBoth changed the world.  \nBut only one was **inspired**, **preserved**, and **eternal**.\n\n---\n\n## II. The Word of God — Preserved, Purified, and Preached to the Nations\n\nThe **1611 King James Version** was not born out of convenience.  \nIt was forged through the fire of prayer, **scholarly reverence**, and a commitment to **divine preservation**.\n\n> “The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.  \n> Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.”  \n> — <b>Psalm 12:6–7</b>\n\nThis Bible unified the English-speaking world and became the missionary standard for centuries.  \nNot because of crown authority—but because of **God’s authority**.\n\nIt demanded precision. Cross-reference. Deep fear of error.  \nThe translators were not content with meaning alone—but with **exactness**.\n\nThis was not man’s search for truth.  \nIt was **God’s voice in man's language**.\n\n---\n\n## III. Microsoft Word — A Blank Page with No Conviction\n\nThen came **Microsoft Word**.\n\n![2F3194E2-54D3-45DD-A293-624BE4991556.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmWDGNfss87LhLqPWz9UUVTwMxNsotSxBuhVqSPxyPocgE/2F3194E2-54D3-45DD-A293-624BE4991556.png)\n\n\n\nLaunched in 1983, it revolutionized communication.  \nIt democratized writing. Anyone could be a writer, a publisher, a critic.\n\nBut with that came risk:\n- No editors. No reverence. Just **autocorrect** and **backspace**.\n- No fear of saying too much or too little—just the illusion that you can fix it later.\n- No altar. Just a **cursor blinking like a conscience never formed**.\n\nIt became a **tool of both productivity and deception**.\n\n> “What need is there for prayer or guidance,” some might think, “when I can just revise the draft?”  \n> But there are things that **only the Spirit of God can write**—not with ink, but upon the heart.\n\n---\n\n## IV. One Word Changed Eternity. The Other Changed Formatting.\n\nThe **KJV** brought us spiritual language: mercy, repentance, justification, sanctification, blood, covenant, grace.\n\n**Microsoft Word** brought us mechanical language: insert, font, margin, template, revision, replace.\n\nOne was **breathed out by God** and handed down through flame and martyrdom.  \nThe other is **coded and marketed**, updated quarterly.\n\nThe Word of God transformed lives.  \nMicrosoft Word transformed documents.\n\nThe contrast is clear:  \nOne brings **life**, the other tries to better  organize it.\n\n---\n\n## V. Word Made Flesh… or Word Made File?\n\n> “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  \n> — <b>John 1:1</b>\n\nThe Word of God does not change—because **God does not change**.  \nAnd that truth makes it trustworthy.\n\n**Microsoft Word** will one day be obsolete.  \n**The King James Bible** never will.\n\nThe Word of God still divides soul and spirit, joints and marrow (Hebrews 4:12).  \nIt cannot be uninstalled.  \nIt cannot be overwritten.  \nAnd it has no “undo” key.\n\n---\nOn a deeper more apoplectic note \n---\n\n## VI. The Speaking Image of the Beast: AI, Sorcery, or Both?\n\n> *“And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak,  \n> and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.”*  \n> — <b>Revelation 13:15, KJV</b>\n\nIn the age of artificial voices and algorithmic influence, we are witnessing the **stage being set**.\n\n- AI already generates sermons.\n- Synthetic pastors speak with emotional mimicry.\n- Deepfakes are used to deceive, confess, and convince.\n- Chatbots claim divinity and offer spiritual guidance.\n\nYes—**AI could be the very tool used to fulfill this prophecy**.  \nBut don’t be deceived into thinking this is only a product of science.\n\nThis is **sorcery**—spiritual deception masquerading as innovation.\n\nThe false prophet will not merely create a robot or upload code.  \nHe will **give life** to the image—**not by programming, but by power**.  \n**Supernatural power. Satanic power. Real power.**\n\n> “AI may be the tool—but the devil will be the animator.”\n\nThis image will speak with **authority**, demand **worship**, and **execute judgment**.  \nIt will feel familiar because we’re already being groomed to trust **screens**, **voices**, and **images**—but this one will be **different**.\n\n**Deadly different.**\n\nAnd the world will not question it.  \nThey will marvel at it.  \nThey will worship it.\n\nAnd they will die for it.\n\n------\n![F3ABC8B3-E80C-406B-90C8-174A739EFB95.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmeMDxvjXEEW3RZ4gwAxb25BiGAmqvEGT1aNfsRDzo6avp/F3ABC8B3-E80C-406B-90C8-174A739EFB95.png)\n\n\n## VII. A Final Word: Resist the Image. Receive the Word.\n\n> *“If any man worship the beast and his image... the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God...”*  \n> — <b>Revelation 14:9–10</b>\n\nFriend, this is no fairy tale.\n\nThe image of the beast will speak.  \nThe system is already speaking.  \nAnd it calls for your **loyalty**, your **attention**, your **soul**.\n\nBut there is still time to resist.\n\nThere is **another image**—the image of God Himself, made flesh and nailed to a cross for you.\n\n> *“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son,  \n> that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”*  \n> — <b>John 3:16</b>\n\nYou don’t have to be part of the system.  \nYou don’t have to follow the crowd.  \nYou don’t have to bow to the beast.\n\n**Bow your heart to Christ.**\n\nRepent. Confess. Believe.\n\n> *“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus,  \n> and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”*  \n> — <b>Romans 10:9</b>\n\nThe Word of God is not editable.  \nIt will not be revised.  \nAnd it promises that **whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved**.\n\nChoose the eternal Word—not the temporary image.\n\n**Confess Christ. Before the counterfeit comes.**\n\n---\n\n## Author’s Note: A Caution and a Confession\n\nI thank God that He is **careful with His Word**—far more careful than I’ve ever been with mine.  \nThe King James Bible is not just literature. It is **preserved revelation**—and I fear to ever handle it lightly.\n\nI use AI. I use digital tools.  \nBut I do so with **deliberate boundaries**—\nNothing can take the place of Study ,Prayer and Conviction . \n\nI don’t use AI to speak for me, and certainly not for God.  \nIt is a tool, not a teacher. A reference, like an encyclopedia  or dictionary not a replacement for scripture .\n\nWe live in a time when synthetic voices flood pulpits. Videos pretend emotion. Lazy pulpitteers plagiarize sermons and call them “anointed.”  \nBut only one thing breaks the heart and heals it too—**the living Word of God**.\n\nMay I never trade **unction for automation**, or **truth for traffic**.  \nMay I always **seek His voice**, not just my own.\n\n> “The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.”  \n> — <b>Isaiah 40:8</b>\n\n---\n\n## Footnotes & References:\n\n1. **King James Bible Publication** – “Authorized Version,” May 2, 1611, London, commissioned by King James I.  \n2. **Microsoft Word Release** – May 1983 by Microsoft Corp., initially for MS-DOS systems.  \n3. **Bible Translation Process** – “The Translators to the Reader,” 1611 KJV Preface.  \n4. **Scripture on Preservation** – Psalm 12:6–7, Isaiah 40:8, Matthew 24:35 (KJV).  \n5. **Cultural impact of AI preaching and plagiarism** – Pew Research, Barna Group, and firsthand online observation.\n\n---\n\n**Tags:** `#Bible #KJV1611 #History #Technology #MicrosoftWord #Preservation #AIethics #SteemitFaith #ChristianWriting`",
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      "permlink": "what-god-hath-not-condoned-a-covenant-refused-by-culture-but-honored-by-christ",
      "title": "“What God Hath Not Condoned: A Covenant Refused by Culture, But Honored by Christ”",
      "body": "<h2>“What God Hath Not Condoned: The scriptural  Witness of Christ’s Covenant Love”</h2>\n<h3>From Fornication to Faithfulness, from Forsaking to Forever</h3>\n\n---\n![BB53BC07-4BC9-4CCF-99CD-745104B912A3.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmVmqWNJGN3EeegJbGusMNGa2aGf35MrA5gShZmCYLuwFR/BB53BC07-4BC9-4CCF-99CD-745104B912A3.png)\n\n\n<h3>I. Introduction – The Words of Christ Are Enough</h3>\n\n<blockquote>\n“Whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery…”<br>\n(Matthew 5:32)\n</blockquote>\n\nBrethren, we have erred not in ignorance, but in convenience.  \nWe have taken a holy ordinance and whittled it down to parchment and pain.  \nWe have justified departures that God never joined, and joined again that which God never justified.\n\n<blockquote>\n“From the beginning it was not so.”<br>\n(Matthew 19:8)\n</blockquote>\n\n---\n\n<h3>II. Rightly Dividing the Text: Fornication vs. Adultery</h3>\n\n<blockquote>\n“Except it be for fornication…”<br>\n(Matthew 19:9)\n</blockquote>\n\n- Fornication is not adultery.  \n- It is defilement before or at the threshold of covenant—fraud, deception, a Judas kiss.  \n- Adultery is a sin within covenant. It grieves the Lord, but it does not annul the bond.\n\nIf the bride be true, and the covenant real, no man hath authority to put her away—not even the husband.  \nFor Christ, the true Husband, hath never put away His own.\n\n<blockquote>\n“Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”<br>\n(Hebrews 13:5)\n</blockquote>\n\n---\n![46B96981-7CE2-4DC0-B2C7-8335A0C4CD08.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmcFbTUNG4vAbzxjTahjqSdBvmhBr4FX4kEjfqkpjP57Nr/46B96981-7CE2-4DC0-B2C7-8335A0C4CD08.png)\n\n\n<h3>III. A Warning to the Head: You Are Not the Judge of the Bride</h3>\n\n<blockquote>\n“What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.”<br>\n(Matthew 19:6)\n</blockquote>\n\nYou are not her judge. You are her covering.  \nYou are not her accuser. You are her intercessor.  \nYou are not the Christ—but you are His shadow.\n\nSo act like Him. Stay. Wash her. Bear her. Love her.  \nEven when she is Peter by the fire… not Judas in the night.\n\n---\n\n<h3>IV. A Holy Plea – That Your Prayers Be Not Hindered</h3>\n\n<blockquote>\n“Giving honour unto the wife… as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.”<br>\n(1 Peter 3:7)\n</blockquote>\n\nIf your covenant with her is light, your access to God will be silence.  \nIf you lead her like Pharaoh, don’t be shocked when the heavens send plagues.\n\n---\n\n<h3>V. I Will Be the Illustration</h3>\n\n<blockquote>\n“Lie upon thy side…”<br>\n(Ezekiel 4:4)<br>\n“Take unto thee a wife of whoredoms…”<br>\n(Hosea 1:2)<br>\n“Son of man, behold, I take away from thee the desire of thine eyes with a stroke: yet neither shalt thou mourn nor weep…”<br>\n(Ezekiel 24:16)\n</blockquote>\nMan of God, Husband ..\nSay it!\n\nLet the world read no book but my covenant.  \nLet them see how Christ loves the Church by how I love the wife He hath joined to me.  \n\nLet them see His faithfulness in my refusal to forsake,  \nHis omniscience in my patience,  \nHis sacrifice in my silence,  \nHis cross in my staying.\n\n\n Listen to Jesus say it “ I will\nNever leave  thee more forsake thee..,”\n\nNow You say it !\n\nI will not leave her.  \nEven if she wounds me.  \nEven if others whisper.  \nEven if they say,  divorce  and “Just remarry.”  \nI will show them what Christ did for me.\n\n\nJust imagine if Husbands  had this testimony  and said “I will beg Him to help me love her more—even as He hath so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son!”\n\n\n\n---\n\n<h3>VI. Invitation – Let the Church Return to Her First Love</h3>\n\nPreacher, do not break what Christ has bound.  \nDo not give false counsel!  \nHusband, do not flee what Christ has forgiven.  \nChurch, do not cheapen what Christ has made a picture of His eternal covenant.\n\n<blockquote>\n“Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the LORD; and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you…”<br>\n(Jeremiah 3:12)\n</blockquote>\n\n<h4>Let Me Die Loving Her</h4>\n\nAnd now, Christian man—husband, pastor, brother, shepherd—  \nI plead with thee. I charge thee. I beg thee in Christ’s stead—  \n\n\n![78AB1257-4E64-4783-A52B-17F58CDAAFDE.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmZpwqdhdJwP2rmPKtGCZxDDaWLS57Q6kkbYeJ3ZyZV3Gr/78AB1257-4E64-4783-A52B-17F58CDAAFDE.png)\n\n\n**Do. Not. Do it.**\n\nDo not sever what God hath joined.  \nDo not flee what Christ stayed to save.  \nDo not cast off what He clothed in grace.\n\nThe Holy Spirit whispers…  \n“I know she wounded you.  \nI know she cursed the name you prayed in.  \nI know she betrayed you and called your faith control.  \nI know your pillow is soaked, and your bed is empty even when she lies beside you.  \n\nBut I say again—do not do it.”\n\n<blockquote>\n“Though she be not faithful, He remaineth faithful: for He cannot deny Himself.”<br>\n(2 Timothy 2:13, paraphrased)\n</blockquote>\n\nGod knows the end from the beginning.\n\n---\n\n<h3>Christian, Hang On a Little Longer</h3>\n\nDon’t go to the courthouse.  \nDon’t sign the papers.  \nDon’t let the serpent who whispered to Eve whisper to you.\n\nIf Christ loved the bride—so must you love yours!  \nAnd she can still love you!\n\nIf He washed her with the Word—you preach to her in silence and tears if you must!\n\nHe carried the cross for her alone—you can carry the covenant through the night.\n\nMan of God, are you confused? Are you wounded? Tell it to Jesus!  \nIt does not matter what the world thinks is right.  \nLet the world hate. Let the church whisper.  \nLet your so-called friends tell you to move on.\n\nBut you show the world how Christ loves the Church.  \nBeg Him to increase your faith. Present her glorious.\n\nYou may have to cover her shame.  \nKiss her forehead when the holy brethren would stone her.  \n\n**God joined you to her—not them!**\n\nAnd if she walks away like Judas—weep, and let her go.  \nBut if there is breath—if there is time—then there is still a cross to carry and a crown to come.\n\n---\n\n<h3>Christian Husband: Are You Looking at Divorce the Way the World Does—or as Jesus?</h3>\n\nFriend, say to yourself:\n\n<h4>“Let Me Be the Last Fool Standing”</h4>\n\nLet them mock me.  \nLet them say, “He could have remarried.”  \nLet them say, “She deserved it.”  \nLet them say, “He threw his life away.”\n\nAnd I will say back—\n\n**Let me die loving her.**  \nLet me fall asleep with the covenant unbroken.  \nLet me hear from the lips of the Savior:  \n<blockquote>“Well done… thou good and faithful husband.”</blockquote>\n\nNot perfect. Not painless.  \nBut faithful.\n\nLet me show my children what Jesus looks like.  \nLet me prove to the sons of men that a vow is a vow.  \nLet me be an echo of Calvary—not a reflection of culture.\n\nLove her.  \nAnd unless she walks away—**present her glorious!**\n\n---\n\n<h3>And to the Church: O Bride of Christ… Return.</h3>\n\nYou have played the harlot.  \nYou have flirted with Rome and danced with Babylon.  \nYou have traded your wedding garments for the world’s applause.\n\nBut your Husband still waits.\n\n<blockquote>\n“Return, O backsliding daughter… and I will heal your backslidings.”<br>\n(Jeremiah 3:22)\n</blockquote>\n\nO Church—run back into His arms.  \nO wife—fall back into the grace that never stopped covering you.  \nO husband—stand your ground in covenant and say with fire in your heart:\n\n> And not to mimic Patrick Henry, but let us say:  \n> “Give me faithfulness or give me death.  \n> Give me covenant or give me a cross.  \n> But never again will I break what God has bound.  \n> Not while I live. Not while He reigns.”\n\n---\n\n<h3>One Flesh: Drawn and Quartered</h3>\n\n<blockquote>\n“They twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.”<br>\n(Mark 10:8–9)\n</blockquote>\n\nThis is not poetic.  \nThis is anatomical.  \nThis is covenantal anatomy—a body made from two, by the hand of God.\n\nTo separate one flesh is not tidy—it is bloody.  \nIt is not civil—it is a crucifixion.\n\nWhen man tears asunder what God hath joined, it is not a legal filing—  \nit is being drawn and quartered.\n\nEach limb of trust and tenderness tied to a separate beast:  \nLove pulled north.  \nMemory pulled south.  \nVows pulled east.  \nFlesh pulled west.\n\nAnd the soul torn between them.\n\nEven when justified—by fornication, or abandonment—  \nthe pain is not erased.  \nThe covenant still bleeds.\n\n<blockquote>\n“He which is joined to an harlot is one body… for two, saith he, shall be one flesh.”<br>\n(1 Corinthians 6:16)\n</blockquote>\n\nIf even harlotry can create that scar,  \nhow much more the tearing of a covenant forged in Christ’s name?\n\n---\n\n<h3>Let This Be the Final Cry:</h3>\n\n“I will not be the one to sever what God hath made one.  \nLet me be torn limb from limb by circumstance,  \nBut let no man say I raised the knife.”\n\nI will not be the one to put asunder.  \nI will not be the one who rewrites what Eden established.  \nI will not call what is still breathing a corpse.\n\nLet the world explain their divorces.  \nLet the culture redefine marriage.  \nLet them normalize leaving when it’s hard.\n\nBut I will be one flesh.  \nEven if I must limp the rest of my life.  \nEven if I must drag the wounded parts behind me.  \nEven if she walks away.\n\n**I will die whole in Christ—because He never drew and quartered me.**\n\n<blockquote>\n“Let me die loving her—because Christ died loving me!”\n</blockquote>",
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