The United States is facing a seldom-talked-about crisis: declining birth and marriage rates. While the first is largely in part to Planned Parenthood’s success in routinely massacring the unborn year after year, the second has a number of plausible reasons for happening. But one study finds that the reason, or at least one of the biggest ones, is the lack of “economically-attractive men” who are unmarried.
 
The study’s authors examined data gathered on recent marriages from 2007-2012 and 2013-2017 (5-year marriages). According to studyfinds.org, the “data was used to estimate the financial and sociodemographic characteristics of unmarried women’s potential husbands by creating economic profiles that resembled real husbands who had married comparable women.” These husbands then were compared to actual data of unmarried men throughout the country, including state and local locations.
 
The researchers found that these “dream” husbands had an average income 58% higher that the real unmarried men, were 30% more likely to be employed than real unmarried men and were 19% more likely to have a college degree than unmarried men.
 
Dr. Daniel T. Lichter, lead author of the study, explains: “Most American women hope to marry but current shortages of marriageable men – men with a stable job and a good income – make this increasingly difficult, especially in the current gig economy of unstable low-paying service jobs. Marriage is still based on love, but it also is fundamentally an economic transaction. Many young men today have little to bring to the marriage bargain, especially as young women’s educational levels on average now exceed their male suitors.”
 
Of course, this is on average and I believe there are a multitude of factors that affect the current marriage rates (and I’ll get to them), but this does point out quite a delicious irony for the feminist movement: women may be strong and independent, but they still DESIRE a husband who is not a deadbeat, beta loser.
 
I am reminded of an article I wrote a long time ago, back in November of 2017, about a similar subject. In that article, I talked about how the UK Daily Mail said that women, even those who considered themselves “feminist”, still found muscular and wealthy men to be attractive.
 
I also talked about the reasons for that to be the case: muscles are a sign of potential safety from physical harm (as long as the guy is a good man and not an abuser) and money is a sign of potential safety from financial harm (no one wants to starve).
 
So it makes sense that these mentalities that are as old as time itself remain in humans: we seek safety and comfort. Men seek to be able to protect their women and women seek to be able to be protected by their men. This isn’t sexism or misogyny but basic biology. The strong and fit will seek to protect those they have an emotional connection to. This is why men and women can become pretty much superhuman when their children are in danger.
 
But that’s physical protection. Financial protection is a rather new form of protection (in the grand scheme of things, but it has been around for millennia as well). Women seek men who are financially stable and capable of providing for a family. This is as true today as millennia ago.
 
In a day and age when student loan debt financially cripple most people, and in an age when more women are enrolled into colleges than men are (56% of college students nationwide are women), it comes as no surprise that there is such a hole in desirable men. Women tend to want to marry up, not sideways or down. When a woman does financially better than a man, she finds little to no reason to get married to that man (again, there are other factors to marriage, but this is an important one).
 
If she is able to sustain herself financially, that is one less reason to get married. Now, I’m not saying we should roll back the clock to a time when a woman was legally incapable of working, but I am saying that the feminist movement regarding female independence creates this sort of scenario: almost no man is good enough.
 
And that is another major reason, at least as far as I can see, for declining marriage rates. Cornell University points out the lack of economically-attractive men, and they are not wrong, but I do not think they quite got to the root of the overarching problem.
 
The lack of economically-attractive men is an effect, not a cause. The cause, at least one of the biggest ones, in my opinion, is the feminist movement. The idea of a “strong and independent woman”, while the norm today, naturally serves to divide men and women. Now, I’m not saying women shouldn’t be strong and independent, but independence itself indicates a separation. Independence means to be apart from another thing upon which one might at one point have depended.
 
It’s a matter of cause and effect: women seeking “independence” from men means women being apart from men and not really finding it necessary to be with men. As such, declining marriage rates seem logical and, in my opinion, by design.
 
 
Women’s ability to be financially independent and equal, while not a bad thing in itself, does render men with one less asset to bring into the “marriage bargain”, as Dr. Lichter mentioned. Again, women tend to want to marry up. With the standard rising, less men become financially attractive and marriage rates go down.
 
It also doesn’t help that extreme militant Leftists insist that all men are rapists, men rape women in college all the time, that toxic masculinity is even a thing and that men are, overall, not to be trusted with anything, least of all women.
 
Much as the feminist movement might try and suggest they are for “equality”, they really are not doing that. Men and women are already considered legally equal. The “problems” they bring up, such as the fictitious wage gap, comes as a result of women working less total hours than men on average, not as a result of sexism. Not to mention that they regularly attack “straight, white men” as often as they can, highlighting not only their hatred towards straight and white people, but also towards men.
 
The problem of declining marriage rates is multifaceted, but the constant attacks against men just for being men certainly don’t help matters any. It only serves to create distrust on impressionable young women.
 
The study points out an interesting portion about this problem, but I wouldn’t say that a lack of economically-attractive men is a cause of declining marriage rates. It’s an effect, as is declining marriage rates, of militant feminazism.
 
But another major cause, I’d say, is the overall lack of regard for the importance and value of marriage. What do I mean by that? I mean that most people view it as a unity of love, and while it is that, that’s not the entire point. Marriage is a unity, not only between a man and a woman but also a unity between the two and the Lord, who is at the head of the marriage.
 
Let me share with you what Ephesians 5:22-33 says:
 
“Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.”
 
That is a lot to cover, and I do not quite have the time to do so, but one important thing about this is just who created marriage: God. The same God who created you and me created the unity between a husband and wife; created the marriage between the two. It’s why we say it’s “holy matrimony”. But the “holy” part has largely been taken out of the idea of marriage. From gay marriage to an unmarried man and woman living in the same place and even having a baby together while not even thinking on the need for marriage, these things deprive marriage of all its spiritual meaning.
 
The fact that marriage rates are down is a crisis to people like us, Christians, but not to people like the Left, who do not value marriage in the least. Marriage means nothing more to them than unity of the flesh, and even then, they understand they don’t need marriage for that. What they advocate and support fervently is sexual immorality that goes against the meaning and significance of marriage, not to mention God’s Word.
 
As with shootings, this is yet another effect of our turning our backs against the Lord as a nation. Slowly but surely, His Word is becoming less and less recognized as the ultimate authority. His Word is becoming less and less relevant in people’s eyes and seek to outright rebel against every bit of it. Marriage, an institution built by the Lord, is becoming less and less relevant, and so, less and less sought after by people.
 
Now, again, the study pointed out that women do, indeed, still want to get married, which points to the feminazis’ failure, at least to a certain extent. But it’s only a matter of time until marriage itself becomes completely irrelevant in many people’s eyes. Its definition and significance has certainly already been heavily altered from what God intended it to be.
 
But in sum, what I’m trying to convey is the eternal importance of following the Lord, His Word and His Authority. Marriage is extremely important, in my opinion, and it’s taken quite the beating in recent time. I can only hope and pray that these trends, of declining marriage and birth rates, will be bucked and overturned so that people will get married more and have beautiful families together.
 
Proverbs 18:22
“He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord.”
 
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Author: Freddie Marinelli.

A recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey shows us some rather disturbing news regarding our modern culture’s views regarding various subjects.
 
21 years ago, a “strong majority” of Americans said that principles of hard work, patriotism, commitment to religion and the goal of having children were all very important issues for them. But since then, three of the four have seen a considerable downturn.
 
Interestingly enough, hard work remains a top value, but the other three have all dropped considerably, with the numbers being driven down by younger and younger people.
 
In 1998, 59% said that having children was a top value. That’s down 16 points since then, to 43%, and considering multiple people are beginning to preach about having less children, or not having children at all in order to “save the environment”, I expect that number to continue dropping if that philosophy becomes a bit more mainstream.
 
As far as religion goes, in 1998, 62% said it was very important. Today, that number stands at 50%. Not a terrible number, per se, but a worrying trend, especially considering the implications it brings. This is part of the whole “turning away from God” issue I had been mentioning recently. We can’t ask God to bless America when America is turning its back to God, and as time goes on, the problem seems to only worsen. It is also why I have, time and time again, spoken about the need for another Christian revival.
 
Finally, patriotism also went down from 70% in 1998 to 61% today, a 9-point drop. Not quite as bad as the other two, but still not a good thing, particularly considering the downward trends.
 
And again, the biggest driver of this comes from younger generations. Only 42% of those aged 18-38 said that patriotism was very important. By comparison, almost 80% of those 55 and older said the same.
 
Less than a third of those aged 18-35 said religion was important in contrast to two-thirds of those who are 55 and older.
 
But one can’t really be surprised considering what exactly is being taught in schools. Democrats have had control of the education in this country for the past 50 years. As time has gone on, more and more radical Leftist ideologies began to be not only taught, but encouraged to be embraced by the students. Instead of simply teaching what The Communist Manifesto says and allow for students to critically think and discern whether any of it makes sense (which it doesn’t), it is embraced as Gospel and taught that the values held in that book are truthful and correct.
 
Instead of teaching both the theory of evolution and Creation in the classroom, only evolution is taught and is largely taught as being true and factual, when it isn’t. Now, personally, my 10th grade Biology teacher was fairly chill and mentioned that we didn’t necessarily have to believe the theory of evolution, but when the curriculum doesn’t teach any alternative to it, it leads students to only really believe in what is being taught, especially for students who are not taught other things by their parents.
 
When students no longer have to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, that leads them to not feel very much love for their country. It also doesn’t help that schools (and the media, but this begins in schools) demonize the flag as not being “inclusive” enough for everyone else, as though it’s supposed to be. The American flag represents American values. It’s obviously not going to represent Mexico or Guatemala or any other country (of which schools have no problem showing their flags). It also doesn’t help when America is generally taught as having “robbed the poor” in order to become as powerful as it is and is taught as being the “bad guys” in pretty much every affair it finds itself in.
 
And when God, the Bible, prayer and the Cross are all taken away from the classrooms, you find yourself being driven away from Him and focusing on the things of Man and not on the things of God. So is it any wonder we are seeing the numbers we are seeing?
 
Ben Shapiro writes that this is all largely a failure of education. That polls suggesting a rise in socialism, but with almost no one being able to define it apart from what Bernie Sanders says it is (which isn’t socialism at all), is largely a failure of education alongside the fact that there is no “evil empire” like the Soviet Union against which to contrast the virtues of capitalism against the failures of socialism. But there are two major problems with that take.
 
One, it’s not a FAILURE of education when the Left controls the education in this country and students are being led Left-ward. It’s exactly WHAT THEY WANTED TO ACCOMPLISH when they first set out to take over the education system in the early 1960s. It began with eliminating God from the classrooms and everything else followed. An America that hates itself and wishes for an entirely new system of economics and government, even if it can’t define it and even if when explained, they reject it (most people reject Medicare for All when told that it would raise the middle-class’ taxes and eliminate private health insurance), is what the Left wants. Because in that America, THEY get all the power and all the benefits and get to live like kings because they basically are. So this isn’t a failure in the education system. The system has worked exactly how it was supposed to so far, it’s just supposed to bring about all of this.
 
Second, while a bit more difficult to compare, there IS an evil empire out there: China. What’s more, the failures of socialism can be clearly seen in Venezuela and North Korea, which are what we often use to contrast capitalism and socialism. The problem comes in the fact that Venezuela and North Korea were never all that powerful to begin with and people say “that can’t possibly happen to us”, which is a fool’s argument. The way it’s happened in Venezuela and North Korea has happened in LITERALLY EVERY OTHER SOCIALIST COUNTRY EVER. First, take away the guns, then take away the rights and freedoms of some people, then everyone else’s, all-the-while nationalizing everything under the sun from energy production to the press, both of which are things Bernie Sanders is on record for wanting to do.
 
While China, Venezuela and North Korea generally aren’t put in the same spotlight as the Soviet Union, they are all notable socialist states that all show us the failures and dangers of socialism.
 
Capitalism isn’t being attacked because there is no other system out there to contrast it to or because there is no notable “bad guy” out there but because the Left HATES Capitalism and sees it as a threat to their socialist ideals. Owning children’s minds has a MASSIVE effect on the future of a nation. You own children’s minds, you own the future. The Left has known this for a very long time and has worked to own it for quite some time.
 
As it stands, there are really only two ways for this country to heal from the sort of damage currently happening. One, we wrestle away control of the education system from the communist Left. Easier said than done, for certain, but not impossible and something to at least try, in whatever way it might come.
 
And two, as I have said time and time again, including in this very article: we have another Christian revival. I don’t know when the Day of Judgement will occur, when the Rapture will happen, when God will say “enough” and destroy this world and all of its sin, but if that is not to happen for centuries or millennia, I don’t doubt there will eventually be another Christian revival. Whether America is still here or not by the time it happens, I also don’t know, but if there is any place that has the potential to have another one, it is here, particularly considering how many Christian revivals there have been in this country alone.
 
Having been founded with the principles it was, America has great potential to be home of multiple Christian revivals, even in the middle of social decay worldwide. While the evil Left might argue that our “true” founding was in 1619, we all know that our TRUE founding was in 1776, under the principles of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness all being inalienable rights given to us by our Creator.
 
This country’s founding is special and wonderful, much as the Left might try and say it isn’t. And while I would love to say that everything will be alright for this country and the Left will be thrown into the trash-heap of history, I do not know for certain what is to happen. Upon exiting the Constitutional Convention, Ben Franklin was asked what kind of country we would be after fighting for our liberty against England. Franklin said: “A Republic, if you can keep it.”
 
We have kept it thus far and we certainly CAN keep it moving forward, but freedom isn’t free and a Republic cannot be maintained if left on its own, undefended against opposition. This is why I say what I say: we must return to God as a nation in order for Him to bless us once again. We must fight against socialism and what would restrict our freedoms. We must ensure that information and education of truth, first God’s Truth and then the truth regarding socialism, is spread out like a wildfire.
 
Again, these things are easier said than done, particularly in an age when the Left also owns social media, and in a sense, people’s ability to communicate and express themselves. But if we are to keep our Republic as Ben Franklin said, we must do everything in our power to do so. And that power comes, first and foremost, from the Lord. Because if He is for us, who could possibly be against us?
 
Romans 8:31
“What then shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?”
 
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Author: Freddie Marinelli.

It is rare to see college professors be nuanced enough to challenge their own beliefs, understand where they fall short, and rethink certain things with new information given, at least in this day and age. But David Gelernter dared to challenge Darwin’s theory of evolution, at least in the aspect of macro-evolution, in an essay he titled: “Giving Up Darwin.”
 
The essay is rather long and pretty technical, so I will have to skip a decent bit of it, but here are the main points:
 
“Darwin’s theory predicts that new life forms evolve gradually from old ones in a constantly branching, spreading tree of life. Those brave new Cambrian creatures (what are considered the first-ever animals in an event called the Cambrian Explosion) must therefore have had Precambrian predecessors, similar but not quite as fancy and sophisticated… Each must have had a closely related predecessor, which must have had its own predecessors… All those predecessors must have come together, further back, into a series of branches leading down to the (long ago) trunk. But those predecessors of the Cambrian creatures are missing… The Cambrian explosion had been unearthed, and beneath those Cambrian creatures their Precambrian predecessors should have been waiting – and weren’t. In fact, the fossil record as a whole lacked the upward-branching structure Darwin predicted.”
 
In other words, the sort of Darwinian chain of gradual improvement from one creature to the next isn’t there in terms of macro-evolution. The first-ever animals that popped up half a billion years ago seem to have pretty much come from out of nowhere, with no noticeable predecessor to them being fossilized and discovered. And it’s not like it was a matter of how hard their bodies were. Soft-bodied fossils have been found in the past.
 
But that’s not Darwin’s only problem, nor is it the biggest. Mathematically-speaking, Darwin’s theory surrounding evolution through mutation is virtually impossible. Avoiding getting too technical, it is mathematically-impossible for a mutation of an amino acid (the things inside DNA) to carry on to future generations and make an entirely new species. The mutation would have to be early enough in the genetic sequence to do it, but there hasn’t been a case when a mutation in that stage of the sequence wasn’t fatal to the organism. These mutations are not mutations that make improvements upon a new organism. They are deficiencies and malformities that kill the organism with that mutation before it can mate.
 
Gelernter also writes against the idea that simple chance is what does the trick:
 
“Neo-Darwinism says that nature simply rolls the dice, and if something useful emerges, great. Otherwise, try again. But useful sequences are so gigantically rare that this answer simply won’t work…”
 
While he doesn’t really dive too much into that particular aspect, I think I should.
 
The biggest problem, in my opinion, with the theory of evolution as Darwin describes it and as scientists take it is that they have a simple formula that doesn’t work. That formula is Matter + Chance + Time = Everything.
 
This is really what fuels theories like Darwin’s: that something has to be there in the first place in order for something else to eventually, probably, be there. But one can see the cracks pretty much immediately. It alludes to the illogical idea that something can come from nothing and thus, that everything can come from nothing.
 
Of course, one might ask: “But if matter is already there, isn’t that already something?” Yes, but then where did that initial form of matter come from? It had to have come from somewhere, surely! If it is there now, it had to have been there before in some sort of way. But there are people who will argue in favor of self-creation. Such an example comes from the Big Bang Theory. That theory is a theory based on the idea that something can come from nothing. That the universe created itself. That an explosion, an effect, came from nothing, no cause. It is an argument that there is an effect without a cause, which is entirely illogical. It also doesn’t help that chance doesn’t have any actual power to do anything, as I have explained time and time again, given it is nothing more than a mathematic calculation of the probability of an occurrence, but has no actual say as to what happens.
 
So when it comes to the Big Bang Theory and the theory of evolution, reasonable people will point to the idea of intelligent design being a good answer, at least in the abstract. Since something can’t come from nothing, and since we are here and since animals are here in the way they are with no Precambrian ancestry to note, the only logical answer then is the idea that an intelligent, or conscious, presence affected the way things are and the way things were.
 
This presence – this being – has to have had the power to affect these things down to the molecular level and has to have been separate from the actual chain of life. In other words, it had to have been an omnipotent, omniscient, self-existent and omnipresent being – someone who exists outside of this realm of reality and has the power and knowledge to affect things within it – in order for matter, for life and everything in the universe, or at least on this planet, to have gone the way things went.
 
Of course, scientists like Gelernter don’t immediately jump on to Christianity and the Bible. They understand that intelligent design is a serious theory that makes more and more sense as time goes on and as more information is made available, but that does not inherently mean that the God of the Bible is inherently the intelligent designer of this world, at least in their minds. Man’s desire to avoid the things of God is there, even if it is forced to acknowledge through reason His existence.
 
However, it is impossible to divorce the Intelligent Design theory with Scripture, as the Intelligent Designer being described in the theory fits the God of the Bible to a tee. The theory requires an omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent being to exist. God is an omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent being. Matter of fact, He’s the ONLY omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent being in existence. And He's self-existent - He has the power of being within Himself. He's the first cause of everything.
 
Do you want to know what the Big Bang Theory, the theory of evolution and the Bible have in common? They all require the existence of God.
 
The Big Bang Theory, if interpreted by rational people, insists that there is a self-existent being who is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent to cause the literal explosion and creation of the cosmos. The theory of evolution, going all the way back to the first life form, requires that there have been a self-existent, omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent being for there to be life in the first place. Again, something can’t come from nothing, and that includes life. Life can’t come from out of nowhere, at least in the natural.
 
And Genesis 1:1 states: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” The Bible assumes and requires the existence of a self-existent, omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent being that literally creates everything.
 
I find it rather funny that, in Man’s desire to avoid the things of God to the point it wishes to DISPROVE God, all he manages to do is further prove His existence and further drive people to the understanding of His existence. Darwin had to assume, even if unconsciously, that there is a God in order for his theory regarding macro-evolution to make sense. The Big Bang Theory has to assume that there is a God in order for it to even logically work.
 
As more of this world is made known to us, we only find more and more evidence of God’s existence through His creation. Paul, in his letter to the Romans, wrote: “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.”
 
Paul is saying here that God reveals Himself through nature, so Man doesn’t have any excuse not to have been made aware of His existence and His presence. As scientists discover more and more about the world we live in, this is made all the more apparent. God has already proven His own existence. Scientists continue to prove His existence through their discoveries of the creation. Man has no real excuse not to understand and believe that there is a God.
 
I fully give credit to Gelernter in his understanding that Darwin’s theory of evolution, at least regarding macro-evolution, is full of holes and is essentially outdated and impossible. I also give him credit for understanding that the theory of Intelligent Design is sound and serious and shouldn’t be attacked by fellow scientists who seek to find the truth about the universe and who seek further understanding of its truth. But one has to also come to the understanding that you can’t just stop at the theory of Intelligent Design and try to divorce that from the God of Scripture.
 
All signs point towards God as He is described in His very own Word. Still, this is at least a step in the right direction and shows the guy’s ability to reason instead of following the religion of Darwin, which even Gelernter admits is basically a religion itself and anyone who dares challenge it or question it must be silenced or eliminated.
 
John 8:24
“I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins.”
 
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Author: Freddie Marinelli.

A rather interesting, but not exactly unheard of, phenomenon of supposedly “Christian” people denouncing their faith has made some news recently, with a former pastor and a songwriter of a popular Christian band both having made public announcements declaring they are no longer Christians. This has led John Cooper, songwriter and lead singer of the Christian rock band “Skillet” (which I was not aware they were Christians, but have downloaded some of their songs in the past) to write a rather lengthy Facebook post calling out the supposed “Christians” for publicly denouncing their faiths.
 
Cooper began his post: “What is happening in Christianity? More and more of our outspoken leaders or influencers who were once ‘faces’ of the faith are falling away. And at the same time they are being very vocal and bold about it. Shockingly they still want to influence others (for what purpose?) as they announce that they are leaving the faith.”
 
“I am stunned that the seemingly most important thing for these leaders who have lost their faith is to make such a bold new stance. Basically saying, ‘I’ve been living and preaching boldly something for 20 years and led generations of people with my teachings and now I no longer believe it. Therefore, I’m going to boldly and loudly tell people it was all wrong while I boldly and loudly lead people in to my next truth.’ I’m perplexed why they aren’t embarrassed? Humbled? Ashamed, fearful, confused? Why be so eager to continue leading people when you clearly don’t know where you are headed?”
 
Skipping a little bit, he continued: “As if someone is courageous simply for sharing virally every thought or dark place. That’s not courageous. It’s cavalier. Have they considered the ramifications? As if they are the harbingers of truth, saying, ‘I used to think one way and practice it and preach it, but now I’ve learned all the new truth and will start practicing it and preaching it.’ So the influencers become the voice for truth in whatever stage of life and whatever evolution takes place in their thinking.”
 
“[A]s these influencers disavow their faith, they always end their statements with their ‘new insight/new truth’ that is basically a regurgitation of Jesus’ words?! It’s truly bizarre and ironic. They’ll say ‘I’m disavowing my faith but remember, love people, be generous, forgive others.’ Ummm, why? That is not human nature. No child is ever born and says, ‘I just want to love others before loving myself. I want to turn the other cheek. I want to give my money away to others in need.’ Those are bible principles taught by a prophet/Priest/King of kings who wants us to live by a higher standard which is not an earthly standard, but rather the ‘Kingdom of God’ standard. Therefore, if Jesus is not the truth and if the Word of God is not absolute, then by preaching Jesus’ teachings you are endorsing the words of a madman. A lunatic who said ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except through me.’ He also said that he was alive before Abraham, and to see him was to see God because he was one with God. So why then would a disavowed Christian leader promote that ‘generosity is good’? How would you know ‘what is good’ without Jesus’ teachings? And will your ideas of what is ‘good’ be different from year to year based on your experience, culture trends, [popular] opinion etc. and furthermore will you continue year by year to lead others into your idea of goodness even though it is not absolute? I’m amazed that so many Christians want the benefits of the kingdom of God, but with the caveat that they themselves will be the King.”
 
There was more to this post, but I think you get the idea. John Cooper is, rightly, calling out the former “Christians” who have “fallen away” from the faith.
 
The only thing I have to disagree with him on is that these people haven’t “fallen away” from the faith; they never truly had it to begin with.
 
Hebrews 6:4-6 says: “For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.”
 
Those who have come to the faith do not leave the faith, and if they proclaim to be Christians one day and proclaim to no longer be Christians the next, they never were one to begin with.
 
Similarly, 2 Peter 2:20-22 says the following: “For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. What the true proverb says has happened to them: ‘The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.’”
 
There is a significant difference between being ignorant and being wicked. Someone who is ignorant knows nothing of the Lord, not His blessings, nor His character, nor His love, nor His authority. But it is better for someone to be ignorant to the truth than for someone to be knowledgeable to the truth and still deny it. Those are the wicked ones, those who have made proclamations of faith but then make a proclamation to effectively return to sin.
 
Specifically, the two “Christian” people that are being talked about here are former pastor Josh Harris, who said he was leaving the Christian faith and divorcing his wife, having felt guilty with the way gay people were treated and feeling guilty over what the Bible teaches on homosexuality; and Marty Sampson, who is a songwriter for Hillson United, a Christian band, and who recently said: “I’m genuinely losing my faith… and it doesn’t bother me… like, what bothers me now is nothing… I am so happy now, so at peace with the world… It’s crazy.”
 
These two were never Christians in the first place. They are of the world and gladly remain with it until the end. The fact that the songwriter said he wasn’t bothered over losing his faith doesn’t surprise or shock me because I would have to believe he had any faith whatsoever in the first place for this to affect me like that. He was never in Christ to begin with. He is clearly comfortable in the world’s sin, has no problem with it, and finds a peculiar delight in it. That isn’t ignorance; it’s wickedness.
 
These two former “Christians” were never Christians in the first place. But in doing this, they are effectively doing what Christ warned people not to do: be ashamed of Him, particularly in the presence of Man.
 
Mark 8:38 and Luke 9:26 basically teach the same thing: Mark 8:38: “For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” Luke 9:26: “For whoever is ashamed of me and my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.”
 
But Matthew 10:32-33 makes the most damning statement for these two former “Christians”: “So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.”
 
These two are the types of people Christ often talks about, who say “Lord, Lord” but whom Christ never knew. They are comfortable in their sin and even feel a sort of liberation, but what they have done is publicly announce their enslavement to sin and to the devil.
 
These two former “Christians” are the worst type of sinners: they know perfectly well who is the Lord and who is the Savior, but they deny Him. They know perfectly well and have no excuse not to know who Jesus Christ is, but Christ is not their Lord. Satan lords over them, it’s just taken them this long to essentially admit that.
 
All Christians know what Christ said: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” To understand this and still deny it, following another way, accepting another “truth” and living another life is utter wickedness that does not deserve to exist in the Kingdom of God.
 
In this, the former “Christians” have signed away their souls to the devil, and upon their deaths, will suffer under him in Hell.
 
We are saved by grace through faith alone. If one lacks that faith, he or she is not saved. He or she who lacks faith is not saved but will die the first and also the second death, perishing in the lake of fire and sulfur.
 
Not to mince my words here, but unless Christ really goes into these two’s hearts, the only place they will go is straight to Hell. But as that is Christ’s decision to make, I don’t quite know what will happen to them. One thing is for sure, though: those who embrace the world will perish alongside it.
 
1 John 2:15-17
“Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world – the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions -is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.”
 
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Author: Freddie Marinelli.

Throughout my time writing all of the articles I have written, I have expressed that the solution to pretty much all of life’s problems is to have faith in the Lord, who is in control of all things. That isn’t to say that turning to Christianity will make all your debt disappear or make you more money, but that is to say that Christ can be a magnificent source of comfort for the distressed, and going beyond that, can serve as a fantastic example of great moral character for people to follow.
 
And in the wake of mass shootings becoming fairly regular (not quite as much as people think and claim, but they are certainly more regular than they used to be), I have explained that a large part of the reason why these things happen with such frequency is that we no longer have a moral center and we live in a post-Christian America.
 
Guns have been around for centuries. And yet, mass shootings were far less prevalent decades ago. So no one can realistically claim that guns are the reason for shootings because there largely didn’t use to be anywhere near as many. They still happened, but were considerably less frequent.
 
So when a shooting happens, the biggest culprits that I can see are both mental health issues and the lack of a moral center in this country. And it appears as though Oprah Winfrey agrees with me on this.
 
Oprah was on her way to debuting her new show, “David Makes Man”, when “Extra TV” reporter Renee Bargh asked Winfrey what she thought of the shootings and what was the cause for all of this violence. Oprah replied: “I think what people are missing is a core moral center. Churches used to do that… It was a central place you could come to and there was a core center of values about a way of living and being in the world. Until we can return to that, however that is, in whatever form, we will continue to be lost.”
 
I was rather surprised to hear this coming from Oprah Winfrey of all people. With her being a notoriously Left-wing celebrity, I didn’t think she would resonate with anything regarding the church or Christianity. The fact that she has argued that you can be a Christian and a supporter of gay rights or abortion makes me think she really wasn’t a Christian at all.
 
But regardless, what she said is actually spot-on and perfectly right. The lack of Christ in people’s hearts leads them to evil. That isn’t to say Christians can’t do evil. We are all sinners and sin is evil, so Christians can, in fact, do evil. However, no Christian who understands what it means to be a Christian would ever commit such a heinous crime as a mass shooting or even a murder that wasn’t in self-defense. And as we live in a post-Christian America, seeing all of these shootings and all of this evil take place makes sense.
 
We have taken God out of our schools and out of our lives; God and His Word are relentlessly mocked as either being a “crutch” for unintelligent or weak people or being a bunch of nonsense and crazy stuff, or legends at best. Following that, morality was changed from objective, God-centered truth to subjective, society- and individual-centered belief. Unsurprisingly, this has led people to decide what is moral in their own eyes and according to what they believe and to attempt to argue against it is, ironically, considered morally wrong.
 
Because who are you to judge someone’s actions and preferences? Who are you to decide what is right and wrong for someone else? What people fail to realize here is that these questions wouldn’t even be asked if God were still a part of people’s lives because they would know just who judges people’s actions and preferences and who decides what is right and wrong.
 
But in this (seemingly successful) attempt to make morality subjective, the flood gates of evil and immorality are opened. It’s why we have had the sort of political path we’ve seen as of late. For decades, people have tried to argue that there is nothing wrong with homosexuality. Taking God out of people’s lives, starting from the schools, has allowed for the restructuring of what is considered “moral”. In today’s age, people adamantly argue there is really nothing wrong with being gay, with being transgender, with having sex before or even outside of marriage, and we are beginning to see more people argue that there is nothing wrong with having sex with a child or having your child be transgender at the age of THREE.
 
To argue against such lunacy brands YOU as the bad guy and the immoral one. So in all of this redefining of morality, you find people who commit mass murders and shootings more and more often. One of the things that have been deemed as moral is to allow for women to kill their own unborn children for any given reason. In this, life becomes utterly meaningless, and people find a “justifiable” reason in their minds to kill someone else as a result. “If life in the womb is meaningless, why would life outside it be meaningful?” is what people subsequently ask.
 
And before you try and tell me that murder has been around for far longer than abortions have, allow me to reiterate my overall point: THOSE THINGS ARE IMMORAL! Yes, murder was around long before abortion. Both are immoral and an abomination. What I’m saying is that abortion gives some people license to go out and kill others through the same sort of logic. Life is now meaningless, so who cares if people are shot and killed?
 
But of course, abortion isn’t the only thing to blame for this. The idea that we are all one massive cosmic accident (despite how utterly illogical that is) and that we are descendants of apes with no predetermined destiny or purpose for living also gives way for people to rationalize murder because life doesn’t ultimately matter.
 
All of these things come from taking God out of people’s lives, beginning in school. God is the arbiter for morality. Having created everything and being holy, holy, holy, He is the only being capable of determining what is moral. But if you eliminate God in people’s lives and leave them to determine was is moral for themselves, you get what we are currently seeing: evil running amok.
 
From men forcing women to wax their genitals to parents allowing their children to dress in drag and dance in front of grown men to justifying the murder of the unborn to even rationalizing and justifying a Hollywood movie about hunting down and killing people who disagree with you, when you take God out of a country’s soul, that soul begins to decay rapidly.
 
I believe I have said this before, but if there’s one thing I can agree with Joe Biden on is that we are definitely in a fight for this country’s soul. We are fighting for the country’s soul to belong to God while the Left is fighting for this country’s soul to belong to Satan. So like Oprah said, until we can find God once again, until we repent of our sins as a nation and beg for God’s blessings once again, we will be lost and vulnerable to the Devil.
 
These sorts of tragedies will continue happening until we return to the Lord as a country. No amount of gun control or mental health laws or red flag laws (which can easily be exploited, so unless there is a way to keep that from happening and keep it from targeting law-abiding gun owners, Christians and conservatives, red flag laws are a terrible idea, in my opinion) will fix this. Even CNN admitted that stronger background checks wouldn’t have stopped either the El Paso or the Dayton shooters from doing what they did, so that isn’t a solution either.
 
The solution, as with many other problems, is having faith in the Lord. We have seen what happened to the nation of Israel in times when it was faithful to the Lord – times of great victory and dominance over opposition – and when it was not faithful to the Lord – defeat after defeat at the hands of the enemy. No nation whose back is turned to the Lord will be blessed by Him. Our nation has been richly blessed by Him precisely because we had been faithful to Him, having slogans like “In God We Trust” and “God Bless America” and “One Nation, Under God” in our pledge of allegiance. But in recent time, all of those things have been attacked in one way or another, leading our nation to turn its back to God.
 
We cannot rightly ask God to bless this country when we have our backs to Him in such a way. So as a result, God brings curses to our country in various different forms, including these shootings and plenty of other things.
 
Until we return to being One Nation Under God – until we can Make America God’s Again – we will only continue to see such evil occurring as often as it is, perhaps even more so. I just pray that we do, one day, return to the Lord as a nation.
 
2 Chronicles 7:14
“If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
 
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Author: Freddie Marinelli.

This Saturday marks a very important anniversary for our country: the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. 50 years ago, the United States embarked on a historical adventure to reach and set foot on the moon before the communist Soviets, who had managed to reach outer space before us on April 12th, 1961. Despite that, the Apollo 11 Eagle lunar module set an even bigger milestone, allowing for Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins to be the first people to reach the moon, Neil being the first to set foot on it, Buzz being the 2nd and Collins staying behind to tend to the ship.
 
And while the entire expedition was iconic, virtually everyone who knows the minimal amount on this subject knows of the legendary words: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” However, other words could’ve also become rather iconic with those.
 
Buzz Aldrin, after the module had landed on the moon, sent the following message back to ground control: “I would like to request a few moments of silence. I would like to invite each person listening in, wherever and whomever he may be, to contemplate for a moment the events of the past few hours and to give thanks in his own individual way.”
 
That message was sent to ground control, but NASA went on to censor this: “I am the vine, you are the branches. Whosoever abides in me will bring forth much fruit. Apart from me you can do nothing,” quoting from the Gospel of John, in the 5th verse of the 15th chapter. Aldrin would then open “two small packages containing consecrated bread and wine from his church in Texas,” according to The Daily Wire. Aldrin would later recall: “In the one-sixth gravity of the moon, the wine curled slowly and gracefully up the side of the cup.”
 
One of the first things to have been done on the moon, apart from setting foot on it and walking on it and planting the American flag on it, was the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, with the bread signifying the body of Christ and the wine signifying the blood of Christ, both of which were given up for our sins.
 
Do you have any idea just how important and magnificent it would’ve been to see and hear Buzz Aldrin lead that Sacrament ON THE MOON?! And yet, that historic moment was taken away from us, indeed from mankind, because of militant Leftist atheists.
 
You see, NASA had been fighting a legal battle against a woman named Madalyn Murray O’Hair, a militant atheist who was widely considered “the most hated woman in America” (wonder why) who, seven months earlier, had sued NASA for allowing Apollo 8 astronauts to read from the Book of Genesis on Christmas Eve during a broadcast sent from lunar orbit.
 
So because a militant Leftist atheist was annoyed that anyone would enjoy hearing the Book of Genesis THE DAY BEFORE WE CELEBRATE THE DAY OUR LORD WAS BORN, NASA eventually kowtowed to the woman’s will and censored the Lord’s Supper broadcast that Aldrin had given, robbing generations of a deeply important and incredible religious moment on the surface of the closet thing we have come to the heavens while alive.
 
Due to the misery of some people who can’t stand to see others enjoy the sincere joy and happiness of faith in Christ, the very people who were brave enough to send mankind to the moon wasn’t brave enough to stand up to a miserable, hateful woman who refused to allow others to think differently from her.
 
I get annoyed and agitated when these hateful bigots try to bully government officials into getting rid of the 10 Commandments on the grounds of government buildings or when they try to get rid of Christian symbols in places like cemeteries, etc., but this honestly tops all of these things. What I would’ve done to hear Buzz Aldrin reading from the Gospel of John and perform the Lord’s Supper WHILE ON THE MOON! To have heard and seen it, even if just on a YouTube video half a century later, would’ve been ecstatic. Just thinking about it gives me goosebumps.
 
And yet, because some miserable people hate the Lord and will bully others into also hating the Lord, we were robbed of that glorious moment. These people’s hatred knows no bound, does it?
 
Do you want to know what is rather ironic? The verse immediately following the one Aldrin quoted says the following: “If anyone does not remain in Me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers. Such branches are gathered up, thrown into the fire, and burned.”
 
It’s extremely easy to see the contrast between those who remain in Christ, such as Buzz Aldrin, and those who do not remain in Christ. Those who remain in Christ, as Buzz Aldrin does, bears much fruit. He is widely famous for being one of the biggest American heroes alive and is pretty much universally loved. Those who do not remain in Christ, such as Madalyn Murray O’Hair, do not bear any fruit and are like the branches that are thrown away and wither up. As it stands, Buzz Aldrin, if he still remains in Christ today, will bear far more fruit once he joins our Lord in Heaven. But as far as Madalyn goes, she passed away (murdered, tragically) in 1995, having led the Murray v. Curlett lawsuit which challenged mandatory prayer and Bible reading in Baltimore public schools in 1963, which led the way for getting God out of the classrooms.
 
I don’t know if the Lord ever reached her heart at any point late in her life, but I have my doubts that He did. And because she did not remain in Christ as a result of the Lord not reaching her, it’s almost certain that she is now suffering eternal damnation in Hell (and for those who will call me “hateful” or “judgmental” for saying that she is likely in Hell right now, do me a favor and pick up the Bible. What does it say about those who are unbelievers? What happens to them? I’ll give you a hint: they don’t go to Heaven).
 
And while it is tragic that she was murdered (by a former employee of the organization she founded), what is even more tragic is that, while she had her entire life to find the Truth of Christ that is made patently obvious by the very existence of the creation itself, she spent her life challenging said Truth and suffered both the first and second death as a result (in all likelihood). As Paul writes in his letter to the Romans, in chapter 1 verse 20: “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from His workmanship, so that men are without excuse.”
 
Man really has no excuse for not knowing the Truth of God and of the Gospel. The very world around us is the proof of a Creator. I always say we were not created by chance because chance has no intrinsic power to do anything. Chance is simply a mathematical calculation of a probable outcome or effect of a cause. It has no power to affect the effect because it is not a cause in itself. For someone to say and insist that the universe was created by chance is to say a nonsense statement because chance can’t DO anything.
 
The Truth of the Lord is made patently obvious to all, and so Man has no excuse. No one can tell the Lord, upon receiving judgment, that they simply did not know Him or of Him because everything around them points directly to Him as the Creator. For this reason, Madalyn had no excuse not to know about the Lord, especially in a country founded on Judeo-Christian principles that acknowledges the Truth of God. She challenged the notion of an existing God and tried to bully others into rejecting Him as well, but I have no doubt that she knows of Him now. Unfortunate that it is too late for her.
 
But returning to the religious moment that was taken away from us by a hateful bigot and a spineless NASA, while it is a tragedy that Buzz’s words were never heard by those paying attention to the broadcast (apart from ground control) and while his actions were never seen or talked about much, we all know that God was there to witness it, and I know He was smiling at the event.
 
Just knowing of this in the first place makes me angry that NASA allowed itself to be bullied as they were, but happy that Aldrin did what he did where he did it anyway. I’m happy that the moon got a little taste of the Word of God.
 
John 15:5
“I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”
 
And please make sure to check out our free weekly newsletter. As the name suggests, it is a newsletter that comes completely free of charge. What you get is a compilation of the week’s articles sent right into your inbox. So make sure to check it out today!
 
Author: Freddie Marinelli.

Something that often bothers me is the fact that the MSM will sometimes have an anti-Trump, or generally an anti-America pastor who takes the Word of God and says it teaches things it outright does not teach. One example of this is whenever the issue of immigration is brought up and an anti-Trump pastor will try and shame the President and anyone who agrees with him for trying to “separate families at the border” or simply for not letting these people break our laws (not that they ever phrase it that way).
 
And it always leaves me rather perplexed that anyone who claims to have faith in the Lord and who claims to be a practicing Christian, even a pastor of a church, would ever go with whatever the Left stands for, considering what they stand for is often anti-Christian.
 
I believe the answer here is that said people are not truly Christian. They take advantage of the Word of God, the ultimate authority over anything, and interpret it to say what it very much does not say.
 
Returning to the topic of immigration, Leftist preachers are all too happy to jump at the verses where the Lord explicitly tells the Jewish people to allow for strangers to sojourn in their land, to not do them any wrong, to love them as yourself because the Jewish people were themselves strangers in the land of Egypt, but will completely ignore the fact that God also demands sojourners to obey the laws of the land of Israel and ought to be punished for breaking it, as would any Jew be punished for doing the same.
 
It’s one thing to welcome immigrants into our country, it’s another to be taken advantage of by people who break the law and demand we make changes to our system to accommodate them. One is fair and righteous and the other is the exact opposite.
 
So when the Democrat Party hires anti-Trump pastors and preachers who spew this sort of nonsense about accepting and welcoming such law-breakers and leeches in an effort to draw the evangelical vote away from Trump, I can’t help but laugh. The Party of Satan is trying to garner evangelical votes?
 
Actually, that makes an awful lot of sense. Satan loves it when Christians stray from the path of God, begin challenging Him and questioning Him, and ultimately renounce Him. Why would the Democrats, who espouse outright Satanic beliefs of infanticide and utter slavery over people, be any different?
 
I recently read an article from Michael Wear, a man who directed religious outreach for the Obama campaign in 2012, who warned 2020 Democrat candidates not to assume their extreme positions on abortion were mainstream in any way, shape, manner or form. That even Democrat voters aren’t quite that extreme about that stuff and if they continue to embrace their positions, they give good reason for Trump to call them out on their desire to execute babies (and he is right to do so, since that is exactly what they are doing).
 
But not a single one of them is willing to back off on that issue and maybe allow for some amount of restriction (something the vast majority of Americans want). The reason for this is multifaceted. First, the Leftist media, Hollywood and Twitter extremists will castigate them and rip them to shreds for letting off the gas on this issue. If they appear to be in any way compromising, they essentially become “owners of women’s bodies”. And while the far-Left is not the majority, by far, they are very loud and their megaphones are turned up even louder by social media, who are also extremists in their own right.
 
Secondly and finally, they are children of Satan, not of God. They have spent the better part of the last century trying to diminish the impact of Christianity and the Lord. Everything from banning God in the classroom to commercializing Christmas (and policing speech by forcing a switch to “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”) to removing God from the 2012 DNC platform and most recently, getting rid of “so help me God” from U.S. House Committee oaths earlier in the year has been a rather open attack and war against God and Christianity in America.
 
The 6th Commandment says “You shall not murder”. When a human fetus is brutally separated from his or her mother and the life that was growing inside that womb is eliminated, what other thing can we possibly call that apart from murder? And yet, this is the position the Left holds: kill the babies that are unwanted by the mother, regardless of anything else. A father wishes to save his child? Doesn’t matter if the mother doesn’t want the child. A mentally slow woman wishes to have a child? Doesn’t matter if the judicial system doesn’t think she is fit for motherhood and the most reasonable and logical course of action would be abortion.
 
Not one 2020 Democrat knows God. Even the gay mayor of South Bend, Indiana doesn’t know Him despite what he might say. All of them defy the Lord openly, hate Him vehemently, and seek to force that way of thinking on everyone else. The only Christian that would be willing to vote for them is a Christian that is absolutely not paying attention to the world around them at all or someone who isn’t a Christian at all, just says he is outwardly.
 
That’s not to say they can’t be changed by the Lord should He choose to. I used to be rather socially liberal about some things (particularly homosexuality and gay marriage) and would still call myself a Christian at the time. But by no means was I actually a good or knowledgeable Christian. Jesus was still my Lord and Savior at the time (still is, don’t misunderstand) and the Holy Spirit fully entered my heart, but my Christianity was in its infancy. I did not, at the time, understand why God forbade this or that, just knew that He did and wondered why. But I ultimately understood why He forbids these things: they are sinful and the Lord can’t stand even the sight of sin.
 
I used to think Man was naturally good until I understood that he absolutely is not. So Christianity is most certainly a journey not only of the soul, but of the mind. I say this because there may be some people out there who might take offense at being told they were not Christian who might disagree with SOME of the things I am saying. But the truth is that true Christians will abhor abortion, hate law-breakers and understand that while Trump isn’t perfect (obviously, since Jesus is the only One who is perfect), he is far closer to someone like King David (sins and all), who loved the Lord, than someone like Stalin, who hated the God he claimed not to believe in.
 
When looking at the Democrat field, and most Democrats in general, even the ones not running for President, I see the type of Stalinist bigots who would love nothing more than to send people like us to the gulags. No true Christian would support anything the Democrats have been supporting recently. Which is why I hang my head in shame whenever I read that some churches gave illegals sanctuary prior to ICE raids or that some Christians hate the fact that a Virginia pastor actually had the audacity to pray for the President. Such people are not Christians, in reality.
 
They may call themselves that and show outward expressions of faith, but the Lord is not in their hearts.
 
Matthew 7:21-23
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”
 
And please make sure to check out our free weekly newsletter. As the name suggests, it is a newsletter that comes completely free of charge. What you get is a compilation of the week’s articles sent right into your inbox. So make sure to check it out today!
 
Author: Freddie Marinelli.

Ahead of the 4th of July, Gallup released a poll indicating that the number of people who said they were proud, or “extremely” proud, to be Americans is considerably lower today than in previous polls, with trends showing this sort of thing for the past couple of years.
 
However, it is important to note just who exactly it is that is dragging these numbers down: people who identify as Democrats aka people who hate Trump and would love to see this country turn into a socialist country (though as I have explained in the past, most people don’t actually know what socialism is).
 
Gallup said that while, overall, 70% of U.S. adults said they were proud to be Americans, only 45% said they were “extremely” proud of their country, a rather low number not seen in quite some time and the second time in only two years that that number was below 50%.
 
According to the poll, only 22% of Democrats said they were “extremely” proud of this country and that “subgroups that typically identify as Democrats – women, liberals and younger adults,” also showed lower levels of pride in their country. That 22% is the lowest in Gallup’s polling history for Democrats, who have historically never been quite so proud of this country, regardless of who was President.
 
Even while Obama was President, the lowest number for Republicans was 68%.
 
But again, the Democrats are really the ones who drive down these numbers, because 76% of Republicans and 41% of Independents were “extremely” proud of this country. And this really shouldn’t come as much of a surprise at all.
 
Matter of fact, this is quite some wonderful news, when you think about it. The Democrats, a party that has spent over a decade openly bashing this country and going on “apology tours” to other countries and who wish for nothing more than to see this country be turned on its head, are very much not proud to be Americans. Why? Because Donald Trump is President and is Making America Great Again, a slogan that literally causes Leftists to go nuts every time they hear it because they want precisely the opposite.
 
While Republicans, Independents, and the few sane Democrats that are extremely proud of this country spend their time in joy over what is happening around them, embittered and hateful Leftists spend their time making bogus claim after bogus claim about many aspects of America, be it “running concentration camps” at the southern border, or “Trump’s military parade was literally never done before”, or “white people’s very existence is a threat to brown people” or “Border Patrol is biased against minorities” (even though 51% of CBP agents are Latino), they have just about everything negative to say about this country, from its founding to today.
 
Just look at Nike’s Betsy Ross flag scandal. One socialist, third-rate former quarterback complained to them about a flag (that literally was on the side of the Union when fighting the Confederates) that was supposedly racist because it was made when there was slavery and Nike folded like a wet piece of paper. People like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and other founding fathers are marred because they lived when slavery was allowed, or owned slaves themselves, and created a nation supposedly with the idea that only “white men” would be free.
 
All a massive load of b.s. Slavery was in place in this country WELL before this country’s founding, and it’s not like no other country had slaves. I don’t see people lambasting Egypt or many other African or Middle Eastern countries despite the fact that they have all allowed slavery to exist (and there are still some countries that allow for slavery to exist). England also had slavery, and they didn’t just enslave Africans, but also enslaved Irish people too, sending them to the New World to be sold to English settlers in the West Indies.
 
But the Left completely abhors America because slavery was a thing that happened when it was founded. Despite the fact that we took care of that problem LESS THAN A CENTURY LATER, the fact that it was even a problem at one point in the first place is cause for scorn towards this country.
 
Despite the fact that most of the racial problems that existed in America were A) largely due to Leftists and B) were resolved eventually, the fact that these problems existed and caused people ire is seen as a justifiable enough reason to hate this country and turn to a system that LITERALLY ENSLAVES ITS OWN POPULATION in socialism.
 
Ignorant fools will complain about how minorities and homosexuals are treated in this country while wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt (in case you are unaware, Che Guevara was a massive racist and homophobe who opened Cuba’s first ACTUAL concentration camp and among many considered to be “counter-revolutionaries” were gay people, who were seen as bourgeois).
 
They will decry the Constitution as being rigged against black people and completely ignore the fact that Frederick Douglass, a former slave himself, said of the Constitution: “The Constitution is a glorious liberty document. Read its preamble, consider its purposes. Is slavery among them? Is it at the gateway? Or is it in the temple? It is neither,” and “Now, take the Constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. On the other hand it will be found to contain principles and purposes, entirely hostile to the existence of slavery.”
 
The plain truth is that this country is the greatest nation on Earth. It is not perfect, of course (the fact that abortion and homosexual marriage are legal is a testament to that). No country founded and ruled by men can ever be perfect due to our very nature of imperfection. But I dare any Leftist who hates this country, someone like Colin Kaepernick, to live somewhere like Venezuela or Cuba, and not among the bourgeois like he does today, but among the proletariat, among the masses, where he would be treated like any other person and still say that that is better than America at any capacity.
 
People FLEE other nations to COME INTO THIS COUNTRY for a very good reason. Whether that reason be for economic opportunity (like my family did), for religious or another kind of freedom, or to take advantage of the welfare system in place in this country like so many illegals (and, truth be told, a fair amount of legal immigrants) do, they all come into this country because the one they chose to leave behind was utter garbage.
 
If this country were anywhere near as bad as the Left said it was, no amount of George Soros’ money would convince people to form caravans and march into America like an invading army.
 
If this country were anywhere near as bad as the Left said it was, people would be LEAVING this country in droves rather than coming into it.
 
The truth of the matter is that America is the best country in the history of the planet because it was founded with the greatest economic system (capitalism) under the greatest form of government (a Constitutional Republic) and blessed by the almighty Lord. The Left absolutely abhors all three of these things, so it comes as no surprise that so few Democrats are proud, or extremely proud of this country.
 
If the people who view abortion as liberation, homosexuality as a must-have for any society 24/7 to the point children are forced to learn it and forced to love it, view age as “just a number”, view Christian religious freedom as a violation of another person’s rights but view Muslim religious freedom as perfectly acceptable (even if they actually violate another person’s rights), view guns as sentient killing machines, view gun owners and the NRA as terrorists but view Islamic terrorists as “misunderstood”, view fascist protesters who claim to be against fascism and commit violence on a regular basis as “angels”, view this country as not something to be proud of, then Hallelujah because we are doing something right.
 
These people are the incarnation of what Isaiah was talking about in the 20th verse of the 5th chapter, when he talked about those who substitute evil for good and good for evil.
 
If they were to meet God, they would consider Him the devil. So if these people hate this country that much, then Trump is doing something marvelously right.
 
Still, apart from that, there are some things that are positive in the Gallup poll. Gallup put in a question asking people what they were proud of about American society. 91% said they were proud of scientific advancements in this country, 89% said they were proud of the military, 85% said they were proud of American culture and arts, 75% were proud of the economic achievements, 73% proud of achievements in sports and 72% proud of the country’s diversity in race, ethnic background, and religion.
 
So despite how much the Left hates America, even they have to recognize the areas in which we are doing particularly well, even if they disagree about other aspects.
 
Still, this doesn’t take away the fact that they are not very proud at all of this country, even if just for the fact that it elected Donald Trump, whom they view as the embodiment of Hitler (despite how far he actually is from such a Satanic historical figure).
 
Of course, they are certainly entitled to their own opinion. And they are certainly entitled to be wrong. They may wallow in misery over the “bad” things this country is doing. Meanwhile, I will delight in the great things this country has done and continues to do, thanking the Lord for blessing this country and begging for Him to continue to do so.
 
Psalm 33:12
“Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage!”
 
And please make sure to check out our free weekly newsletter. As the name suggests, it is a newsletter that comes completely free of charge. What you get is a compilation of the week’s articles sent right into your inbox. So make sure to check it out today!
 
Author: Freddie Marinelli.

Within the last few days, I (and likely others as well) have heard of two stories from two different campaigns: Beto O’Rourke campaigning IN MEXICO, despite the obvious fact that not one Mexican citizen is bound (or allowed) to vote either in the Democrat primaries or the 2020 election, and the other story of the Trump campaign trying their hardest to reach the evangelical vote.
 
While Beto O’Rourke is campaigning in Mexico (in what is obviously an attempt at securing illegal immigrant votes States-side), the President is trying to reach those of us who follow the Lord.
 
According to Axios, a Trump campaign advisor told them: “There is a significant evangelical outreach effort. It’s going to be state specific. It’s going to exist in important battleground states and focus on churches and areas where we can have an impact. African American outreach will be a component of that… It’s robust, and it will be well-funded.”
 
Another campaign official told Axios that “this is about finding voters,” and Axios reported that in 2016, Trump got 81% of the evangelical vote. As it stands right now, the Pew Research Center says that 69% of evangelicals think the President is doing a good job.
 
Governing.com also reported that evangelicals have moved closer to Trump since his 2016 victory:
 
“Exit polls showed that 75 percent cast their ballots for Republican candidates. That number includes evangelicals of all ages, but surveys taken shortly before the election showed that 78 percent of white evangelicals ages 18 to 29 identified as Republican. ‘Did we see white evangelicals moving toward the middle of the political spectrum in 2018? Clearly no,’ says Ryan Burge, a political scientist at Eastern Illinois University (and a Baptist minister). ‘White evangelicals are more Republican now than they were two years ago.’”
 
Burge also noted that the percentage of evangelicals rose in 45 states from 2000 to 2010, coming largely from a rise in Latino evangelicals in states like Arizona, Florida, Maryland and Ohio.
 
And back in May, White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said that evangelicals and Trump are so close because “there’s a mutual respect. I think they have a good relationship because of the fact that he has delivered on the promises he made during the campaign.”
 
And there’s certainly a lot to that. As far as other Republicans go, the ones that do not keep their promises, like that snake Paul Ryan, seriously tick us off because he was essentially doing the Left’s bidding, which is far from good for the country. We respect Trump because he actually keeps his promises and is legitimately making America great again, despite all the hurdles in his way.
 
Now, I know what rather hypocritical Leftists will say about this: “how can evangelicals support Trump? He likes to grab women by their privates! He has had affairs on his wives and has been married three times! He is far from a man after God’s own heart!” To which I say: while the Access Hollywood tape of him saying what he said was definitely not a nice thing to say, it was locker room talk and he has never actually sexually assaulted or harassed any woman. While he has had affairs with his wives (his second wife was his mistress while he was married to Ivana), while there’s the whole Stormy Daniels thing (which I don’t fully believe anyway), and while those things are certainly sinful and not right, what is important to understand is whether or not Donald Trump has asked for forgiveness for his sins.
 
Which brings me to the last one, about him not being a man after God’s own heart. The biblically-illiterate Left will be quick to judge, but slow to understand, but David, while anointed as a man after God’s own heart by the Lord Himself, eventually sinned greatly by sleeping with one of his most loyal soldier’s wife, Bathsheba, and then plotted to send said soldier off to die in battle to keep his sins buried.
 
The story of King David would be seen as a massive fall from grace if it weren’t for the fact that much of the book of Psalms is about David’s recognition and repentance of his sins, begging for God’s forgiveness and eventually receiving it.
 
And that’s what is important: to be forgiven by the Lord. What Trump did decades ago, or even a few years ago, is irrelevant if he has asked for forgiveness from Jesus Christ.
 
What’s more, what he did in the past is greatly overshadowed by the atrocities the Left advocates for TODAY.
 
I’ll take a former adulterer who cares for this country and loves the Lord over a current advocate for death, lust, obscenity and evil who hates this country and wishes for nothing more than to see it turn into the antithesis of what the founders intended.
 
President Trump has flaws, yes, but that comes naturally as HE IS HUMAN TOO! And while there may be evangelical NeverTrumpers like David French who honestly can’t see past Trump’s former mistakes and judges him on those things as a result (not exactly a very Christian thing to do either), most recognize that if we were to wait for the perfect candidate to show up to run for President, we would literally have to wait for rapture to occur because no one is perfect apart from the Lord.
 
And believe me, Jesus Christ wouldn’t run for President of the United States, as He already is the King of all the Earth and Heaven.
 
The fact that President Trump is trying this hard to get the evangelical vote (which will almost certainly go to him over anyone on the Left who currently advocate for literally demonic things) shows us who he wants to be part of his base.
 
Evangelicals love the Lord, love this country and love Trump in that order. And the reason they (we, really, as I’m also a Christian) love Trump is because he ALSO loves the Lord and this country. Whatever mistake he may have done in the past is forgiven provided he has asked for said forgiveness (and I have no reason to believe he hasn’t).
 
The entire story of the Bible, both the Old and New Testament, is a story of redemption. From the moment Adam and Eve sinned against the Lord, God has provided salvation after salvation for His people – all of them with a similar theme: have faith in the Lord.
 
It was Noah’s faith that saved him from God’s wrath during the flood. It was Abraham’s faith that saved him. It was Lot’s faith that saved his family (minus his wife, who disobeyed God) from the judgment over Sodom. It was Moses’ and the Israelites faith that saved them from Pharaoh. And it is all of our faith in Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for our sins, that saves us from God’s judgment. Sola Gratia and Sola Fide. By grace alone, we are saved through faith alone.
 
Even the most spiteful of humans to ever exist can be saved if he or she were to place their faith in the Lord Jesus. Even every single person on the Democrat ticket who currently advocates for Satan’s wish list could be saved if they were to place their faith in Jesus Christ. Granted, that is not likely to happen as it stands, and it is up to the Lord to choose whom He shows mercy, so it is possible none of them will be saved (and no, Buttigieg is not a Christian, he is not saved, no matter how much he tries to say he is a Christian. Outward proclamation of faith does not always equal actual faith).
 
So it really doesn’t matter what Donald Trump did in his past. As long as he has repented of his sins, he has been forgiven by the Lord. As a result, I see no reason not to forgive him myself for those things. So as far as his reelection campaign goes, I, along with many other Christians, will be voting for President Trump.
 
1 John 1:9
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
 
And please make sure to check out our free weekly newsletter. As the name suggests, it is a newsletter that comes completely free of charge. What you get is a compilation of the week’s articles sent right into your inbox. So make sure to check it out today!
 
Author: Freddie Marinelli.

For those of you who have been reading my articles for some time, you know pretty well that I do not like Pope Francis. I mean, sometimes he says the right things, but most of the time, his socialist self can’t help but come out of him and use God to perpetuate the idea that socialism is good, as often do many Leftists who have absolutely no idea about the character of God and only use Him as a political weapon when they can all-the-while they treat Him like He is, at best, an imaginary friend for people who are “stupid”.
 
Pope Francis isn’t all too different, and recently, in a message for the third annual World Day for the Poor, the supposed head of the Catholic Church disparaged the idea of countries building walls, claiming it was to keep those poor, defenseless, oft-exploited immigrants out. Of course, that couldn’t be further from the truth as the purpose of walls is to PROTECT THE CITIES AND NATIONS THEY SURROUND! Just look at Israel. Is it wrong that they want to protect themselves from radical Islamic terrorists who daily promise they will destroy, sack, pillage and rape the nation of Israel until there’s nothing left?
 
But in any case, here’s specifically what the Pope said:
 
“We can build any number of walls and close our doors in the vain effort to feel secure in our wealth, at the expense of those left outside. It will not be that way forever… The ‘day of the Lord,’ as described by the prophets, will destroy the barriers created between nations and replace the arrogance of the few with the solidarity of many.”
 
Okay, a few things here. First of all, while I already talked about Israel’s wall, there is one wall that is close to home for Il Papa. Vatican City itself is surrounded by a wall. Technically, Vatican City is its own nation, as well. So why isn’t the Pope suggesting they tear down that oppressive and wealth-separating monstrosity that separates Vatican City from the rest of Rome? And if wealth disparity is as big a deal to this guy as he says it is, why doesn’t he open the doors of the Papal Palace (or Apostolic Palace, if you wish to call it that) and let all those poor, starving immigrants in?
 
Of course, the answer is obvious: he’s a socialist. Socialists don’t believe they have to live by the rules they set up. Other people have to take care of the less fortunate, not they themselves. Bernie Sanders doesn’t have to give up any of his three huge homes to any poor person because he’s a socialist. Leonardo DiCaprio, Al Gore and all these other environmentalist wackos don’t have to reduce their carbon footprint, one of the biggest “threats” to the planet, because they are socialist themselves. They tell other people they have to reduce their carbon footprint, so they don’t have to do it themselves! See? It’s only logical and equal! (Legit, I’ve seen that argument be made that they don’t have to do anything about their own carbon footprint because they are talking about other people doing it, completely missing the irony in that hypocritical acknowledgment).
 
But I believe there are a couple of Bible verses that ought to speak to the Pope’s heart if he truly is a Christian. First, Matthew 7:5: “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”
 
I’ve used this one plenty of times when talking about hypocrites. But of course, hypocrites don’t think of themselves as hypocrites. When called out on it, they will vehemently deny it, thinking they are doing the right thing.
 
But this next verse really ought to make the Pope think, especially considering where he gets to live: Romans 2:3: “Do you suppose, O man – you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself – that you will escape the judgment of God?”
 
You see, the Pope doesn’t gain the Grace of God by telling other people they are selfish and should be more welcoming of immigrants when he himself LIVES IN A LITERAL PALACE PROTECTED BY THE VERY WALLS HE SUPPOSEDLY IS AGAINST!
 
The Pope is the Holy Book definition (was going to say “textbook”, but thought this made more sense) of a hypocrite: he lives in a palace, a house that an elite and wealthy few can claim they have lived in, in a city that is technically its own sovereign nation and surrounded by walls.
 
Meanwhile, he dislikes the idea of other countries building walls? Trump shouldn’t build a wall at the southern border so as to not keep out the dangerous criminals that take advantage of the poor infrastructure and traitorous Democrat legislators? Israel shouldn’t have a wall so as to not keep out the radical terrorists who wish to destroy them?
 
And what’s more, God is supposedly going to destroy those walls come judgment day? Not evil, not the unrighteous, not Satan, but the walls? That’s the other thing I wanted to talk about with that quote about the day of the Lord.
 
Hey, here’s another Bible verse for you, Frankie: Matthew 15:7-9: “You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: ‘This people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”
 
Often it is that we see people like Pope Francis doing this sort of thing – teaching the commandments of men as though they were doctrine from God.
 
Now, let’s move on to what the guy said about the poor in particular. For the sake of time, I will only quote a few things that are important:
 
“The marginalization painfully experienced by millions of persons cannot go on for long. Their cry is growing louder and embraces the entire earth… The inequitable distribution of wealth created a significant number of poor people, whose condition appeared all the more dramatic in comparison with the wealth attained by a privileged few… the poor are always poorer, and today they are poorer than ever.”
 
Just what in the world is he talking about? Wealth did not create poor people. PEOPLE ARE POOR BY NATURE! When born, someone’s net worth is zero. They don’t get money until they either start working or they are lucky enough to have parents who will give them an allowance. People create wealth, not the other way around. Out of poverty comes wealth if a person works smart and hard for it.
 
The Brookings Institution reported late last year: “2019 will start with the lowest prevalence of extreme poverty ever recorded in human history – less than 8 percent. In all likelihood, this level will set the ‘ceiling’ for a new era of even lower single-digit global poverty rates for the foreseeable future.”
 
The international poverty line defines someone as living under extreme poverty as being someone who lives on less than $1.90 per day or its equivalent. Today, less than 10% of the world lives in extreme poverty compared to just 30 years ago (1990), where around 37% lived in extreme poverty and compared to 200 years ago when almost EVERYONE lived in extreme poverty. Beyond that, poverty itself ($10 a day) is lower today than it ever was. So the poor are not getting poorer, they are becoming fewer.
 
Pope Francis is not only a massive hypocrite for telling other people to take care of poor, little immigrants when he doesn’t have to make any adjustments for himself to live by that very example, but he is also completely wrong and inaccurate in his claims.
 
Not that I think any of this will change his mind. I sincerely don’t think this guy is a Christian, just says he is out of convenience. He focuses far more on the works of Man than the works of God. Being socialist, he views governments as the solution to things like poverty, etc. He thinks it’s up to the government of other nations to take in these immigrants who will take advantage of the economic opportunities and not care to even try to assimilate into a new society and culture, clinging to their old ones and bashing the countries that take them in, harming its citizens, etc.
 
Newsflash: we are called to serve, not to be abused. I’d rather prioritize poor Americans over poor and ungrateful immigrants who are in all likelihood here illegally.
 
James 1:26
“If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless.”
 
And please make sure to check out our free weekly newsletter. As the name suggests, it is a newsletter that comes completely free of charge. What you get is a compilation of the week’s articles sent right into your inbox. So make sure to check it out today!
 
Author: Freddie Marinelli.