This is one of those stories that fill me with concern but also with hope. I'm sure you'll understand the "concern" part easily, but the "hope" part perhaps is not as obvious. I'll get to that momentarily.

First, let me share with you the news circulating last week that Franklin Graham, the evangelical preacher son of Billy Graham, has been barred from 7 planned venues in his upcoming tour of the United Kingdom. The reasons provided by these venues? The supposed "anti-LGBT" views maintained by the preacher. Activist group "All Out" said on its website

"Graham travels around the world telling tens of thousands of people that Satan runs the LGBT+ movement. [...] Let's send a clear message to this US hatemonger that he's not welcome in London or the UK!"

To their credit, they do seem to understand that the basic message of sin is that Satan runs it...and that's the biblical message. Now, I don't know if Graham says "Satan runs the LGBT+ movement", but if he does, he would be consistent with what God tells us in the Bible. You see, Satan runs ALL sins, not just LGBT+ type of sin. He rules murderers, liars, pedophiles, cheaters, and generally speaking all sins. So in that regard, this particular group is being accurate as to who is to blame for all sin: Satan. The problem is they think they're being singled out, when in fact they're just one of many groups of sinners. What they fail to understand is that we ALL are sinners, not just them, and we need a Savior - that's Jesus.

After the ban, late last week, Franklin Graham sat down with UK's "Christian Today" (not to be mistaken for the NeverTrump "Christianity Today") for an interview. He said in this interview that his message is of love, not of hate. And that is, naturally, also consistent with the message of the Bible: it's about love. The love that Jesus has for us, to the point of laying his own life to pay for our sins.

One of the most quoted verses in the Bible is John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life". That's the Gospel. That's the good news. The bad news is we're all sinners. The good news is that if we trust Jesus, God the Father forgives our sins - no matter how terrible they may be.

So, activist group All Out knows Satan, but they don't know Jesus. And Franklin Graham wants to introduce Jesus to them, so they can be saved too. That is a message of love.

Among the many things he discussed in the interview with Christian Today, which I recommend you to read, is Religious Freedom. Here's what Franklin Graham said to the British publication:

"What I'm concerned about, though, is that if we don't stand up for the right to free speech and freedom of religion, there are lots of churches in this country that meet in public who are at risk. They could be kicked out, they could be forced to go somewhere else, just because of their faith."

Naturally I agree with Graham's concern. But, you see, that's the least of the Church's concerns. While persecution is no fun, the truth is we rest in Christ. We are saved. When we die, we'll go to heaven and enjoy God in a way that the unsaved will never know. So the biggest problem with jeopardizing Religious Freedom is not so much persecution itself but rather the fact that these groups, like "All out" who clearly accept the fact that Satan does exist, will never have the chance to know Jesus - at least not in this life. In the next life, they're all going to meet Him and they won't like where they're headed. Again, it's not just about LGBT - it's about all unbelievers. All of them will have no chance of ever knowing Jesus and His redemptive work while here on Earth. It's the very people who are persecuting us that will suffer the most in the end.

When Graham says his message is of love, not of hate, what he means is that Jesus is the way. Groups like All Out are being deceived by Satan, who's a fallen angel and much smarter than human beings. They're being deceived and they will have a high price to pay, unless someone helps them hear the Truth. The Truth is that Jesus saves. The Truth is that, no matter what you did in the past or what you're doing now, you don't have to spend eternity in hell. And silencing Christians will only result in those who persecute us being utterly condemned forever. Graham wants to give everybody the good news - the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Without Him, we're lost. The more they silence us, the worse their damnation is going to be. We're only trying to help them.

Now, I did say in the beginning of this article that this situation gives me hope. What's the hope that it gives me? Well, you see, when things get this bad in the world - tribulation that the Bible itself prophesies - what with Drag Queen story hours for little children, Superbowl halftime shows of utter vulgarity and so on, there are only two possible outcomes after all of this: either we're headed to a religious revival or to the Rapture of the Church. Either way, Jesus' second coming gets closer and closer. And that gives me hope.

Revelation 3:10
"Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come on the whole world to test the inhabitants of the earth."

Author: Danielle Cross

This week has truly been devastating for the Left. With regards to Supreme Court matters alone, they faced loss after loss with 5-4 decisions on pro-life pregnancy centers no longer being forced to promote abortion and public sector unions no longer being able to force non-union-members to pay fees.
 
But both of those news are tame in comparison to hearing that Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy would be retiring at the end of the Court’s annual term (end of June). This opens the door to President Donald Trump nominating another possible Constitutionalist like Gorsuch to the Court, handing conservatives a reliable majority in the Supreme Court.
 
Despite the fact that Justice Kennedy was nominated by President Ronald Reagan, he has proven to be wildly unpredictable, a moderate and often a swing voter in the Court alongside Chief Justice John Roberts.
 
He upheld Obamacare as Constitutional, was the key vote that legalized same-sex marriage and upheld women’s “right” to abortion in 1992.
 
He was a liberal in all but name. And now, Trump has the prime opportunity to nominate yet another Gorsuch and deal a major blow to decades of Leftist Justices getting their way. Of course, that includes such things as Obamacare, DACA, illegal immigration, sanctuary cities and states, same-sex marriage, and perhaps the single biggest issue: abortion.
 
Now, the White House has narrowed a list of over 20 picks down to 5. This list includes people like Brett Kavanaugh, Amul Thapar, Amy Barrett, Thomas Hardiman and Raymond Kethledge.
 
From what we know about them, while they all have voted conservatively in many issues, people like Kavanaugh and Hardiman have shown to be relatively moderate in other areas, with Kavanaugh upholding Obamacare in a couple of cases, saying that Obamacare penalties were actually “taxes” in one of those cases, and with Hardiman seemingly buckling to typical Leftist hysteria of racism and discrimination when he struck down a fire department’s residency requirement, which he termed “racially motivated” and went on record saying: “minority workforce representation that low suggests discrimination”.
 
So, in my mind, both Kavanaugh and Hardiman are too unreliable. The other three seem to be the most conservative, as well as true Constitutionalists who will stick with the written text in the Constitution, as well as the intentions of the people who wrote the Constitutional amendments, in their decisions rather than go with what they like or don’t like.
 
But in any case, most of these picks are true conservatives who will surely and seriously challenge the horrendous 1973 Roe v. Wade case that has resulted in 60.5 million abortions since 1973 in the U.S.
 
Successfully criminalizing abortion will likely be Trump’s lasting achievement, particularly since Court justices can serve for an entire generation or even more depending on their age. Gorsuch’s selection has already solidified a relatively conservative Court for decades to come. This will further solidify a conservative Court, leaving Roberts as the last swing voter, who has occasionally shown to be conservative himself. Add that to the fact that the two oldest Justices in the Court are liberals (Ginsburg, 85, and Breyer, 79) and you could potentially replace those two at some point at the end of Trump’s second term or beginning of Pence’s first term. Almost certainly by the end of Pence’s second term and most definitely by the beginning of Ivanka’s first term.
 
Jokes aside, it cannot be overstated how massive this is for America. For life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. While a Presidential election will only guarantee a political side’s success for 4 years, and midterm elections for 2 years, whoever’s side gets to pick a new Supreme Court Justice could influence the country for decades.
 
Trump’s pick for the Supreme Court will almost certainly guarantee a very conservative Court for the next half century. This means that almost regardless of who wins elections in the next ten to twenty years, the Supreme Court will likely maintain the Constitution even in the case of a President Bernie Sanders (which will almost certainly never happen).
 
Now, with these news comes yet another reason for conservatives to vote in the November mid-term elections. Securing a Republican majority, or perhaps even a supermajority, as I think will occur, means that for the next two years, we will have one of the most conservative Presidents in history, a very solidly pro-Trump and conservative Congress and a very conservative Supreme Court for decades to come.
 
Man, if I were a liberal, I’d be panicking right now. I suppose the only thing that has kept them from completely running amok (yes, it can get worse) is the hope that Democrats might be able to take back the House at the very least. But if and perhaps when Republicans not only retain Congress but add more seats to amount to a supermajority, the Left might honestly panic and start another Civil War.
 
I don’t know, I wouldn’t put it past them to do it again. If the situation I describe becomes reality, the Left will be at its most powerless it has ever been. They might panic and do something stupid.
 
Not to compare this situation to a video game I know, but I will draw a fair comparison anyway. There’s this video game series titled Fallout, in which you play as a character in a post-nuclear war America set hundreds of years from now. In this series, America is utterly devastated by nukes after a war over resources with Communist China. According to the game’s lore, China invaded Anchorage, Alaska in search for oil and the U.S. counter-attacked, eventually invading main-land China. While it is unclear exactly what caused the Chinese to launch nukes at the U.S., it was most likely out of desperation to try to win an unwinnable war.
 
Now, what the heck does a game have to do with a real life situation? Like the Chinese Communists, the Left might feel cornered and trapped and feel as though they need to explore extreme situations to try and fight back. If they feel they don’t really have much to lose, the Left might go to any extreme necessary to try and reclaim the country they believe is theirs. Ironically, in the video game series, launching nukes wound up destroying China as well. This could also be the fate of the Democrat Party.
 
In resorting to desperate measures far worse than the incivility we’re already witnessing, the Democrat Party might well see itself destroyed.
 
Of course, the ideologies won’t die until God has destroyed the world, but the major political party of the Left might well cease to exist in the near future.
 
Regardless, that’s not what I want to take away from the retirement of Justice Kennedy. While it’s still something to be aware of, as of right now, I just want to delight in the fact that horrible Leftist cases decades-old will likely face their biggest and toughest challenge yet.
 
Romans 8:28
“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.”
 
Author: Freddie Marinelli.

On Thursday, May 4th, on National Day of Prayer, the president signed an executive order allowing for religious organizations such as churches to practice their 1st amendment right of free speech. I will get to why this is great (though, it should be obvious), but first, I must address the issue that we see from the previous sentence. Why does the president have to sign an executive order to give churches a fundamental constitutional freedom back? The answer can be found in the Johnson Amendment of 1954.
 
The Johnson Amendment restricts (still enacted, as Congress is the one that can repeal it) churches and religious organizations from endorsing or opposing a political candidate. This restricts religious organizations from speaking in favor of or against a political candidate or ISSUE, under the penalty of losing tax-exemption status.
 
As you probably know, every political issue is an ethical issue - from abortion to gay marriage to health insurance to taxation. And the Church's job is to preach ethical issues contained in the Bible. If you're a Christian and you're complaining that pastors for the most part don't speak up about these things, blame it on democrats and this unconstitutional law...

What this executive order does is ease IRS enforcement of the rule. But, hey, leave it to a Democrat to enact a law that does its best to hold churches hostage with taxation in the first place.
 
Amidst everything that’s been happening over the last month, from attacking a Syrian air base to Trump meeting with the Chinese president as the aforementioned attack was happening, to Congress voting on a trillion dollar spending bill, I have to say that this action by the president is the most satisfactory so far. Yes, he also signed executive orders to ban people from coming in from terror-related nations and to defund sanctuary cities, but so far, this is the one that shows the most upside for Christians and freedom-lovers nationwide that, at the same time, shouldn’t bother Democrats all too much. Granted, knowing how Democrats operate, they might try and still block this one as well, but they have the least amount of reason to do so. They don’t exactly lose anything with this.
 
I look forward to seeing this executive order be enacted, hoping that this will lead to the ultimate repeal of such a restricting law.
 
In previous articles, I’ve talked about how God placed Trump in the White House to keep evil out of it, and, particularly in the latest one, to get us just a bit closer to Him. Let me tell you, we would never have gotten anything similar to this with a Clinton presidency. The Left absolutely hates Christianity and Jesus, even if some of them claim to be Christians. Look, no matter how many times a liberal tells me Obama is a Christian, I refuse to believe that for a second. He is as far from being a Christian as you can be. I can only remember one instance of him going to church, and I think that was just for Easter.
 
The Left hates Christianity. They have for the longest time. The Johnson Amendment was created by Lyndon B. Johnson roughly 10 years before he was even president. No elected politician can claim to be Christian and then turn around and do something detrimental to Christianity in the U.S. Enacting such a law is very clearly anti-Christian. Adding a section into Obamacare that forces employers to provide for contraception is anti-Christian and UNETHICAL. Allowing for the very definition of marriage, which was defined by the Bible, to be unsanctified is anti-Christian and UNETHICAL. And allowing for the mass murder of innocent babies under the guise of “women’s health” is incredibly anti-Christian and UNETHICAL.
 
Trump, as of Thursday, has worked to reverse the effects of one of these anti-Christian, Democrat-backed laws. I don’t know just how far he’ll try to go, or how far he’ll even get. I don’t expect gay marriage to be outlawed by the end of Trump’s presidency. I don’t expect Roe v. Wade to be overturned in the next 8 years either, but I can certainly pray that they will.
 
The simple fact that at least SOMETHING POSITIVE is happening for the Christian community and our beloved country is a miracle of its own. Like I said before, we wouldn’t have gotten something like this from the Left. We didn’t get anything like this from the Obama administration and we wouldn’t have gotten anything like it from a Hillary Clinton administration. This is precisely why we must thank God that Trump won the election back in November 2016. The Lord knew what was in the hearts and minds of the Left and He also knew what was in the heart and mind of Donald Trump. He knew who simply HAD to win the election in order for this country to not be on God’s bad side any longer.
 
Romans 8:28
“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.”
 
Author: Freddie M.