Last Thursday, Occupier Joe Biden announced a mandate for millions of federal workers to either receive a “lifesaving vaccine” (which is nothing of the sort) or follow strict and stringent “safety” protocols such as wearing masks “no matter where they are”, get tested once or twice a week, social distance and “generally not be allowed to travel for work.”
 
The same standard seemingly applies to all federal contractors. Biden also seemingly based this decision on the DOJ’s prior “ruling” that Chinese coronavirus vaccination mandates were “legal,” which as I said in the last article, means absolute squat since it just means that the DOJ won’t prosecute states and businesses which mandate vaccinations but state AGs and private citizens can still sue and nothing at all changes following that “ruling.”
 
Funny enough, Biden, in that Thursday announcement, also iterated the need for even the VACCINATED to wear masks, following the CDC’s updated “guidance” on mask-wearing (thereby giving even LESS of a reason to get vaccinated, since they had been trying to give special rights to the vaccinated, including not having to wear masks, though both mandates are utterly unconstitutional).
 
What’s more, Biden, in a bid to encourage people to get vaccinated, insisted time and time again that “99%” of people falling ill of the virus and dying are unvaccinated. Small tangent, but if the vaccines are safe and effective, why isn’t that number 100%? We’ve only had the vaccine for half a year, let’s say, so it stands to reason that most people who have died of the virus are those who were not vaccinated (which is extremely misleading, and would be like saying that Rome existed more than 70 years ago, which is technically true but again, misleading. Of course most people who have died of the Chinese coronavirus are unvaccinated, we’ve only had the vaccine until recently. And again, why is the number not 100%?).
 
In any case, I, for one, couldn’t care less about whether or not federal workers are mandated to get the vaccine or have to follow strict “safety” protocols. They are the swamp, after all. So why would I care about their suffering?
 
Furthermore, this vaccine mandate (threat, really) from the Biden administration brings with it unintended consequences which are actually pretty advantageous for Americans: it inadvertently drains the swamp.
 
Think of it like this: We all know of the effects of the vaccines. I have, for the last half a year, written many articles which highlight the ineffectiveness of the vaccines in fighting the Chinese coronavirus and downright show the active HARM which they pose to those who get the vaccine. I’ve even used data from the CDC itself, through its VAERS system, to showcase the, at this point, tens of thousands of people who have died of the vaccines (and as a reminder, the VAERS system only reports less than 1% of cases, so it’s possible, at this point, that over a million have died from the vaccines).
 
And undoubtedly, many federal workers have taken the vaccines as well. While it’s almost certain that not everyone who takes the vaccine will die from it, it can still cause other severe side-effects which can sideline people. Let’s pretend, then, that at least 50% of federal workers have taken the vaccine and another 10% intend to take the vaccine but haven’t quite yet come around to doing so for one reason or another. So 60%, to be conservative, since many labor unions working with or for the federal government have protested against the mandate, and many will refuse to take the vaccine for religious or health reasons.
 
Anthony Fauci had said that 40 to 50% of the CDC had yet to take the vaccine (arguably, he didn’t say they refused, but it’s the CDC and I highly doubt they would have trouble getting vaccinated), so a 60% estimate of federal workers getting the vaccine isn’t out of line.
 
That means that a LOT of those people could see severe side-effects as a result of getting the vaccine. They might get seriously sick and have to quit/retire or might outright die, depending on the circumstances. But the other 40% who might refuse to get the vaccine would likely face extreme pressure from their peers (the Left’s authoritarian tendencies will backfire here) to get the vaccine and might choose to quit or retire as well from the extreme pressure that the Left tends to put on people to act in the manner which they wish.
 
Either way, this kind of pressure from the Biden administration to either get the vaccine (which could seriously harm or kill them) or be subjected to stringent protocols (and face further pressure from others) would inadvertently lead to some amount of swamp draining.
 
Either the workers get the vaccine and die/be forced into retirement or they don’t get the vaccine but face enough pressure from the administration and their peers to want to quit/retire (or get the vaccine, which brings us back to that first option). Such a mandate on federal workers will likely lead to inadvertently draining the swamp, and from one of the biggest swamp rats of all.
 
Certainly, God works in mysterious ways. Even when we think there is no possibility for something to happen, such as draining the swamp in this case because a swamp lifer stole the election, God makes a way for it to be possible.
 
I am reminded of the story of the widow’s oil, where a woman comes to Elisha in dire need, as her husband recently died and a creditor was coming to take the woman’s two sons to be his slaves. Elisha asked the woman what she had in her house and she replied “Your maidservant has nothing in the house but a jar of oil,” 2 Kings 4:2. Elisha then told her to go to all her neighbors and gather empty vessels and pour that oil into all those vessels. And that’s exactly what she did, with just one jar of oil, she managed to fill all the vessels she had with her with that oil by the power of God. Thanks to that, she was able to pay off her debt.
 
The story is rather short and doesn’t go into a whole lot of detail, but I’m certain the woman at least thought to herself “how can this lone jar of oil be enough to pay off my debt? If I thought it would be enough, I wouldn’t have had to come to Elisha to begin with.” In essence, I think she doubted there would have been a way for her to use that oil to pay for her debt (seeing as she said she "has nothing... but a jar of oil"), but God made a way for exactly that to happen.
 
Similarly, I believe that’s what God is doing with this situation as well. He is using a swamp rat to drain the swamp, likely without the rat’s knowledge.
 
Even if I overestimate what this will do to the swamp in terms of draining it, that this will definitely lead to some people in federal government to be forced out is more than I was expecting going into this illegitimate administration.
 
With Biden successfully stealing the election, I fully expected the swamp to recover from the four years of Trump, but frankly, this could do more damage to them than even Trump did. All under the “leadership” of one of their own.
 
God certainly is poetic with irony.
 
John 16:33
“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

I don’t know if the following comments by Don Lemon are the dumbest things he has ever said – they certainly are up there – but they definitely are the easiest to disprove out of just about anything.
 
You see, recently, the Catholic Church stated once again the same view that Christendom has had on homosexuality since the founding of the church 2,000 years ago that homosexuality is a sin, that same-sex unions cannot be blessed, and that God does not bless sin.
 
Because the far-Left hates the Church and all Christians, they attacked the Catholic Church for upholding the views it has always had and which very clearly come from the Bible, which is the very Word of God.
 
But CNN host Don Lemon had perhaps the dumbest take in all of this.
 
Lemon appeared on ABC’s “The View”, and responded to something co-host Meghan McCain said: “You got engaged to your fiancé, Tim, in 2019, and this morning, we learned that the Vatican has said that the Catholic Church won’t bless same-sex unions since ‘God cannot bless sin.’ They go on to say that this does not imply a judgment on persons, but I want to know, do you think this sends a damaging message and how do you feel about that given that obviously you are engaged and going to get married?”
 
Quick sidebar, let no one ever again say that any member of the McCain family is a conservative. Asking “do you think this sends a damaging message” alludes to the idea that it is a damaging message to say that same-sex unions cannot be blessed and that God can’t bless sin. No true conservative will stand against God or His Word. That she, undoubtedly, voted for Biden ought to tell people she isn’t a conservative.
 
In any case, Lemon proceeded to share the following gem:
 
“Well, I think there are – listen, I respect people’s right to believe in whatever they want to believe in their God, but if you believe in something that hurts another person or does not give someone the same rights or freedoms – not necessarily under the Constitution because this is under God – I think that that’s wrong and I think that the Catholic Church and many other churches really need to reexamine themselves and their teachings because that is not what God is about. God is not about hindering people or even judging people.”
 
Let’s go over this one point at a time, shall we?
 
First, it’s not about individuals believing in whatever they want to believe in God. God’s Word is clear in the Bible, particularly on this matter: homosexuality is a sin. It is an abomination to Him. It is evil. If someone believes in a god that thinks homosexuality is permissible, they are not believing in the Lord, but a fictitious god conjured up from their own imagination.
 
God is not someone’s imaginary friend who will approve of just about everything that they do. God is the Ruler of the Universe and all creation. His own morals stand above the supposed “morality” of those whom He has dominion over. If your own morality stands in clear and direct contradiction to God’s, you are in the wrong. There is no other way around that.
 
Secondly, who in the world ever said that God is one who allows people to have the freedom to do whatever they wanted? Adam and Eve got kicked out of the Garden of Eden because they did what they wanted (an oversimplification of events, granted, but still) and disobeyed God in the process. The one rule they had in paradise was not to eat the fruit which comes from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They distrusted God, which was the original sin, believing in the word of the serpent that they would not die if they ate of the fruit, and this distrustfulness and disobedience cost them eternal life in paradise.
 
People defying God is literally what doomed humanity, so what makes anyone think that God just allows people to do whatever they want? Furthermore, if God doesn’t restrict people in this way regarding homosexuality, then it would naturally follow that all sins and egregious acts are permissible under God, right? Since God doesn’t hinder people’s “rights” and “freedoms”, right?
 
So the raping of women would be permissible, the slaughtering of children would be permissible, the kidnapping and torture and murder of humans would be permissible, the abuse of animals would be permissible, the defiling of young girls would be permissible, the theft of other people’s belongings would be permissible, the Holocaust would be permissible, Holodomor would be permissible, the killing of 500 million people (roughly 100 million born people and 400 million unborn babies) killed by the Chinese communists would be permissible, and every sin and heinous act of man would be permissible by God.
 
So why stop at homosexuality? If someone wanted to kill and maim Don Lemon, they would be allowed to because “God is not about hindering” the “rights” and “freedoms” of people. God forbid that someone would even think to do such a horrible thing, but hey, Don Lemon seems to believe that God is okay with such things, so why would he himself not be okay with that?
 
And let no one come to me arguing that “Jesus set us free” and that that means we are free to do whatever we want. Anyone who makes that argument is seriously ignorant of what that means. Jesus sets us free, indeed. What does that mean? First, by “us”, it means Christians. Jesus did not die on the cross for everyone’s sins. It’s not like He is buying everyone a round of drinks on Him, allowing us to do whatever we want following His crucifixion. “Us” means those who follow Him, not everyone in the world. Secondly and lastly on this point, He has set us free from the PUNISHMENT of sin, not free to perform sin.
 
Until we are saved by the Lord through Christ Jesus, we are slaves of sin. That is what is meant when I say that humanity was doomed following the original sin of Adam and Eve. Their sin is passed on to every single human on Earth, with the exception of Jesus Himself, being the Son of God and being divine. He was born free from sin, obviously. But everyone else is born in sin and we will die in sin if we do not repent. We are set free from that sin by Jesus Christ, not automatically, but through repentance of our sins and in trusting in Him as our Lord and Savior.
 
But this setting us free does not mean giving us license to sin to our heart’s content. Yes, Jesus saved the adulterous woman who was about to be stoned to death when He called on whomever was free of sin to cast the first stone, but He then told the woman to “sin no more,” so He definitely did not find her actions permissible. Forgivable, yes, upon repentance, but not permissible altogether.
 
Lastly, the idea that God is not about “judging people” is one of the most ignorant and easily refutable takes I have ever heard, and that’s saying something.
 
You can literally Google “bible verses about God’s judgement” and one of the first links will include 100 verses about that very topic.
 
For example, the few that I will share with you:
 
2 Corinthians 5:10: “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.”
 
1 Peter 4:17: “For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?”
 
Revelation 20:11-15: “Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”
 
John 3:18: “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”
 
Romans 14:12: “So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.”
 
And Don Lemon ought to be particularly cautious given the following verse:
 
Matthew 12:36-37: “I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”
 
The fact that there even is a concept of sin indicates wrong-doing. That there is a concept of wrong-doing indicates a concept of righteousness. That there are both concepts indicates that there is reward for the righteous and punishment for the evil doer. That there is a concept of punishment for the evil doer indicates a judgment of the evil doer.
 
The idea that God doesn’t judge people is one of the most misguided and foolish things I have heard said about the character of God.
 
Eventually, Lemon even had the audacity to lecture people of faith:
 
“So I would say to the Pope and the Vatican and all Christians or Catholics or whomever, whatever religion you believe out, you happen to belong to out there, ‘Go out and meet people and try to understand people and do what the Bible and Jesus actually said if you believe in Jesus, and that is to love your fellow man and judge not let ye be not (sic) judged. So instead of having the pew hinder you, having the church hinder you, instead of being segregated in the church or among yourselves, go out and have a barbecue and meet people and start breaking bread with people and getting to know them…”
 
This article is already quite long, so I will keep my analysis as short as possible.
 
First, that he misspoke in the “judge not lest ye be judged” thing kind of already indicates that he does not understand what the Bible and Jesus actually said whatsoever.
 
Second, this is not about men judging other men, but about GOD’S judgment, which he claimed He is not about, despite the MOUNTAINS of evidence to the contrary. The Vatican isn’t the ones judging same-sex unions, they are merely restating the MILLENNIA OLD BELIEF in what GOD HIMSELF says about homosexuality. God judges homosexuality because it is a sin, and He does not bless sin, so He does not bless same-sex unions.
 
Third, “love your fellow man” does not mean we tolerate the evil of man. A parent loves his child, but what love is shown when they tolerate evil acts of the child? A parent who approves or even just tolerates evil acts by their child holds no love for them at all. Love includes reproaching and rebuking of evil. God loves His creation and brings even great sinners to Him.
 
David committed adultery and murder, which God punished, but out of love, not hatred. God rebuked David and brought him back to Him.
 
Moses committed murder against an Egyptian guard which led him to be on the lam for 40 years, yet God brought him to Him and made him a leader of what would eventually be known as God’s chosen people.
 
Abraham committed adultery by bedding his servant, Hagar, because he was impatient when it came to God’s promise of a child and that he would become a father to many nations. Still, God brought him back to Him and delivered him his promised son.
 
Saul of Tarsus hunted down those who believed in the Lord Jesus with the help of Roman soldiers, sending countless believers to their deaths, and God rebuked him, punished him with blindness, but redeemed him upon his repentance of his sins, becoming one of the most important figures in early Christendom.
 
We all sin, but there is no excuse for it. We are forgiven of it if and only if we ask for such forgiveness. No person holds love for his fellow man if he tolerates or approves of that man’s evil.
 
Finally, and to finish things off, Don Lemon has no right to judge believers (as he was doing in that segment, whether or not he realizes it) given his own sins and evils, claiming he somehow knows God’s character better than Christians do, and then go on to encourage Christians to step away from God and towards Man. Whether or not he realizes that that’s what he was doing, it is. Encouraging people to get out of the churches and go to a barbecue to “get to know people” is a roundabout way of saying “leave the Lord and come join us Man in our world.”
 
Satan would love for nothing more than for believers to fall for such deceit, abandoning God and His teachings and His ways in exchange for the teachings of Man.
 
Shame on Don Lemon for doing the devil’s bidding in encouraging believers to abandon God, as subtly or as unwittingly as he did. And that last bit was not the only example of him doing this either, as he "encouraged" the Church and Christians to "reexamine themselves and their teachings." Doing so would be to follow the teachings of Man, not of God.
 
James 4:4
“You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”

We all know Pope Francis is not a Christian, as his rhetoric in a manner of subjects demonstrates that he is more of a humanist who believes man to have power or have potential to wield power similar to God. Why else would he believe that mankind could, without the use of nuclear weapons, destroy the planet that God has created?
 
And he does not appear to be in any way repentant of this anti-Christian idiocy or the falsehoods which he spreads. In a recently released book, the pope recounts the story of the Great Flood during the time of Noah and claims that rising temperatures and melting glaciers might cause a second Great Flood.
 
Interestingly, Pope Francis is not ignorant of the significance of the biblical Great Flood. He writes: “The Bible says that the flood is the result of God’s wrath. It is a figure of God’s wrath, who according to the Bible has seen too many bad things and decides to obliterate humanity. The biblical flood, according to experts, is a mythical tale. The flood is a historical tale, archaeologists say, because they found traces of a flood in their excavations… A great flood, perhaps due to a rise in temperature and the melting of the glaciers, is what will happen now if we continue along the same path.”
 
“God’s wrath is directed against injustice, against Satan,” he continues. “It is directed against evil, not that which derives from human weakness, but evil of Satanic inspiration: the corruption generated by Satan… God unleashed his wrath, but he saw a righteous one, took him and saved him. The story of Noah demonstrates that God’s wrath is also salvific.”
 
There are some things which Pope Francis gets right here, but plenty that he does not.
 
What he gets right is in the citing of archaeologists in that the Great Flood is a historical event. We know this as the very Word of God tells us, let alone the empirical evidence that there is of it. What he also gets right is that God’s wrath is directed at injustice, against Satan. It is directed at evil. At the corruption that Satan brought in, though the actions of Adam and Eve also led to that corruption, as they distrusted and disobeyed God.
 
However, that he recognizes that the Great Flood came as a result of God’s wrath against the great sins and evils of 99.9% of the world’s population at the time is what confuses me about why he is conflating God’s wrath and the flood that He delivered with pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo about “flooding” that has been predicted for decades now and which never came.
 
He KNOWS the reason for the Great Flood, so why would he claim there would be a second one? Is it that he believes the creation is as powerful as the creator? Perhaps, but I think it’s a different reason: he legitimately believes that not only does humanity have the ability to destroy the earth in this way (though at no point has there been any evidence that we are causing any sort of change in the climate) but that God considers those who are “killing” the planet to be aligned with Satan and those who are trying to “save” it, namely people like him, are on the side of God and will be saved from His wrath.
 
The God that Pope Francis believes in is not the God that exists. Such a god is one of Pope Francis’ own imagination. He is attributing characteristics to his god and turning him into some idol. God’s wrath does not go to those who are uncaring of the planet or who are on one side or the other on the environmental issues. His wrath is not delivered for the reasons of environmentalism. It is delivered for the reason of sin – the reason of evil. This is something even Pope Francis admits, but it goes to show how warped his mind is.
 
He actually believes that those who are not “saving” the planet are evil and will receive God’s wrath as a result of that evil.
 
Now, this warped mentality should not be particularly surprising, considering the guy is a socialist (and therefore, a supporter of an ideology which has killed hundreds of millions of people, so I wonder how he weighs on the scales of evil). Leftists have, for a long time, used God to push for their own agendas.
 
The Left during the 19th century pushed that God was in favor of slavery because slavery was prominent in the Bible. What they failed to recognize is that the kind of slavery the Bible largely refers to is indentured servitude. There is, of course, other kinds of slavery, as the Jews were slaves in Egypt for 400 years, but that was slavery done to God’s chosen people, not done by them. Jacob was a “slave” – servant – of Laban for a total of 14 years, servitude which was done in exchange for Rachel’s hand in marriage (and, of course, he ended up marrying Leah first after seven years of servitude before serving another seven for Rachel).
 
So the idea that God was on the side of the Democrats and the Left in the 19th century regarding forced slave labor which dehumanized an entire group of people is as erroneous as the idea that God is on the side of the Democrats and the Left in the 21st century regarding the climate of the planet, which He made to be DYNAMIC and ever-changing.
 
As I have said many times in articles of this nature, the things which the Left blames for climate change cannot be the cause for similar periods of warmth found at other points in time. Neither the Roman nor the Medieval Warming Periods can be explained to have occurred because too many people were driving cars, too many people were flying planes, too many people were using their air conditioners, or that too many people were capitalist (and this one is particularly asinine as communist China is a top polluter in the world).
 
We have observed the dynamism of the planet's climate which God created. To claim that mankind is responsible for the same kind of climate that the planet has seen across millennia is unfound, but to claim that God is wrathful against those who acknowledge this truth about our planet is downright heretical.
 
God is not a puppet for Pope Francis to use as he pleases, claiming that this thing and that thing is wrong and that those who do it will face God’s wrath. Granted, he’s a Catholic, so it’s not surprising that such behavior is present, as the Catholic Church has long made up sins that are nowhere to be found in the Bible (looking at you, Seven Deadly Sins, though to an extent, as it is sinful to be lustful). But just because the Catholic Church has pretty much always done this doesn’t mean that the Pope is right in doing it himself.
 
It is not a sin to be against the liars and deceivers who scar children for life with untruthful claims about the state of the planet and our involvement in it. It is not a sin to be against those who would seek to take advantage of the woes and fears they create in people to take their possessions and give everything to the government, which they treat as God. It is not a sin to be against those who would kill an innocent child, in and out of the womb, because of an “overpopulation” problem that doesn’t exist or because such fools believe that more people will lead to the planet being in a worse condition.
 
You know what are sins? Killing people, stealing from people, lying to people for your own personal gain, and attributing to man the things that come from God. And Pope Francis better be careful with that last one, as it borders on being the unpardonable sin. I don’t think he’s committed that particular sin here, but he is dangerously close to it, in my opinion.
 
Mankind cannot do what God can do. It cannot cause a second Great Flood. Even with lesser floods, mankind cannot cause entire cities to flood through the methods that Francis and other Leftists believe it can.
 
For decades, they claimed coastal cities like Miami and Los Angeles would be inundated and uninhabitable. This is a prediction the Left has made since NEARLY 100 YEARS AGO. As I pointed out in a rather old article now, a Missouri newspaper had an article titled: “Melting Glaciers Would Flood Earth’s Big Cities.” That article was written in 1932, 89 years ago. And still, these Leftists are giving the same “warnings.”
 
Along with that, not one of their predictions over the last century regarding climate change has come true, from acid rains to global cooling in the 70’s to global warming in decades after to melting glaciers to great floods to droughts to super powerful and frequent hurricanes. Not ONE of those things ever came about like these “experts” predicted. They continue to lie to people and those most pushing these warnings tend to enrich themselves from the fear that they spread.
 
How, exactly, is God on their side? How, exactly, are such people spared from the wrath of God?
 
Liars, killers and deceivers. That’s what these people are and that’s what Pope Francis sides with, no matter what rationalizations or justifications appealing to the character of God (that he places in Him himself) he makes regarding this issue.
 
Pope Francis better repent of these sins which he continuously commits.
 
Romans 1:18
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.”

I will freely admit that that might be a cliched title, but it isn’t very often that I speak of matters so personal to me. I usually talk about what idiotic things Leftists said or pushed, or about what great things Trump would do as President, or generally tried my hand at some apologetics, defending the Christian faith from those who foolishly attack it at their own peril.
 
However, with the recent event of America’s Anchorman Rush Limbaugh passing away due to complications with cancer (screw cancer, by the way, and I really want to say something stronger but I feel like that wouldn’t honor Rush), I feel like I should take some time away from focusing on other current events such as the disaster that is the illegitimate Biden administration to just discuss Rush and what he meant to me personally.
 
I, unfortunately, never got to meet Rush, so it’s not like I can share some personal anecdote about the man of something we did together. But I listened to him as often as I could, particularly as I got older and began to pay attention to politics a little bit more.
 
I don’t exactly know what qualifies one to be a “Rush baby”, whether it means to have had his radio program on since I was literally a baby or at least a toddler, but I can call myself a “Rush teen”, if you will.
 
I began listening to him, admittedly, against my will. That’s not to say that I did not like Rush or that I was a mad liberal with vitriol and hatred in his heart. I was just a 14-year-old kid who recently moved to a new state and awaiting the movers to have all our stuff, there were few things to do apart from listening to the radio. At the time, I was hardly paying much attention to politics.
 
I remember occasionally watching Fox News (back when it was good and personalities like Bill O’Reilly were present) with my parents over the years, but again, could hardly care about the politics. I remember when Obama was elected president in 2008 and how disappointed my parents were about it. So I knew who was President of the United States by the time my family and I moved to the country, but again, being a kid, I hardly cared about that.
 
As a result, there was not much I cared about with regard to what Rush was talking about. I remember that Rush was railing on Obama and the Democrats as basically trying to be “Santa Claus” and just trying to win elections by giving out free stuff to Americans.
 
Keep in mind that this was around the time that Obamacare was being talked about the most.
 
But, again, as a 14-year-old kid whose interests lied primarily in playing Call of Duty or other games on his Xbox, the topics of discussion were barely important to me. But I kept listening, on and off, and began to pay more attention to politics as time went on, particularly around the time of the 2012 election.
 
Though I ashamedly supported Romney back then, a large part of the reason why is because, while even then I knew he wasn’t exactly the most conservative option (back then, I liked Herman Cain, Rick Santorum, Michele Bachman and Rick Perry far more than Romney), he would likely still have made for a better president than what Obama was. In some ways, I still think that to be true. I think Romney would have made the economy better, because Republicans tend to be able to fix the economies that Democrats wreck. And this was a sentiment that Rush shared.
 
He backed Romney and supported him because, even if he was far from his first choice, he was a better option than Obama. He made the same rationalizations and justifications for supporting McCain, who was also not Rush’s first choice.
 
So I got invested a decent bit in politics back then, certainly more than what I previously had but obviously nowhere near as much as I do now. As a result, I began to pay more attention to what Rush was saying as well. It certainly helped that my dad would often put him on the radio when he picked me up from school, at least for the short amount of time that I wouldn’t take the bus home.
 
And so, my journey went as follows: I became a Republican in large part because my parents were Republicans and taught me right from wrong (for the most part, at least, as even they were still on that same journey as me). They, themselves, became Republicans because they were in finance, and what Republicans propose economically are what always made sense for them. Then, we became conservatives.
 
Funny enough, this happened in part because of Obama. Early in his administration, quite literally on his third day in office, Obama had reportedly told Republican leaders who were invited to the White House to “quit listening to Rush Limbaugh.” “You can’t just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done. There are big things that unify Republicans and Democrats. We shouldn’t let partisan politics derail what are very important things that need to get done.”
 
For all the “unifying” that Obama was seemingly trying to do there, he went on to say to a Republican critic: “I won. I will trump you on that.”
 
Clearly, Obama was as full of crap back then as we always knew he was. But at any rate, that’s not what I want to focus on. Following that moment in the White House, Fox News reported on it, and my mom asked: “Who’s Rush Limbaugh?”
 
She went on to look him up and that is how my parents (and eventually I) started listening to El Rushbo. So thank you, Obama. You are at least part of the reason as to why my family and I are as conservative as we are today.
 
And so, we became Republicans, and then through Rush, we became conservatives. After that is when my mom and I became Christians, some time later, at least.
 
And that’s all well and good, but you might be asking how that relates to what Rush means to me. Well, I think it was a little important to share this backstory of mine, detailing the journey of my conservative politics. It is because of Rush Limbaugh that I am a conservative, particularly as much of one as I am.
 
He (as well as my parents who also deserve credit for this) taught me not what to think but how to think. To analyze things with a critical eye. It’s why I analyze what Leftists say and can discern what they mean or imply from them.
 
I attended the Rush Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies and that is a school from which one does not graduate. Even now, with Rush’s passing, there is plenty that we can learn and know from him.
 
It’s because of him that I have been writing these articles for the last four years. I even sought a career in radio so that I could become “the next Rush Limbaugh” before I realized that even speaking for half an hour became tiring for my throat. Not to mention I think I can convey messages more clearly in the written form, particularly as this mode of communication affords me more time to think about what I want to say and how to say it.
 
Of course, now, I no longer want to be “the next Rush Limbaugh” not merely because I hardly think I’m cut out for radio, but also because there simply cannot be a “next Rush Limbaugh”. When they made him, they broke the mold, as those who listened to Rush through Rush 24/7 understand. I cannot aspire to be someone I’m not, or the “next” someone I’m not. I can only be the best version of myself and I think that’s what Rush would want of me.
 
Kathryn Limbaugh opened Rush’s show on the 17th to convey the sad news of Rush’s passing. She pointed out how “Rush will forever be the greatest of all time. Rush was an extraordinary man, a gentle giant – brilliant, quick witted, genuinely kind, extremely generous, passionate, courageous, and the hardest working person I know…”
 
“He was polite and respectful to everyone he met. Even most recently when he was not feeling well in the hospital, he was so appreciative to every single doctor and nurse and custodian and first responder. He never wanted to put anyone out, and always thanked them profusely for their help.”
 
Rush was someone who unabashedly and unapologetically loved his country, our military, flag, Constitution, and Founding Fathers. It’s because of that love that he wanted to defeat the Left, who bear the exact opposite feelings about all those things.
 
He’s someone who touched the hearts of tens of millions of people every day for 32 years. You can tell what awesome things he did in his life by the way people reacted to his death. Those who loved him and love this country mourned, while those who loathed him and loathe this country vilely celebrated. He was loved by all the right people and hated by all the right people. I saw it as a badge of honor for Rush that the Left reacted the way that they did. That Rush had enemies means he stood up for something, and particularly, for the right thing.
 
That he was loved by God is infinitely more important than that he was hated by the Left and Satan. He now rests with the Lord, free from the evil cancer that damaged his body, and probably striking up a conversation with Ronald Reagan, Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, to name a few, about how silly the Left is for believing they are headed for victory.
 
Rush was a big part of my life and a big part of how I have shaped my life and my beliefs. I didn’t always agree with Rush, though the times I disagreed were as few and far between as the times in which he was wrong. That is to say, I would disagree with him 0.2% of the time, agreeing with him the other 99.8%.
 
Though he and I never met, as I said earlier, he was my brother in Christ. I am young, so I don’t plan on meeting my Savior in heaven any time soon, and by extension, America’s Anchorman. But what I will try to do from now on will be the same as what I hopefully have been doing for the past four years: write truthful articles that convey why the Left is evil and ought to be defeated and destroyed. This is what Rush, in his own way, did for over 30 years. With talent on loan from God, and by the Grace of God, he did all he could with the time that the Lord gave him, and I hope to do the same.
 
God bless Rush Limbaugh and may his soul rest in peace, as we all know he is.
 
Romans 14:8
“For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.”

As Isaiah 5:20 says: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who turn darkness to light and light to darkness, who replace bitter with sweet and sweet with bitter.” Those who call evil things “good” and “righteous” are heathens as are those who call good things “evil” or “dangerous”. Often, those people are one and the same: those who are not Christians, and at best, only profess faith as opposed to possessing it.
 
That is the kind of person that is involved with Washington National Cathedral, which invited a guest preacher named Max Lucado who believes in the biblical point that homosexuality is a sin (because it is) and abhorrent to God (because it is).
 
A petition was written and addressed to the church, calling Lucado’s correct theology “dangerous” and urged the church to disinvite him:
 
“Lucado’s teachings and preaching inflicts active harm on LGBTQ people. To cite one example, in 2004 he wrote of his fears that homosexuality would lead to ‘legalized incest’ and likened same-sex marriage to incest and bestiality.”
 
“Fear-mongering and dehumanizing messages from powerful speakers like Lucado have been used to justify rollbacks of LGBTQ rights and to exclude LGBTQ people from civil protections and sacred rites. To our knowledge, Lucado has not publicly renounced these views.”
 
The petition also appealed to the fact that National Cathedral houses the remains of a gay college student who was brutally beaten and murdered in 1998, all but actively charging Lucado with holding a theology which was “responsible” for that tragedy:
 
“Matthew Shepard’s remains were entrusted to the care of this cathedral. Inviting a man who preaches the kind of dangerous theology that promotes oppression of and violence toward the LGBTQ community does not honor that trust nor serve his memory.”
 
“If Lucado wishes to use this opportunity to renounce his hateful views, this is not the appropriate forum or context. This is not an opportunity for easy healing or ‘bringing together’, as though the question of the full belovedness of LGBTQ people is a simple argument or difference of opinion. Lucado has inflicted serious harm. If healing is to take place, Lucado has much work to do before it can begin.”
 
It’s bemusing how often these whiny people cry “violence” at any opinion which disagrees with their own. At no point has any Christian called for what happened to Matthew Shepard to happen to other gay people. Unless in self-defense or in war, killing just isn’t right. But that isn’t to say that Shepard was anything close to a saint because people who embrace their sin cannot be considered saints (saints, by the way, are those whom are saved, not merely those whom the Catholic church gives the title of “Saint”).
 
The only dangerous theology is the one which twists God’s word, because such a theology is Satan’s, not God’s.
 
Romans 1:18-32 says:
 
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.”
 
“Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.”
 
“And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.”
 
God, through the apostle Paul, reaffirms what had been found elsewhere in the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, that God considers such immoral sexual acts to be sinful and lead to spiritual death. And don’t tell me “it’s not lust, or just about sex, it’s also about love”, because no, it isn’t. Love is not defined by men; it is defined by God. God loves His children, He loves His Church. Love is not lust. There is passion in love, for sure, including sexual passion. Sex within marriage is not detestable to God. God made us to feel pleasure in sex because sex, in and of itself, isn’t a bad thing. What is a bad thing is sex outside of marriage and sex between and amongst people who are of the same sex, same familial line, or different species.
 
Homosexuality is a sin and an abhorrent thing to God. To declare such a position a “dangerous theology” is, in itself, dangerous theology. In fact, it's not theology, because theology is the study of God. It is what it claims other things are, which is why I began this article with that Isaiah verse. They are calling God’s theology and doctrine “dangerous” because of the truth which it speaks: homosexuality is a sin.
 
But now, you may be thinking why it is that I titled this article the way that I did. That petition was clearly written by either members of the congregation or the community in general, definitely not people who have decision-making power regarding who gets to speak and preach at the church. So, then, why am I saying that Satan runs the churches (or at least this one)? Well, here’s the thing, despite the fact that the church is holding firm on their decision to allow Lucado to preach, they themselves are guilty of propelling pro-LGBT and anti-biblical theology.
 
That they reportedly house the remains of a gay college student showcases that they side with men as opposed to God.
 
In a response to the petition, Dean Randy Hollerith said:
 
“As you know, this Cathedral has long been a beacon for LGBTQ inclusion, and we believe in that because we believe the Gospel calls us to nothing short of full embrace and inclusion. That said, I understand why Max’s earlier statements on LGBTQ issues would cause concern, and I want you to know that I share your concerns. As an ally of the LGBTQ community myself, it grieves me when churches or religion are used as weapons against God’s LGBTQ children.”

Yeah, the guy is a blasphemer, undoubtedly.
 
First of all, the Gospel does NOT call for “full embrace and inclusion.” Read those verses in Romans 1 again to see that. Read 1 Corinthians 6:9-10: “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”
 
We are not called to embrace evil or include evil in our midst. And make no mistake, homosexuality is evil. It is a sin, after all, which is evil and leads to death. We are forgiven of our sins when we repent of them, but they are sins nonetheless and those whom embrace sin will die by them.
 
God doesn’t include unrighteous people into His kingdom, and among those unrighteous, He counts homosexuals. Why, then, would we be inclusive of homosexuality? I don’t think we should kill or actively harm them, but we don’t have to do them any favors either.
 
Second, and perhaps most importantly, GOD DOES NOT HAVE LGBTQ CHILDREN! That ticked me off the most, even more than the nonsensical petition.
 
The children of God are those whom He adopted into His heavenly family. Those whom have received Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior are counted among the children of God, siblings of Christ. God washes away sin; He doesn’t include it with us when we are saved. So God doesn’t have LGBT children.
 
Not everyone is a child of God. I used to mistakenly think the opposite, but that was wrong. There is no universal brotherhood of man because for that to be the case, there would have to be a universal childhood of man under God. Not everyone whom God creates does He save, and so, not everyone whom God allows to be alive does He consider His child.
 
So to repeat myself once more, God doesn’t have LGBT children. He has children who used to be gay, as He has children who used to be idolaters, sexually immoral, murderers, etc., but whom have repented of their sins, received Christ as their Lord and Savior, and their sins were washed away.
 
Returning to that passage in 1 Corinthians, the immediate passage that follows is 1 Corinthians 6:11: “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”
 
Sin is a death sentence, but repentance leads to salvation. We are called to not tolerate evil, and you can see clearly what leads to tolerance of evil: men pretending to be women, entering women’s sports and destroying all competition, demanding that they be allowed to use women’s restrooms and forcing women to be extremely uncomfortable and fear sexual molestation or rape. Supposed Catholic preachers who are often scandalously found to have raped or molested young children. And worst of all, the straying of entire people away from the Word of God and the Light of the Lord.
 
Satan was defeated nearly 2,000 years ago, but he is dragging as many people as he can with him. Well, perhaps that’s not how I should phrase it, because that would be to assume that people’s default setting would be of salvation, which it’s not. But there is a difference between the weak and the wicked, and we can see who the wicked are: those who assert, with no uncertain words, that the Bible’s teachings are a “dangerous theology”, and those who consider themselves to be an ally of LGBT people, which is to be an ally of evil.
 
May God curse the people who assert that homosexuality is a virtue and not a sin, as well as those who call themselves allies of this evil, and may He open the eyes of the weak who are being led into the darkness by the evil one.
 
After all, even I used to think, erroneously, that homosexuality was okay and that gay marriage was fine. That was, obviously, before I became a Christian, but God opened my eyes to the Truth.
 
Jude 1:7
“Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.”

Dear reader, I am sorry. In my last article, where I discussed TIME Magazine taking a victory lap after the Washington Establishment stole the election away from Trump by borderline admitting and confessing what they did (after months of denying it), I finished that article with a bit of a dour message.
 
I insisted that we ought to take secession as an option seriously because the alternative could well be that we would be forced to getting used to American gulags and concentration camps.
 
I even finished that article by saying: “Understand, above all else, that the 2020 election wasn’t the death of the Republic. The Republic has been dead for a very long time. 2020 was just the signing of its death certificate.”
 
I am not taking back any of those things, as I largely believe them to be true. We ought to take secession as a serious option, if not necessarily our first one. We ought to be thinking about the future because it most definitely is possible that we will one day see American gulags being created and filled by conservatives and Trump supporters (and, eventually, anyone who dissents from the State, as communist countries tend to do).
 
I believe it’s important to warn people about this because, for a long time, we kept hearing from people that such things “would never happen in America.” The American people, to their fault, have gotten far too used to the Constitution working and being applicable for them to believe that it is even plausible that it might not or that tyranny could rear its ugly head as blatantly and obviously as in the Soviet Union or in China.
 
The thing about the Constitution is that it is a truly unique document, and its establishment a truly unique event. The writing and signing of the Declaration of Independence is also unique.
 
Freedom, in human history, is the exception, not the norm. Communism didn’t always exist, but its most fundamental principle of government control over everything has existed for a very long time. Oliver Cromwell fought and won against the tyranny of King Charles I, changing the way England was ruled from an absolute monarchy into a constitutional one. General Washington led the Rebels against the tyranny of King George III, helping establish the United States of America and becoming its first president (despite largely just wanting to retire but understanding his sense of duty to become the first POTUS).
 
During World War I, once Russia had folded, they had two armies fighting for power: The White Army which fought for the Russian royalty and the Red Army which fought for communism. Knowing that this led to the creation of the Evil Empire, we tend to believe that one side was good and the other evil, but that was not necessarily the case. Tsar Nicholas II was no less an authoritarian than the communists which sought to replace him.
 
So for the United States to be born and for it to exist as it has for as long as it has is truly miraculous; the work of the Lord.
 
And despite what we see today – the troubles and the worries – we must, above all else, have faith and trust and hope in God as we live from this point forth.
 
This is roughly what I said in the title and it is somewhat of a callback to an earlier article titled: “Regarding Election, We Must Have Hope In God Above All Else.”
 
The only difference between this one and that article is that the situation has obviously changed somewhat. In that article, I was expressing hope that God would lead Trump to success over the fraud and the attempted theft of the election, so that we would both have Trump in the White House for another four years and so that we would be better able to understand the size and scope of the swamp in order to better deal with them.
 
That, obviously, didn’t happen. I am not one to often show my despair, and I generally hope to maintain a positive attitude towards things for, if nothing else, your sake. I am not a very important person in this world in regard to fame or influence (and, frankly, I believe that to be a blessing in disguise now), so it’s not like I saw myself as this charismatic leader who could not afford to show weakness in front of those who “follow”, or read, him. But the Gospel is all about having hope and faith in the Lord, so I hoped to share that with you all. My mistake was, even if for a moment, not saving some of that hope and faith for myself.
 
Dear reader, I have sinned. I have allowed for the enemy to take control of my thoughts, though largely private, and for him to dictate how I lived my life for some time and how I would view the world and the situations which will follow under the illegitimate Biden administration.
 
One of the biggest reasons I even suggested secession from the Union (apart from the fact that the Union was basically dissolved when the Supreme Court told 20 states that they had “no standing” in suing other states for the way they blatantly stole the presidential election) is out of fear of the possible future, which I still believe has the possibility of occurring. I still fear that there will one day be American gulags, because I could not possibly afford to try and keep my head in the sand and ignore that as a possibility.
 
However, I cannot also lean so heavily into that fear as to believe it will absolutely happen. I cannot allow myself to believe what the enemy says.
 
MSNBC’s Nicole Wallace recently suggested drone striking Trump supporters in order to “fight domestic terrorism.”
 
Upon hearing that, I am left with two things to do: Either believe her when she says that or believe they can’t actually do that.
 
By which I mean believing that that’s what is to come next, or at least, sometime in the near future. I see the military surrounding D.C. in a show of force, not against the Establishment but to protect the Establishment from We the People. Of course, even the Establishment has clearly not fully trusted the military, if the calls to purge the military of Trump supporters are any indication, but my general belief with this whole situation is one of distrust for much of the military. They could have stopped the steal and ensured Biden would not illegitimately sit in the Oval Office. And who’s going to challenge them when they are the ones with the guns?
 
Wanna know why Maduro is still in charge of Venezuela and not Juan Guaido, despite the fact that Guaido is the legitimate president of that country? Because Maduro has the people with the guns on his side.
 
If the military wanted to, they very well could have stopped Biden, but they didn’t. Likewise, if the military wanted to, they could establish American gulags and do terrible things as well. The thing is that they reasonably would not be willing to do that (even under the assumption that they are all on the side of the Establishment, which is clearly not the case). I think they would far rather control the population as opposed to imprisoning us and executing us en masse. They make the bulk of their money fighting in foreign wars, which is why the top brass was so unwilling to pull out of Middle Eastern countries (apart from the fact that many of them hated Trump to begin with).
 
But at any rate, my point is that, while it’s not out of the realm of possibility for a powerful military to do this crap, it’s also not particularly likely.
 
Which brings me to my overall feelings and thoughts regarding where we are headed as a nation. What we must do, first and foremost, is trust in God. We all know, very well, that He would not be allowing even one of these things to be happening if there wasn’t a purpose for it.
 
Do you believe God to be an evil God? If there was even an ounce of evil in God, we would be absolutely screwed. So, what God allows has to be for the better, correct?
 
Sure, it’s hard to see how The System taking over this country would be for the better, but understand that it didn’t take over the country in 2020 – it just revealed that it was in control in 2020.
 
Like I said in my previous article, 2020 wasn’t the death of the Republic. It died long ago, but we just found out about it. God has allowed us to open our eyes to the reality of the state of this country. Communism isn’t what killed America; corruption did.
 
And it’s a lot easier to be able to make things better when you understand the situation at hand. We had some idea as to what we were dealing with in 2016, which is why we elected Trump. But we were unaware of how truly big the swamp was, even as recently as last month.
 
Were you expecting Mike Pence, Trump’s very own VP, to be a traitor and even declare “Freedom wins” upon the certification of the installation of a tyrant? Because that sure took me by surprise. I also wasn’t exactly expecting Republican freshmen who rode Trump’s coattails to turn on him and vote to impeach him first chance they could.
 
I most certainly also did not expect for the Supreme Court to tell 20 states that they had “no standing” in suing other states for how they ran their elections. I was not expecting the SCOTUS to dissolve the Union with a single decision like that.
 
But it would be far more difficult for us to beat these people if we didn’t know who we were dealing with or how bad the situation truly was. So we cannot fall to despair as I have, ashamedly, done in private.
 
We, particularly I, have to remember just who is in control. It’s not Biden, it’s not Obama, it’s not Harris, it’s not Soros, it’s not whomever else is pulling the strings in The System. It’s God.
 
God allows even evil kingdoms to flourish only for Him to then destroy them. To punish the Israelites who were turning their backs on God, He allowed for other kingdoms around them to destroy them to one extent or another. But He never abandoned His Chosen People because that’s not in God’s character. Likewise, He will not abandon whom He has adopted into His Royal Family.
 
We are children of God; siblings of Christ. This doesn’t mean we won’t face tribulation, but it does mean that whatever tribulation we do face, we will face with God on our side.
 
There are likely a lot of reasons why God allowed for the election to be stolen in 2020. Among them, at least personally, was to test my own faith. It was easy to believe God when He said that “we are more than conquerors through him who loved us,” when things were going well. It’s easy to thank God for the good times. It’s easy to walk with the Lord when good things are happening to us. It is more difficult, however, to do so in the troubling times. And I am afraid that I, even if for a moment, failed.
 
Don’t misunderstand, I am still a Christian. But as I always say, it’s one thing to profess faith and another thing to possess it. I need to live by that standard as well and not just profess faith but also possess it. There are times when I have failed and so, I repent. God, my Lord, please forgive me for this doubt I have had.
 
I have feared the enemy and believed him when I should have put my faith and trust in You entirely. Had I done that, I would not have feared a potential genocide of Christians and conservatives.
 
Again, it’s not that it couldn’t happen or that it’s out of the realm of possibility. One million Armenians were killed in Turkey. Six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. Hundreds of millions of people have died to communism.
 
It’s rational to be aware that tyranny can occur. But it is not rational to assume that such a thing will inevitably happen to us. At least, not in the current climate.
 
Sure, Nicole Wallace wants to drone strike Trump supporters and she’s far from the only person to either say or think that, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s what’s absolutely and positively going to happen in the future, near or far.
 
Why? Because we are in the palm of God’s hand and He never allows for something to happen if there wasn’t a purpose for it. And a good purpose, at that.
 
I understand that this is an argument for those who irrationally deny the Holocaust or try to minimize it, but Israel would likely not have been founded in 1948 had the Holocaust not have happened. That’s not to say the Holocaust was a good thing, by any stretch of the imagination. But that is to say that God takes even egregious tragedies and uses them for good; for His own plan.
 
The Jews undoubtedly suffered in the Holocaust, but they are also undoubtedly in a better position in the world today with their own land as opposed to being sojourners in other lands.
 
God restored Israel after nearly two thousand years. God has always restored Israel. Why would I expect Him not to do something similar for His own children?
 
Luke 11:13 says: “What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? So if you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”
 
So we must stay in faith that God will restore this nation. We cannot allow for the enemy to dictate our way of thinking. I don’t know how many more of you were in my same camp regarding this present problem. But even this problem, if we remain in faith (and have good people around us to help us), can be used by God to bring us to our knees.
 
I am positive that far more people are currently on their knees and praying to God now than there were before this all happened or would have if none of this had happened.
 
My faith would not have been as tested if Trump had won either in a landslide on election night (as he legally should have) or through the state legislators or the courts. But because my faith was tested, I have been forced to retreat, not away from the battle against the enemy, but into the arms of the Lord Himself.
 
I have had to do plenty of introspection since this whole thing started, and I have found myself lacking. I have stumbled and erred. I have shown distrust as opposed to trust, and felt fear as opposed to faith.
 
It may look like we are losing, but that is certainly what the enemy wants us to believe. There is, indeed, something off about their desire to both keep the military active in D.C. and to want to purge it of Trump supporters.
 
The enemy wants to tell us we are losing, and indeed, they make things look like that’s the case. But for everything that makes it look like we are losing, they certainly aren’t acting like they are winning. At least, not as much as one would think.
 
The TIME Magazine article was a victory lap, but the military presence in D.C. shows the Establishment’s caution and fear. They have them there seemingly for no reason, but there has to be one.
 
So, if you are/were like me at any point, or if you feel yourself despairing at any point in the future because the situation may look bleak, I ask that you do the same as I now do: put your faith and trust entirely and wholly on God. We all stumble sometimes, but we cannot have a defeatist outlook on things. It’s one thing to stumble and fall, but quite another to assume we can’t ever get up again.
 
Isaiah 30:18
“Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.”

I know that in the year of our Lord 2021, it hardly makes much sense to talk about Hillary Clinton, or even mention her in a title, but there is at least one thing which she and Trump have in common: they both have been betrayed by those around them.
 
Now, that’s not to say that I feel badly for Hillary as a result. She’s every bit the swamp rat that the people who betrayed her are. The way in which Hillary and Trump were betrayed are noticeably different.
 
Hillary was betrayed at different times for different reasons. Her own husband cheated on her numerous times, some of which were not in consensual relations, and betrayed his marriage vows with her. Her party betrayed her when they believed a slick, young African-American guy from Illinois would be a better leader and president for them than she would (though Obama did wreck the Democrat party after he took office). And her latest stint at running for office was only given to her because some in the DNC believed it was just “her time” to basically be coronated. Even then, the party betrayed her by not taking Trump seriously and not doing enough cheating for her (despite how much they actually did try to cheat).
 
President Trump, in turn, has been betrayed by a plethora of people around him, both people whom he has misguidedly chosen as part of his cabinet and people who are/were elected representatives who cozied up to the man for the clout and the money, only to turn their backs on him when the best opportunity came about.
 
And after the Capitol riot, even some who used to call themselves “MAGA” turned against him, choosing to side with those whom have betrayed him in an appeal to seem “in favor of law enforcement.”
 
Now, there are plenty of theories out there regarding the riots: namely that they were either instigated by Antifa or that the entire thing was allowed to occur by Capitol police, or some combination of just about everything. Me? I have seen videos that suggest it was a set up and videos which suggest it was real and organic. Antifa was definitely there and dressed as Trump supporters (pro-Trump rallies and protests often are met with Antifa counter-protesters but this one somehow wasn't?), but it’s hard to say just how much of a presence they had.
 
What I do know is that, if these were Trump supporters for the most part, I can understand why they did what they did. Generally, I think rioting is wrong, but after an entire summer of Leftists being allowed to do considerably worse to innocent people, I don’t blame the real Trump supporters that were there for doing what they did.
 
Throughout the summer, I saw small businesses being either looted, destroyed, burned, or some combination of the three. Wednesday, all I saw was the Swamp being swarmed. I only feel sorry for those who have been physically hurt, however many they are, and for those who may have been killed (theories suggest no one was killed and it was part of the set-up, but erring on the side of caution and grace, I will, until evidence to the contrary totally refutes me, assume that people did die). But I don’t feel sorry for the elites who were scared.
 
I don’t feel sorry for Mitt Romney getting so shaken up. I don’t feel sorry for the politicians who were scared here who cheered and incited the riots that occurred over the summer. I don’t feel sorry for the swamp rats which have conspired to steal our election and our country. I don’t feel sorry for the establishment rats who believe they are superior to us and who believe they ought to rule us. In my mind, they got a taste of what they deserve.
 
If anything, the only downside to that riot (apart from the physical damage to people, of course) is that it will embolden these people and give them ammo for ruling us with an iron fist. However, it’s not like they didn’t intend on doing so to begin with. They are thirsty for power, which is why they wrestled it away from us in this election in the manner in which they did. The riots may give them a scapegoat as to why they will do what they will do, but these sick bastards would have done those things riot or no riot.
 
Still, those who have the mind to it will take whatever opportunity they can from this. The communist bastards will use this opportunity to rule us harshly. The peacetime conservatives who were still among us will use this opportunity to distance themselves from Trump and Trumpism, in the hopes of still having some social presence. The establishment RINOs who were openly against Trump from the beginning will use it to validate and justify their positions. That Romney yelled at Cruz as they were fleeing the Senate floor about how “this is what you have wrought” or something like that is an indication that he feels validated for his beliefs.
 
On the flipside, there are also those of us who will get a clearer picture as to how to proceed and what kind of people to lead us and surround ourselves with. For example, there is Leo Terrell, who used to be a Democrat and voted for Trump in 2020 solely because of Trump, not the GOP at any capacity. He tweeted a lot on Wednesday, among which is the declaration that: “I will never support any Republican or any candidate who betrayed president Donald J Trump.”
 
Those of us who are loyal to Trump will remain loyal to him and his populist conservatism, wherever that may lead.
 
I am no longer of the belief that Trump will serve a second term, but that may be for the best for him. I could hardly imagine being betrayed so many times by so many people in one term and recognize that that was just ONE term. President Trump has done far more for America than any of the people in Washington D.C. could ever accomplish even if they wanted to (which I’m not convinced they do). And the kicker is that he absolutely did not have to do any of this. He didn’t have to go through any of this.
 
He very easily could have just sat back in one of his many high-class domiciles as the country fell to socialism. For a while, and likely for the rest of his own life, he would have been living very well. The Biden administration and the establishment will, once they have the WH, seek to destroy the middle class, which will be to the benefit of the upper class. He could have easily just ridden a similar wave under what would have very easily been a Hillary Clinton administration. But instead, he chose to stick his own neck out and risk the scorn of half the country if it meant he could have the chance to save all of it.
 
Granted, I don’t think he ever thought the pushback would ever be so fierce, and even I was taken by surprise a bit, but I don’t think he believed there would have been just about no pushback. Further, if he believed it would have been an easy ride through two terms, and was met with the hatred and vitriol that he was, he would have shrunk back and handed control of everything to the establishment. Very easily, he could have set something up or made some deal which would allow him to resign rather quietly and with some grace. That he stepped up and fought as hard as he did throughout four years is an indication that he at least was expecting some amount of resistance to what he was trying to do, even if not this much of it, or that he at least was willing to stick his neck out and not just back out of what he committed to do.
 
He risked his own life and wealth to Make America Great Again and people within and without the establishment have immediately or ultimately turned their backs to him. This is something we suspected for a long time, but has become very clear recently: Trump is well and truly alone in D.C. Various people around him have betrayed him, from Omarosa to Scaramucci to Sessions to Barr to Chad Wolf to Krebs and the list goes on and on. The only one I thought was actually still with Trump was Pence, and that clearly is not the case anymore.
 
Even if unwittingly, Pence has betrayed not only Trump, but the nation itself by certifying the illegitimate results of the 2020 election. While this article is largely about how much Trump has been betrayed, let’s not beat around the bush: Trump being betrayed means we are betrayed.
 
This goes well beyond President Trump. An entire country’s election has been stolen, openly, and those whom we believed would be in the way of it – the Trump-appointed SCOTUS picks as well as the conservative justices, the state legislatures in the stolen states which are run by Republicans, the Republican governors of some of these states whom rode Trump’s coattails, and even the Vice President himself – have all come to betray us and the Constitution.
 
I don’t know how Pence believes “freedom wins”, as he declared upon continuing with the counting of the ballots to certify an illegitimate president, when an election is openly stolen and those whom reap the rewards intend on fundamentally destroying this nation even more than they have. Pence’s “freedom” is our slavery. The Washington Establishment’s freedom is our slavery.
 
Thomas Jefferson is attributed with saying: “When government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.” What we have is not a government which fears the people. What we have is a government which hates the people. What we have is a government which will do whatever they can to make us fear them.
 
Unfortunately for them, we have no reason to fear the government and they are incapable of providing even one. Those who fear the Lord cannot fear men. Those who fear the Lord cannot fear the government.
 
God has control even over the evil and wicked people. Whatever evil they may wish to do is limited by God. They will still do evil, as the fact that Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Xi, Nero and countless other despots have been allowed to wreak havoc when and where they reigned goes to show, but even that is limited by God. Hitler sought to eradicate the Jews and he failed. Stalin sought to have the Soviet Union rule the world and he failed. Mao and Xi sought/seek to have China rule the world (you think they would be content with a globalist power which they don’t fully control?) and God-willing, will fail. Putin seeks something similar for Russia (he wants to rule the world himself, not let Xi do it) and God-willing, will fail.
 
Whatever the wicked people of the world, historically and presently, seek to do is all limited by God. They still do evil and incredible damage, but nothing that God cannot change or fix. The evil of slavery had its grip on this country for quite a long time, since before it was first founded, but God, through courageous and righteous men, changed that and brought physical freedom to the enslaved. God freed the hearts and souls of those who were in shackles and, eventually, freed their bodies as well.
 
The evil of the Holocaust and the Nazis led to the ruination and death of millions of Jews, but God, through courageous and righteous men, changed that and led them to reinstate the country of Israel for the first time in millennia.
 
I don’t know the plans that God has for us, but I know that they are better than my own. We are now aware of the beast that is the establishment. It’s really quite the accomplishment for Trump that it took this beast, which had been operating in the darkness for decades, to reveal itself in order to defeat Trump. And now that we are aware of the enemy, we can better prepare for them.
 
In 2016, we had some idea as to the size of the swamp, but believed that it was largely just the elected officials and a few bad apples in the government who needed to be drained. Now, we recognize the size of the beast, and can better prepare for it.
 
Had we gotten what I wanted, a massive red wave and Trump landslide, the size of the beast would have remained a secret to us and would have made it more difficult for us to fight against it, if not outright impossible. Even if it’s at the cost of Trump’s well-deserved and legitimately-earned second term, we can have a better idea as to what we are fighting than what we would have otherwise.
 
Which is largely why I implored that people have hope in God above all else. Originally, that article was just regarding the election itself in the hopes that we wouldn’t get a Biden presidency, but the principle works for all situations anyway.
 
It’s not that we should have trust in our legal systems, for they have been exposed to be very flawed at best and rigged at worst. It’s not that we should have trust in politicians, for they have shown cowardice, betrayal, or both regarding their support for not only Trump but also the American people and the Constitution. It’s not that we should have trust in even Trump himself, because he is every bit an imperfect man as you or I. It’s that we should have trust in the Lord, for He is holy, holy, holy. Only God is entirely righteous, just, fair and wise. It is His Word and His Son whom we should cling to and put our faith and trust.
 
Recognizing this does not, at any capacity, mean a betrayal of Trump. Bad faith actors will accuse us of being cultists, and some may even take their adulation too far (I did see on Facebook, shortly after Trump was elected, someone who said “In Trump We Trust” which is not something anyone should do or say because we cannot pretend as though Trump can replace God), but many of us trust Trump because we trust God. We trust Trump, no doubt, but we must above all else and everyone else, have trust in the Lord.
 
There were times when Trump was disappointing, such as when he signed those omnibus bills, but he can be excused because he is human and fallible (not to mention he never neared the level of disappointment that I have felt with regard to many people we thought were on our side). God never disappoints because He is infallible. He is not caught off guard by the actions of the people around Trump or anyone else. He saw this coming when He created the universe. So why wouldn’t any of us put our trust in Him?
 
Despite the pain and suffering that is sure to come in a Biden (and, quite possibly, Harris) presidency, we must never waver in our faith in God. We must place Him above all else, trust in Him above all else, and follow Him above all else.
 
The short-term future won’t be pretty, but I believe another like Trump will come along as being anointed by God to fight against the establishment tyrants. 
 
To conclude this rather lengthy impassioned article, all I have to say is… PRAY AND RESIST! For with Christ, all things are possible.
 
Matthew 19:26
“But Jesus looked at them and said, ‘With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

Every new session of Congress is opened with prayer. Despite the Left’s insistence that we are not a religious or necessarily Christian country, every new session of Congress is opened with a prayer from someone in the chamber who is an ordained minister at some capacity. And as such, the 117th Congress was opened with a prayer, this time given by Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO). However, one can hardly call this a clean or legitimate prayer, since the guy does two heinous things: one is a violation of the first commandment and the other is outright moronic at best.
 
Cleaver’s prayer, for the most part, was fine. He began: “Eternal God, noiselessly we bow before your throne of grace as we leave behind the politically and socially clamorous year of 2020. We gather now in this consequential chamber to inaugurate another chapter in our roller coaster representative government. The members of this august body acknowledge your sacred supremacy and therefore confess that without your favor and forbearance, we enter this new year relying dangerously on our own fallible nature.”
 
So far, so good, right? Nothing amiss to be found here, and things with which I would agree.
 
He went on to ask God for divine assistance in the midst of what he described as “a moment when many believe that the bright light of democracy is beginning to dim.” Obviously, a nod at the fact that everyone who was even remotely paying attention to the election knows that this election is in danger of being stolen and that the will of the people could be ignored. Since this is a Swamp Rat Democrat saying this, however, it’s clearly meant to be an attack on those who challenge the “results” of this “election”.
 
Regardless, let’s get to the meat and potatoes of this, which is the closing words. The last good thing that Cleaver said was to quote Numbers 6:24-26, with Cleaver saying “Now may the God who created the world and everything in it bless us and keep us. May the Lord make his face to shine upon us and be gracious unto us. May the Lord lift up the light of his countenance on us and give us peace; peace in our families, peace across this land, and – dare I ask, O Lord – peace even in this chamber, now and evermore.”
 
And then, he closed: “We ask it in the name of the monotheistic God, Brahma, and ‘god’ known by many names by many different faiths. Amen and a-woman.”
 
I would act surprised or shocked or astounded if this hadn’t come from the mouth of a Washington Establishment politician, who claims to have faith in the Lord but clearly belongs with Satan.
 
“Brahma” is a god from the Hindu religion – the one with multiple faces. According to the Hindu religion, “Brahma” was “born from a golden egg and created the earth and all things on it.” His backstory was later changed to him coming out of a lotus which emerged from the navel of Vishnu, another Hindu deity.
 
“Brahma” does not exist. Hardly think I need to tell anyone this, but it’s clear that this heathenistic idolater does believe he exists, as well as likely all other Hindu gods and gods from other religions, seeing as he clearly believes they are all of equal importance and significance as God.
 
Now, the biggest story out of this is the “a-woman” part, which is outright nonsense, as you know. “Amen” is a Hebrew word meaning “so be it,” and has no reference whatsoever to sex or gender. This is something an ordained minister ought to know more than others, but I guess Cleaver was absent that day in seminary.
 
I’m just kidding, the guy knows exactly what he’s doing. He is not confused about the meaning of “amen”. He just wanted to make a stupid statement about “equality” and “wokeness” and “social justice” by adding “a-woman” at the end of the “prayer.” This guy is a piece of crap, but more so for the former issue as opposed to the latter.
 
Which brings me back to what I just said: this was the biggest story to come out of this incident. Adding “a-woman” was a bigger deal to the media, both the fake news media and conservative media, than the prayer to fake gods apart from the Lord and the implication that those fake gods are just as valid as God.
 
This is outright blasphemy and a clear violation of the first commandment: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” I guess the guy took that a little too literally by putting other gods after God, not before Him, but anyone with a positive IQ understands what God means when He says “you shall not have other gods before me.” You are to pray to God and God alone. Adding anyone else to the prayer is violating that first commandment and blaspheming against God, implying that His power and authority are not absolute.
 
There are no other Gods apart from God. Brahma doesn’t exist. Vishnu doesn’t exist. Allah (I know that the word means “God” in Arabic, but the kind of god that Muslims pray to is not the real God) doesn’t exist. Only God, Yahweh, exists. He exists in one essence and three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (or Ghost, if you want to call Him that).
 
No true Christian will acknowledge the existence of other gods, much less imply that they are just as valid of a deistic option when in prayer. Brahma, Vishnu, Allah, etc. cannot answer prayers because they don’t exist. Something that isn’t cannot do. In order to do, one must first be. Only God can answer prayers because only God exists.
 
I think that’s the bigger issue here – not the “a-woman” thing. “A-woman” is a nonsense, made-up word with absolutely no meaning, apart from attempting to make a dumb “woke” statement, like I mentioned earlier. Spiritually, adding “a-woman” at the end of the prayer does just as much as adding “cheese” at the end of a prayer: mocks prayer itself. And while that’s also bad, I consider outright idolatry and blasphemy to be far worse.
 
Mockery is bad, but it is the action of a fool. Idolatry and blasphemy, of this nature, is the action of one who ought to know better.
 
Cleaver is an ordained minister and served as the pastor of St. James United Methodist Church in Kansas City, Missouri, from 1972 to 2009. It’s not like this is a young man who hardly knows better. This is someone who went to seminary and served as a pastor for a church for 37 years. Nearly four decades, and this guy thinks fake deities are not only real but EQUAL to God!?
 
But the fact that the dumb “a-woman” statement is the bigger issue here in the eyes of the media, not the outright idolatry and blasphemy, tells you something utterly grim. Now, this is to be, sadly, expected from the fake news media. These are the same people who, for five years, uttered nothing but lies about Trump and have conspired to undermine his administration at every turn. These aren’t exactly saints. But conservative media also got suckered into covering the “a-woman” portion, not the outright idolatry.
 
The Daily Wire somewhat takes note of the idolatry, but never outright calls Cleaver out for his idolatrous actions.
 
And throughout conservative Twitter, whenever this event was talked about, it was largely focusing on the “a-woman” mockery of the prayer, not the idolatry.
 
Whenever someone commits that kind of sin, it must be rebuked. This is particularly the case if that person is someone who really should know better, such as an ordained minister, and particularly when that kind of horrendous sin is committed in the opening prayer for something as important as a new session of Congress. God leads the people who call themselves our “leaders”, both the good ones and the bad ones. To do this is heinous and dangerous, and it’s begging for the wrath of God to descend upon these people.
 
May God guide the hearts and minds of even the worst of these blasphemers toward repentance of their sins and may God guide those who report on these things to be truthful and mindful of these kinds of actions. No part of the media, either conservative or mainstream, ought to just shrug off the idolatry from Cleaver and just focus on the dumb mocking “woke” statement.
 
Psalm 16:4
“The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply; they drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names on my lips.”

It’s rather easy to search this, but do you want to know what was the very first article that was published on this site? What the topic was about? The very first article was about a very similar subject to this one: Christian persecution, and it asked the question of whether or not there is Christian persecution in the United States.
 
To summarize that article, yes, there is Christian persecution in the U.S., has been for a while, and it very well might get worse in the future if we allow it.
 
However, it’s worth pointing out that there pretty much has always been Christian persecution for as long as the religion itself has existed (and technically before, since Christ suffered that kind of persecution, despite Him having been Jewish and following Jewish law). I’ve already talked about that, nearly two years to the date.
 
Christians will always be persecuted and we have been for a very long time. One example of this in the history of Christendom is the story of Thomas Becket, an English archbishop who was persecuted and ultimately murdered for defending the Church and placing it ahead of the Crown.
 
The 850th anniversary of his martyrdom was very recent, on December 29th, and President Trump made sure to commemorate this anniversary and that moment in history, adding the need to end Christian persecution much like what happened to Becket.
 
In a proclamation, President Trump wrote: “Today is the 850th anniversary of the martyrdom of Saint Thomas Becket on December 29, 1170. Thomas Becket was a statesman, a scholar, a chancellor, a priest, an archbishop, and a lion of religious liberty.”
 
“Before the Magna Carta was drafted, before the right to free exercise of religion was enshrined as America’s first freedom in our glorious Constitution, Thomas gave his life so that, as he said, ‘the Church will attain liberty and peace.’”
 
The president went on to give a brief summary of Becket’s biography, noting that Becket was an archbishop who was killed by four knights of King Henry II in his church, Canterbury Cathedral, on December 29, 1170, after Becket famously resisted the king’s attempt at dwindling the power of the Church with the Constitutions of Clarendon.
 
Trump’s proclamation went on to say that when Becket refused to accept Henry’s declaration, “the furious King Henry II threatened to hold him in contempt of royal authority and questioned why this ‘poor and humble’ priest would dare defy him, Archbishop Becket responded ‘God is the supreme ruler, above Kings’ and ‘we ought to obey God rather than men.’”
 
“Because Thomas would not assent to rendering the church subservient to the state, he was forced to forfeit all his property and flee his own country. Years later, after the intervention of the Pope, Becket was allowed to return – and continued to resist the King’s oppressive interferences into the life of the church. Finally, the King had enough of Thomas Becket’s stalwart defense of religious faith and reportedly exclaimed in consternation: ‘Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?’”
 
“The King’s knights responded and rode to Canterbury Cathedral to deliver Thomas Becket an ultimatum: give in to the King’s demands or die. Thomas’ reply echoes around the world and across the ages. His last words on this earth were these: ‘For the name of Jesus and the protection of the Church, I am ready to embrace death.’ Dressed in holy robes, Thomas was cut down where he stood inside the walls of his own church.”
 
“Thomas Becket’s martyrdom changed the course of history. It eventually brought about numerous constitutional limitations on the power of the state over the Church across the West. In England, Becket’s murder led to the Magna Carta’s declaration 45 years later that: ‘[T]he English church shall be free, and shall have its rights undiminished and its liberties unimpaired.’”
 
“When the Archbishop refused to allow the King to interfere in the affairs of the Church, Thomas Becket stood at the intersection of church and state. That stand, after centuries of state-sponsored religious oppression and religious wars throughout Europe, eventually led to the establishment of religious liberty in the New World. It is because of great men like Thomas Becket that the first American President George Washington could proclaim more than 600 years later that, in the United States, ‘All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship’ and that ‘it is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights.’”
 
“On this day, we celebrate and revere Thomas Becket’s courageous stand for religious liberty and we reaffirm our call to end religious persecution worldwide.” Trump added that “the crimes against people of faith must stop, prisoners of conscience must be released, laws restricting freedom of religion and belief must be repealed, and the vulnerable, the defenseless, and the oppressed must be protected.”
 
The president concluded: “As long as America stands, we will always defend religious liberty. A society without religion cannot prosper. A nation without faith cannot endure – because justice, goodness, and peace cannot prevail without the grace of God.”
 
He is right, of course, in all of these regards. But given the nature of the Left, who are driven by Satanic beliefs, we will not see the end of Christian persecution any time soon.
 
Like I pointed out in that article from nearly two years ago, what the United States has done for those of us who are Christians is give us a moment of relief from that sort of persecution. Legally and constitutionally, we are free to exercise our religion. The problem comes when even those who are sworn to enforce the law and protect the constitution willingly decide not to do so. While there are a number of police officers who have defied their insane (often Democrat) governors and their tyrannical mandates, I have seen far too many videos online of police officers forcing Christians to disperse from public prayer and forcing churches to shut down.
 
The Chinese coronavirus gave people in power with already some dictatorial tendencies to freely and with impunity rule their states and cities with an iron fist. I’ve already detailed how Cuomo and de Blasio have targeted synagogues and churches by forcing them to shut down while allowing mosques to still operate, and there are stories of churches in California being fined and threatened with permanent closure for defying Newsom’s orders.
 
Christian persecution exists in different forms at different times. One thing I will say is that even this current persecution is not quite as bad as it used to be in the past, or as it is in other parts of the world like in China or some Middle Eastern countries. Christian leaders today aren’t being killed in cold blood by police for defying the lockdown orders. Thomas Becket was killed in cold blood by the king’s knights (the equivalent to today’s police) for defying a piece of legislation specifically because of its clause which subjected priests charged with a serious felony to being judged by a secular jury and being given a “secular punishment”.
 
I don’t know everything about how the criminal justice system used to work in 12th century England under the rule of King Henry II, and I have no idea what “secular punishment” means, but it’s clear that it was far easier for tyrants to exercise extreme measures against what they consider to be pests for things which are, from what I can see, considerably less of a big deal in comparison to impeding the religious liberty of assembly and worship of Christians in states across the country. I don’t want to trivialize or minimize what Christians had to go through back then, but I consider this present crisis to be worse than the Constitutions of Clarendon, seeing as it affects far more people than just priests who are charged with serious felonies (and who knows what constituted as a “serious felony” in those days?).
 
Even still, it’s not like Newsom or Cuomo can order cops to shoot and kill church leaders for their defiance. Even de Blasio has made numerous threats to permanently close down synagogues but has yet to actually go through with that, despite those synagogues’ persistent defiance.
 
So in many ways, this kind of Christian persecution is not nearly as bad as it was back then (again, church leaders aren’t being extrajudicially murdered for their defiance), so we should count our blessings, but any Christian persecution must be fought against anyway.
 
We will continue to see it, undoubtedly, and it could potentially get far worse. Again, the law and the Constitution protect us but only insofar as there are those who are willing to enforce the law and Constitution. Otherwise, law is just words written on paper and utterly worthless.
 
The country has the laws necessary for protecting and securing our borders – we just need to enforce those laws. The country has the laws necessary for protecting us against election fraud – we just need to enforce those laws. The country has the laws necessary for protecting religious freedom – we just need to enforce those laws.
 
The good news is that, either way, we are blessed in the Lord. If we are not persecuted, that’s great; if we are, that’s fine too. God will recompense us all our sorrows, our worries, our pain. All that we lose, God will multiply. If the enemy takes away our wealth, God will multiple that wealth. If the enemy takes away our families, God will multiply those families. If the enemy takes away our lives, God has guaranteed us eternal life through His Son, Jesus Christ.
 
The enemy has power, but that power is nothing compared to God.
 
Matthew 5:10
“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Allow me to better explain what I say in that title. I’m not saying that the students support churches being allowed to reopen – they very much want them closed, at least most of them do. I am saying, however, that they recognize, to some extent, that it is hypocritical of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to allow some places to reopen, like college campuses and some businesses, while forcing churches and synagogues to remain closed. So, in all, I am at least glad that they can recognize the hypocrisy of the governor.
 
At any rate, let’s get to the Campus Reform video (below). In this video, Campus Reform has Addison Smith reporting at, presumably, a New York college (they don’t mention which one).
 
Smith begins by noting that during this pandemic, particularly during the summer, we have seen plenty of protests (and riots, though he doesn’t mention that) over the death of George Floyd while in police custody, and notes that that was happening while multiple states were simultaneously pushing heavy lockdown restrictions on businesses and other types of gatherings, such as religious gatherings. He then goes on to ask if the protests should have been condemned for being allowed to violate the same orders that other people had to follow, or if they were rightfully exempted.
 
One of the students said that “You can’t really outright ban the ability to, you know, assembly and protest, but what we believe is that they should’ve, sort of, restricted it in a way… like enforce social distancing.”
 
So this student believes that, as it is recognized in the constitution, the states cannot outright ban assembly and protest, but the government should have been able to enforce, at the very least, social distancing a bit more. To which I somewhat agree. I do not have an issue with the protests themselves (I have plenty of issue with the riots, of course, since no one has the right to do that), and the protestors have the right to protest. What I have an issue with is the blatant double standard that governors were cool with people not social distancing and, in some cases, not wearing masks (both Schumer and Lightfoot were seen not wearing masks during a celebration following Biden’s “win”), saying that those gatherings are allowed because of the purpose of the gathering being important to those people or important to society.
 
Gathering for worship is also important for the people who do so/desire to do so, and it definitely is also important to society since Psalm 33:12 says: “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people He has chosen as His inheritance!” A nation which turns its back to God is not a nation blessed by God, so for the sake of the American society, it is important that we worship God, and part of that means being allowed to do so in churches. No, it is not necessary for people to worship God in churches, as a church is wherever at least two Christians gather to worship, but corporate worship of God is considerably better when done in one’s local church building.
 
The protesters have the right to protest, as it is detailed in the First Amendment. The First Amendment also recognizes freedom of religion, and restricting church gatherings in this way is not only hypocritical but also a restriction of people’s First Amendment rights. If this were a disease like the plague, Christians would know to take the best precautions available and would be willing to forego going to church so as to not needlessly gather. But this virus is nowhere near as deadly as many claim it is, with a 99.97% survival rate for most people. There are more dangerous things out there, but we are willing to go to church anyway despite those risks. So why can’t we be allowed to go to church over the Chinese coronavirus, particularly when others are allowed to gather, in massive numbers, to protest the death of a very troubled man?
 
This is a constant theme throughout this article and even throughout the overarching argument. The woman who answers after the first student says that the protesters were “rightfully exempted”, but even she ultimately recognizes that if they are allowed to physically attend college, that people should be allowed to go to church.
 
Another student said: “I think… you should listen to the rules but I also think… if you really believe in what you say and you think… you’re, uh, being treated unfairly, I do think there is maybe some wiggle room with that.”
 
I also somewhat agree with this student. I think people should listen to the rules (when they make sense, at least), but it is still hypocritical to allow people who say they are being treated unfairly to be allowed so much wiggle room so as to outright JUSTIFY AND DEFEND the very actions which have been disparaged when done by others.
 
Before the George Floyd protests and riots, there were anti-lockdown protests. The Left disparaged and attacked those protesters, saying they were putting themselves and others at risk by gathering in such a way, even if they were wearing masks (and many of them were). The George Floyd protesters did pretty much the same exact thing, but because it was a favorable narrative to the Left, they were allowed to happen.
 
I don’t mind following the rules (that make sense), but you can’t expect me to be willing to just accept such blatant double standards. If anti-lockdown protesters aren’t allowed to protest, then neither are George Floyd protesters. If George Floyd protesters are allowed to protest, then so are anti-lockdown protesters.
 
And according to this kid’s line of thinking, if Christians gather because we believe in what we are saying and because we believe we are being treated unfairly (and we are in many places), then there should be allowed some wiggle room in the rules to allow us to gather together for our cause.
 
Humans don’t tend to like injustice when we see it. It’s why we have gotten rid of slavery. It’s why we have done away with segregation (though the woke people out there seem to be, at best inadvertently, wanting to go back to segregation of the races for the “benefit” of black people). It’s why looking at Joe Biden be illegitimately called President-elect infuriates me to no end.
 
Protesters are allowed to protest (not riot, and don’t let anyone tell you there is no difference); the cause should not be what determines whether one kind of protest is allowed and another disallowed.
 
At any rate, the woman who earlier said the George Floyd protests were “rightfully exempt” also went on to say: “I think the reason for pandemic lockdown is because people are dying and, like, prioritizing the group of people dying that includes white people versus just black people is… I think you kind of have to put pandemic regulations on the same level as protesting for George Floyd.”
 
Now, I don’t know what her point is in bringing up the white people vs. the black people in relations to the Chinese virus, but basically she is saying that protesting for George Floyd is just as important as the regulations, meaning that the regulations should not prevent those protests.
 
But again, how is it fair to allow the George Floyd protests over the anti-lockdown protests or the church gatherings? Why is it okay for one group of people to gather for one reason, but another group of people cannot be allowed to gather for a different reason?
 
And if the protests and regulations are important, and the regulations exist because “people are dying” then doesn’t that mean that allowing the protests to happen means those are acceptable deaths? Do their lives no longer matter in terms of protecting them from the virus because they want to go out and protest what they perceive to be racial injustice?
 
Of course, the vast majority of the protesters will live because the virus is very survivable, but that’s not a point liberals tend to make. When talking about the virus, they view it strictly through the lens of it being deadly (thanks in part to Cuomo himself saying that “the virus is death” in one of his press conferences). So if the virus is so deadly, then why allow for “grieving black people” to gather and protest, risking catching this deadly virus?
 
When the protesters are allowed to protest, that means that their right to protest supersedes the lockdown orders. It’s not true, at all, that they are “on the same level”. Lockdown orders and protests are antithetical to one another, and when one is prioritized over another, that leaves an imbalance. By their very definitions, they cannot be on the same level.
 
It’d be like saying that planes are allowed to fly, but can’t be allowed to take off. If you’re allowing the planes to fly, by definition, you have to disregard the take-off restrictions.
 
At any rate, getting to the question of Cuomo banning religious gatherings but allowing other things like liquor stores and other businesses to open, many students noted how hypocritical Cuomo was and how wrong it was for him to do that.
 
One of the students pressed the issue of thinking about others and not just ourselves, which does not really answer Smith’s question and does not answer why churches should be closed but George Floyd protests should be allowed to happen. Again, if the virus is as deadly as they say it is and we should be thinking about others and not just ourselves, then why allow protesters to gather? Don’t their lives matter? Doesn’t their safety matter? Are they selfishly thinking about only themselves when they gather in such a way? And if not, then why am I thinking about only myself for wanting to go to church but they aren’t only thinking about themselves for wanting to protest? Why is it different for the two situations?
 
If it’s because of the cause, that’s an awful reason. It means that only *certain* kinds of people have rights and others do not. It’s the Animal Farm quote of “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” It’s bullcrap inequality and anyone with a brain could recognize that.
 
The cause of “racial injustice” should not supersede my cause of worshipping the Lord and growing His Kingdom. The cause of Joe Biden’s “victory” should not supersede my cause of wanting to reopen so that people don’t starve to death.
 
Now, interestingly enough, that very same student also went on to say that the governments should NOT be forcing churches to close, and it should be up to the churches themselves whether or not they wish to close or remain open, which I 100% agree with. If a church’s leadership thinks that there is a great risk for the people in the congregation (one of the churches I used to frequent in Florida was almost entirely comprised of older people, so I suspect they chose to close down at least for a while), then they have every right to decide to close. But that decision should not be taken away from them. If a church’s leadership does not think that there is great risk to the congregation, and the community around them, then they should be allowed to remain open.
 
It's about weighing the risks versus the benefits, and that decision should be left up to church leadership, not the government, regardless of whether or not they are well-meaning.
 
To end things, since this article is long enough as it is, Smith asked if Cuomo overstepped the boundaries of his power, and the students pretty much all agreed, and that churches have the right to remain open with proper Chinese virus guidelines.
 
So I am glad to see that the students of this New York college (whichever one it is) can recognize that, even if they still support lockdowns, churches should not be forced to close down particularly when other things such as college campuses and businesses are allowed to reopen.
 
Here’s hoping they further develop their reasoning skills and come to recognize how utterly hypocritical and damaging the Leftist ideology is.
 
Psalm 144:15
“Blessed are the people of whom this is so; blessed are the people whose God is the Lord.”