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Messianic Israel / Jew Evangelistic T-Shirt: Shema & Isa 53
God loves Israel! He loves Israel far more than did the Apostle Paul, who wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit:
1 I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, 2 That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. 3 For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: 4 Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; 5 Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen. … 1 What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision? 2 Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God. (Romans 9:1-5; 3:1-2)
What does God say to those who harm Israel? “He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye” (Zechariah 2:8). As with the rest of mankind, Jews who do not believe the gospel will be eternally lost (Romans 11:28a), but nonetheless “as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sakes. For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.” (Romans 11:28b-11:29).
What is the greatest blessing Jehovah has ever given Israel? The Messiah, the Savior of the world, God blessed for ever, Jesus! To that end, we have designed the T-shirts pictured below, which have been added to the collection of evangelistic T-shirts and other materials I posted about some time ago. Both sides of the T-shirt reference the evangelistic pamphlet Truth From the Torah, Nevi’im, and Kethuvim (the Law, Prophets, and Writings) for Jews who Reverence the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, which is online at https://faithsaves.net/Messiah/. The front has this evangelistic website as well as the text of the Shema, Deuteronomy 6:4:
שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָֹה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהוָֹה אֶחָד׃
Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:
While the back has the evangelistic website and Isaiah 53:8b: “For he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.”
along with, on both sides, the flag of Israel. (We did not see a way to design the shirt so that the vowels and accents could be included, although we recognize the Biblical and historical case for their inspiration and preservation.)
We believe that these shirts can be blessed by the God of Israel for Jews to embrace their crucified and risen Messiah, Jesus, as well as to help Gentiles come to repentance and faith in Him. If you get to evangelize Muslims because of this shirt, Isaiah 53 is good for them also, since Muslims deny the Lord Jesus died on the cross, claiming the Gospel accounts are fabrications. But Isaiah 53, which clearly predicts His death by crucifixion and resurrection, and which we have physical, pre-Christian evidence for in the Dead Sea Scrolls, cannot be so explained away by Muslims. This T-shirt can also help you explain the powerful evidence for the Bible from prophecy for agnostics and atheists and the powerful impact of Isaiah 53 to both Jews and Muslims. Furthermore, God promises to bless those who bless Israel and curse those who curse Israel (Genesis 12:1-3). Do you want to be blessed by the living God? Bless Israel!
The immediate motivation for our making these shirts was a pro-Hamas, anti-Jewish rally we saw in Los Angeles. Jew haters there held signs such as “Resistance is not terrorism,” glorifying the murder of 1,200 Jews on October 7, 2023, the largest single-day slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust:
They also promoted “from the river to the sea,” advocating the destruction of the Jewish state and the murder of the Jews:
The protesters were part of the anti-Israel hate group, the A. N. S. W. E. R. coalition, who argue that to say “Hamas is a terrorist organization” is a “lie.” (By the way, if you need more reasons to stop using Google as a search engine, note the pro-terrorism, anti-Israel search results that come up first if you search for “answercoalition.org Hamas terrorism”; compare those results with what you get on Duck Duck Go, where the top result [as of the time I am writing this] is the Anti-Defamation League explaining why Hamas is a bloodthirsty terrorist organization that calls for the eradication of Israel.) The protestors also reproduced lies pumped out by Hamas about civilian deaths in Gaza, while saying nothing about the fact that Hamas wants civilians in Gaza to die and Israel does not. Of course, Islam allows Muslims to lie–after all, Allah is the best of deceivers.
They were blocking the street so that we could not keep going on the bus we were on in Los Angeles. Our destination was not far away–a museum in LA. We decided to get off the bus and walk there. A few blocks away we saw an orthodox Jewish man walking in the direction of the advocates of terrorism. We told him about the protest; he thanked us, and re-routed. After we got home from the museum we designed the T-shirts. It is right to stand against terrorism and for the Jewish people. It is especially right to stand for the greatest Jew of all, the resurrected Lord, Jesus.
We saw posters like the following a few blocks away. The anti-Jewish, pro-Hamas protestors did not say anything about these people.
They also said nothing about United States citizens killed by or held hostage by Hamas. They are also not important, it seems. (Let me add that the large majority of inhabitants in Gaza and the West Bank support Hamas’ murder of Jewish civilians–the large majority “extremely support” terrorism, while in a recent survey only 7.3% of survey participants were “extremely against” such terrorism, combined with 5.4% who are “somewhat against” it, for a total of only 12.7% of the population who are against terrorism; it is certainly possible survey results reflect some bias, but the overall picture is likely to be accurate.)
What about here in the USA? When asked if they support Israel or Hamas, 95% of those over 65 support Israel. The percentages get progressively lower the younger people are. Among 18-24 year olds, only 55% support Israel, while 45% support Hamas. This is a terrible trend, and awful evidence of the anti-God garbage taught in the public school and university systems. Maybe consider getting some of these T-shirts for yourself or as presents for others. Perhaps you are afraid of Muslim violence or anti-Jewish violence if you wear one, since true Islam in America–like all true Islam–is violent and bloodthirsty, not peaceful. Perhaps if you are living in Saudi Arabia or Iran it would be unwise to wear one of these shirts; but if you live in the United States of America, and you will allow threats of Muslim violence to curtail your free speech, something is very wrong. Obviously Christians have liberty to wear or not wear a T-shirt like this, and it is perfectly fine not to wear one, but our decisions must be made out of Biblical principle and for the glory of God, not out of fear. If you say you would have protected Jews in the Holocaust, but are afraid to stand for them and against their murderers now, why should we believe you would have stood were you in Hitler’s Germany? There are Biblical principles here. God’s love for Israel is not saying God loves everything the modern state of Israel does–but God still loves Israel, and Scripture still says to bless Israel. (By the way, if you are born again, God loves you with an infinite and special love, but He still does not love everything you do–He does not love your sin, nor does He love Israel’s sin.) Be salt and light: stand up for righteousness. Do not let the wicked pro-terrorist people be the only ones who are making their voices known. Stand for the God of Israel, for the Messiah of Israel, and for the nation of Israel.
Postscriptum:
As FLAME: Facts and Logic About the Middle East points out concerning anti-Israel, pro-Hamas bias in media reports about Gaza civilian casualties:
[T]he media insist on treating Hamas’s notoriously unreliable information feed as fact. Conversely, they refuse to give precedence to proven, reliable sources of information, such as the Israeli or U.S. governments, the latter of which confirmed Al-Shifa’s use as a Hamas headquarters. Israel presents photographs of Hamas blocking exit highways, so Gazans cannot leave the war zone . . . but Hamas denies it, says NPR. Such is the inane, “he-said, she said” pablum we are fed by the media.
The media also steadfastly refuse to ask the questions demanded by the story—and by any curious reader, listener, or viewer. When reporters interview Palestinians on the street or doctors in hospitals, the viewer cries to know: “Do you ever see any Hamas guys around here? Have you seen any tunnels?” But never does the reporter ask this, let alone questions like, “Do you support Hamas? Do you think there should be a Palestine next to Israel? What do you think about the October 7th attack on Israel?” These are obvious queries that responsible, curious, fact-hungry journalists would and should normally ask their sources. But they never do. Why?
The short answer is that if they asked these questions, the stories they tell wouldn’t fit the narrative they are trying to sell—the narrative in which the Palestinians are an oppressed people, Israel is an evil, colonial aggressor, and Hamas is a product of legitimate Palestinian resistance.
To sell their perverse narrative, international media swallow the wildly inflated death-toll numbers cranked out by the Gaza Health Ministry. For this reason, the media simply repeat the daily growing casualty figures Hamas gives them.
Reuters reports, for example, that as of November 22nd, Gaza’s Hamas-run government says at least 13,300 Palestinians have been confirmed killed, including at least 5,600 children. But Luke Baker, a former Reuters bureau chief who led the organization’s coverage of Israel and the disputed territories from 2014 to 2017, said on X (formerly Twitter), “Hamas has a clear propaganda incentive to inflate civilian casualties as much as possible.”
Moreover, the media almost never give a breakdown of the casualties. They don’t say how many were Hamas terrorists or how many were human shields, killed in residences schools or hospitals where Hamas were hiding. They never tell how many were killed—not by Israeli forces, but by Hamas and other terrorist groups—because of misfired rockets, or by Hamas shooting at Palestinian civilians heeding Israeli orders to evacuate.
In addition, it’s probable that a significant number of the “children” reported killed or wounded by Hamas are youths aged 13 to 18, who were located in Hamas facilities or even took an active part in the fighting.
If you are not aware of the connection between Soviet communist propaganda and modern anti-Zionist lies about Israel as a colonialist oppressor, please read the article here.
Patristics Quote All New Testament Except for 11 Verses?
In evangelistic Bible study #1, “What is the Bible?” (see also the PDF here), I (currently) have the statement:
[A]ll but 11 of the 7,957 verses of the New Testament could be reproduced without a single manuscript from the 36,289 quotes made by early writers in Christendom from the second to the fourth century.
I also have this statement in my pamphlet The Testimony of the Quran to the Bible.
I cite this statement from what is usually a highly reliable and scholarly source, Norman Geisler’s Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics:
“[I]f we compile the 36,289 quotations by the early church Fathers of the second to fourth centuries we can reconstruct the entire New Testament minus 11 verses.” (Norman L. Geisler, “New Testament Manuscripts,” Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, Baker Reference Library [Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999], 532).
However, Elijah Hixson and Peter J. Gurry, eds., in Myths and Mistakes in New Testament Textual Criticism (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2019), 228-238 have presented a strong case that this oft-repeated statement is not accurate. On the other hand, the following less specific statement is defensible:
Besides the textual evidence derived from New Testament Greek manuscripts and from early versions, the textual critic has available the numerous scriptural quotations included in the commentaries, sermons, and other treatises written by early church fathers. Indeed, so extensive are these citations that if all other sources for our knowledge of the text of the New Testament were destroyed, they would be sufficient alone for the reconstruction of practically the entire New Testament. (Bruce M. Metzger and Bart D. Ehrman, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, 4th ed. [New York: Oxford University Press, 2005], 126)
While Metzger and Ehrman’s statement is defensible, unless new evidence comes to light to overturn Hixson and Gurry’s case, the more specific statement in Geisler’s book, which I reproduced in my evangelistic Bible study, is not defensible or accurate. The “11 verses” claim is too specific, and the 36,289 quotations is also too specific. Sometimes it is hard to distinguish a quotation from an allusion, a summarization, or other less specific types of reference. I intend to remove the 11 verses statement derived from Geisler’s fine encyclopedia (still a great book, despite this one mistake) from Bible study #1 and from The Testimony of the Quran to the Bible and replace it with the less-specific statement. (I have not gotten around to doing it yet, but that is on the agenda.)
I was wrong to (unintentionally) reproduce inaccurate information. God is a God of truth. Also, please do not use the inaccurate statement yourself, but the accurate one, in the future, and if you are using these Bible studies in your church, please start using the updated and accurate ones once they are available; if you have extra copies already printed that contain the inaccurate statement, you might want to clarify that it is not technically correct.
The overall case for the accuracy of the New Testament remains infallibly certain from God’s promises and overwhelmingly strong from a historical perspective.
–TDR
Sing John 3:16 in Koine / New Testament Greek: Ιωαννην 3:16!
Would you like to learn how to sing John 3:16 in Greek? You can sing these words in the very speech in which the Lord Jesus Christ originally spoke this blessed promise to Nicodemus!
You can learn to sing the infallible words of John 3:16, the most famous verse of the Bible in the video below from Rumble, or watch it on YouTube, or see it at Faithsaves.net.
John 3:16 Song: Koine Greek New Testament Language
Ιωαννην τρεις:εκκαιδεκα ωδή εν γλώσση Ελληνικη
View John 3:16 Song in Koine Greek on Rumble
View John 3:16 Song in Koine Greek on YouTube
–TDR
Evangelists / Missionaries For Unaffiliated Baptist Support
If you are a sound Bible-believing and practicing Baptist church, and you are looking to support sound evangelists or missionaries, let me encourage you to consider the following two.
1.) The Suttons in Jackson County, Oregon. I have personally known Brother David Sutton and his family for many years, ever since the time I was teaching at Bethel Christian Academy as a member of Bethel Baptist Church many years ago. He is a godly man, a great preacher, and a wonderful shepherd. As one small example of his shepherding, when Bethel Baptist Church was going to send him and his family up to Oregon, we had a going-away fellowship with some food and beverages. Brother Sutton did not have time to even get any because he was too busy talking to every church member, encouraging, exhorting, and being a blessing to every single person. (We had to save some for him.) If you want to be blessed and encouraged with Scripture, Brother Sutton is the man for you to talk to. His wife is also a godly and faithful servant of the Lord, and his children are all serving the Lord. They are missionaries well worth your support as they seek to establish Jackson County Baptist Church, a church that, if your church is sound, you would be glad to be a member of. He only has partial support for his evangelistic work there. Please feel free to reach out to them if your church would be interested in having him present his work or take them on for prayer or financial support. Also, if you live in that part of Oregon and are looking for a faithful church, you need look no more–visit and serve the Lord at Jackson County Baptist Church, starting this Lord’s Day.
2.) The Dvoracheks in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. I am thankful for Bro Dvorachek and his family and their fellowship in the gospel and the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. I have preached at their church, Victory Baptist in Oshkosh, WI, a number of times. I summarize something Bro Dvorachek wrote as his testimony of how the Lord brought him and his family to Victory Baptist Church in Oshkosh, WI:
I graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh in December of 1997 as an unsaved man. During my time in college, I worked at a Burger King in downtown Oshkosh. Right across the street from that Burger King was this Baptist church, that I at one time despised. Shortly after college, I got married to my lovely wife, Andrea, and we moved to another city. Shortly after that, in the spring of 2000, we both came to know the Lord! In August of 2006, both Andrea and I surrendered to the thought that if God would be pleased to place us in vocational ministry, we would be willing to follow His lead. Really, we were just saying, “Lord, whatever, you want us to do, that’s what we want to do.”
We had no idea what we were in for. The Lord has taken us on quite a journey since then. In June 2015, I was properly ordained by a council of eight independent Baptist pastors. In November of 2016, the Lord led us back to Oshkosh, and we became members of Victory Baptist Church (the Baptist church across from the Burger King). When we came to the church with our eight children, we more than doubled the attendance. The church was on life support at that time. We served there for two years as I helped the pastor with preaching, songleading, and evangelism. In December of 2018, he resigned somewhat abruptly, and I became interim pastor. For several months, Andrea and I consulted and thought and prayed over the matter, and in April of 2019, both we and church believed the Lord would have me to become officially the pastor. The Lord has been faithful, and (I think sometimes, though in spite of me), He has grown the church to around forty, with many new members. My wife, Andrea and I are blessed with eight children, some of whom are now adults: Jonathan (21), Levi (19), Grace (17), Stephen (15), Sara (14), Abilgail (11), Lydia (10), and Sophia (10). The children are a great blessing in the work.
My primary goal has been to “feed the flock.” I look to primarily preach expositional messages and am doing so through the Book of Romans every Sunday morning, while I have also seen the need to address certain topics as well in the other services. By the grace of God, we are seeing people grow spiritually! All along, I have been praying for the Lord to send laborers here, but in June, I began praying more fervently, and we are beginning to see some possibilities open up. If any man is looking for an opportunity to be used of the Lord and/or get good experience in the ministry, perhaps the Lord would lead him to Victory Baptist Church in Oshkosh.
The Dvoracheks are also missionaries worth your consideration for prayer and financial support. They have no supporting churches and Bro Dvorachek has to work a secular job, pastor a growing church, and take care of his wife and eight children. If you live near their part of Wisconsin, and you are looking for a sound church where you can serve the Lord, you need look no more. Start serving there this Lord’s Day!
You can hear some of Bro Dvorachek’s preaching on their website. Bro Sutton’s sermons at his congregation should be coming soon; you can hear some of his older messages at the BethelElSobrante YouTube channel.
I am sure that there are many other godly families that are well worthy of support by the Lord’s churches. The evangelists or missionaries above are just two that I know personally. I would encourage you to contact our church and other sound churches if you are seeking prayer and financial support. Contacting sound churches directly would be better than reaching out to me. Let me also mention that I have taken the initiative to tell blog readers about these two godly men and their families. Please pray for them, encourage them in whatever way you can, and support them in whatever way your churches lead. Let me also mention that I chose to write this–they did not initiate my writing this post.
–TDR
For All Have Synd
Sin
“Sin” is a word most people rarely say or hear any more. If they admit they’ve done anything wrong, they’ve made mistakes and committed errors. Rightly so, because they’re not thinking so much about whether they offended God in what they’ve done.
A very biblical word, “sin” left common usage as people eliminated it from the general public. Sin describes a crime against God, breaking His law. The Apostle Paul writes in Romans 1:28:
And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge.
Even if people don’t deny the existence of God, they increasingly don’t consider Him related to their lives. It isn’t that they can’t retain Him in their knowledge. They don’t like to do it. People would rather not. They’ve got their reasons. Bad ones, but they’ve got them.
The truth of sin connects people to God. He is the Creator, Sustainer, Lawgiver, Judge, and Redeemer. All of these attributes of God relate to sin in some way.
Denying, Excusing, or Redefining Sin
Part of the rebellion against God means rebellion against the confession of sin. Rather than recognize who God is, acknowledge Him, and admit to the offenses against Him and His nature, people change the way they regard sin. Romans 3:23 says, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” Instead of conceding on sin, people deny it, excuse it, or redefine it in many various ways.
In the Garden of Eden, after he sinned, Adam said to God (Genesis 3:12), “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.” He said, It wasn’t my fault. First, it was your fault, God. You gave her to me. And second, it was the woman’s fault.
Adam did not take responsibility for His sin. Unlike David in Psalm 51:4 after his sins, Adam blamed it on someone or something else. Instead of saying, “All have sinned,” it could be, “All have synd.” Adam had a group of features that existed together. All of those came from God. He had the woman, the garden, the serpent, and his own vulnerability.
Syndrome
A mixture of features coming together and effecting someone like they did Adam, instead of a sin, someone might call a syndrome. Syndrome comes from a Greek word (sundrome) that appears once in the New Testament in Acts 21:30. It is a verb translated there, “running together.” A mob formed and came all at once and together against the Apostle Paul.
Merriam Webster online defines syndrome:
1: a group of signs and symptoms that occur together and characterize a particular abnormality or condition
2: a set of concurrent things (such as emotions or actions) that usually form an identifiable pattern
Hundreds, if not thousands, of syndromes exist. I’m not saying that actual syndromes don’t exist. Surely they do. Of all those listed, I couldn’t say which were legitimate and which were not. However, many use a syndrome as a means of denying, excusing, or redefining sin. Instead of saying, “I sinned,” someone might say, “I synd.” It’s not the only way to deflect from sin or salve a conscience, but it is a very common one today.
Sin Is Sin
Someone named Matthew Stanford wrote the following:
One question I am commonly asked by people of faith is, “Can sin be considered a disorder?” Typically what the person who asks this question wants to know is, “Can behavior associated with psychiatric disorders (for which there may or may not be a treatment) be considered sinful or wrong?”
Many negative behaviors considered “sinful” (e.g., rage, lying/stealing, addiction) are associated with specific psychiatric disorders. But does calling a behavior the Bible considers sinful, a disorder, somehow make that behavior no longer sin? Absolutely not!
Something called the Kairos Journal recorded this:
When English Puritan Richard Baxter penned his magnum opus of pastoral counseling, A Christian Directory, he appended a noteworthy subtitle: A Sum of Practical Theology, and Cases of Conscience. Directing Christians How to … Overcome Temptations, and to Escape or Mortify Every Sin. Though lengthy by modern conventions, it reflected his opinion that deviations from God’s standards of behavior are moral transgressions meriting judgment and correction.
In contrast, today’s most popular reference work on behavioral deviance operates from a worldview that is decidedly less spiritual. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition, text revision (DSM-IV-TR) never speaks of sin and hardly ever references moral categories of any sort. Instead, it often reclassifies as “disease” what humans have known simply as “immorality” for millennia, ignoring the moral aspect of human behavior.
Sin and the Gospel
I hear among many to whom I talk, much more than ever, a naturalness in psychology or psychiatry speak. This occurs very often now. I heard nothing like this from the average person thirty years ago. Much less today people mention sin and this parallels with greater ignorance of the gospel. Ninety-five percent or more to whom I speak call themselves “good people.” This starts with a misunderstanding or deceit about their own nature and the actuality of their sin.
Without someone understanding his own sinfulness, his propensity to sin, and sin’s ruination of him, he will not believe the gospel. For someone to receive the good news, first he must understand and comprehend the bad news. All have sinned, death because of sin, so that death passed upon all men (Romans 5:12). 1 Corinthians 15:3 says, “Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.” “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). “And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).
Watching a Slow Motion Car Crash: 2023-2024 United States
Preach the Gospel
My wife and I live in a mobile home in small town rural Indiana, evangelizing Decatur County as well as a 25 minute radius of our church building. I preach the gospel almost every day to someone. We do discipleship, Bible studies, and meet for church. Her and I exist in our own little bubble. We walk twice a day by fields of beans, corn, and wheat.
I do think that the work of our church here transcends other contemporary narratives. We keep our eye on the ball, staying focused on the real problem in the world and its actual solution. It glorifies God, gives Him pleasure. Someone might say our little lives here epitomize one of many micronarratives within a larger macro one. I could argue, however, that we represent the macro and the popular larger narrative equals the micro. The gospel overshadows politics or what occurs to a nation in a window of history.
No one in the future kingdom of Christ and then the eternal state will look back and think that the American government was the main theme. Neither will anyone in that kingdom consider the decline of the United States to be the major issue of that day. The way back to Paradise, lost in the Fall, comes through Jesus Christ.
Slow Motion Car Crash
As a backdrop to serving God in a church, I observe now a slow motion car crash. Two cars now careen toward each other and a future wreck. Maybe I could use another metaphor, like the trajectory of an asteroid in the path of earth on schedule to collide in November of 2024. It might not matter what your side of the political spectrum, you see this crash coming too.
I don’t write to say, “You read it here first.” You could have read it somewhere else first. However, I haven’t read yet about the collision of which I explain and describe. When you read it somewhere else, you might say, I read it first at What Is Truth. Who cares, really? As I write about this here, first or last, you might anticipate this inevitable demolition derby.
Trump
Donald Trump leads the polls on the Republican side. He embodies a large faction of the country, bigger than any single cohesive body of people. That car continues rolling forward at a larger than ever fifty plus percent of Republican voters. Even in Iowa and New Hampshire he dominates his opposition right now 16 months before the next presidential election.
As Trump moves along his path, so do four different legal prosecutions against him, all very suspect in nature, especially in comparison to others (I understand this will trigger a portion of the readers). Trump voters saw the Russia hoax impeachment. They also witnessed the Zelensky phone call impeachment. The government spied on his campaign. The Clinton campaign paid for the fabricated Steele dossier used for a FISA warrant. The FBI lied about it and then covered it up. And all that is less than half of everything Trump supporters know.
Still, Trump enemies continue to use the legal system to impede or stop Trump, what people call weaponization of government. Every prosecution looks shady, questionable, like political persecution. The present administration targets its number one political enemy. Nevertheless, the Trump car rumbles down the road, even gaining in momentum the more legal woes he faces.
Biden
Joe Biden comes from the other direction. Even though he couldn’t fill an average sized local gymnasium to see him, he tallied the most votes ever in 2020. Zuckerbucks influenced local election offices all over the country. Courts changed laws to favor ballot harvesting with little to no voter identification. Social media giants censored news unfavorable to the Democrat. In addition, lies, lies, lies, lies, and more lies.
The Biden car and the Trump car head toward each other. They’re moving fast, but they’re so far away, that it’s like watching from thirty thousand feet. The cars move at an imperceptible pace, yet moving on an identical line.
Criminal prosecution hovers around Joe Biden. Massive corruption on an unprecedented scale looks obvious. It seems like no repercussions for him. Like the Clintons, nothing will happen more than verbiage.
A crash looks inevitable. No one knows what will happen in 2023-24. Will they prosecute Trump and try to put him behind bars? Might the Bidens skate again or face their comeuppance? Could a third party enter the race?
The Great American Divorce
Many more questions remain. What would Trump supporters do if this government convicted him? Would they accept that verdict? With the way the progressives use the system like a banana republic, will people stand by and let this happen? A large percentage of United States citizens see their government as dirty. Those people are waiting and watching right now from that thirty-thousand feet. A big gap separates the two biggest factions in the country. The two sides are irreconcilable. One of them is especially unhappy.
The country doesn’t neatly divide like the north and the south in 1860. Both factions live in the same states. Red citizens are fleeing blue states to red ones. A few years ago some started calling this, the great American divorce (here and here) or American secession (here and here). Historian Victor Davis Hanson says we’re on the verge of our French Revolution. He also called it, “The Impending Thermidor Reaction in Jacobin America.”
The Only Remedy
To go back to the way I began this essay, I call this slow motion car crash just a backdrop to the most important. The belief and practice of an individual true church surpasses the miserable condition of the nation. It seems obvious a future collision is coming. No one knows the outcome of this monumental head-on crash, but scripture says the remedy is still the same, the gospel.
Elevation of the gospel starts with the church. Turn and look to the message of the cross as the prescription. Judgment must begin in the house of God.
You Can Lead an Evangelistic Bible Study!
You can lead an evangelistic Bible study! I have mentioned on What is Truth? before the series of evangelistic Bible studies that the FaithSaves.net website has made available. The seven studies themselves can be viewed here, where one can also see an example by video of how one can present them to the lost. The files can also be downloaded and customized with updated church addresses here. They are in use in various churches in the United States and in foreign countries.
If you have never led an evangelistic Bible study before, I have had the privilege of teaching an extensive series on how to lead one which you can watch. We have gone through study #1, on the nature of Scripture, study #2, on the one true Triune God, study #3, on God’s law and man’s sin, and study #4, on the Person of the Mediator, Jesus Christ, and His death, burial, and resurrection. Study #5, covering repentance and faith, has been started. So now you can not only see a video example of how to lead an evangelistic Bible study, have extensive written notes that can help you to do it, but also have extensive video teaching on how to do it.
Thus, if you are not trying to preach the gospel to the lost and to follow the pattern in Acts of regularly giving more and more truth to interested people until they either repent and believe or are hardened and do not want the truth anymore, what is your excuse? Is it one that will stand up at the judgment seat of the holy Christ who died for the sins of the world? Can Christ die for every person, but you do nothing or nearly nothing to preach the gospel to them, both through clearly explaining the entire gospel in single interactions and through evangelistic explanation in repeated, regular sessions–an evangelistic Bible study?
Of course, there are many ways to explain to the lost the glorious riches of God’s grace. If your church has a different evangelistic Bible study that they like better, that still presents the full-orbed truth, that is just fine. But you need to be doing something. Christ did not save you so that you could be in the pew-warming ministry, but so that you can be in the ministry of making disciples from every kindred, tongue, and nation (Matthew 28:18-20).
–TDR
God Does NOT Love Everyone? An Error of Hyper-Calvinism, part 3 of 3
Is it true that God does NOT love everyone? Hyper-Calvinism says “yes,” but Scripture says “no!” In part 1 and part 2 of this series, I summarized the first portions of my study God Does Not Love Everyone: A Hyper-Calvinist Error. This final part will summarize the final portion of God Does Not Love Everyone: A Hyper-Calvinist Error, to which readers are encouraged to refer for more information.
Hyper-Calvinism Employs Exegetical and Logical Fallacies
When Arguing God Does Not Love the Non-Elect:
Texts on God’s Hatred
Hyper-Calvinism may contend that some passages of Scripture prove that God does not love the non-elect. For example, the Bible states:
As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. (Romans 9:13)
The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity. (Psalm 5:5)
5 The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth. 6 Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup. 7 For the righteous LORD loveth righteousness; his countenance doth behold the upright.” (Psalm 11:5-7)
These passages clearly teach that God hates the wicked. But they do not say that God does NOT love them at the same time. Jehovah is perfectly capable of having love in one sense for a wicked person while hating him in a different sense. Indeed, Psalm 5:5 states that God hates “all” workers of iniquity, so even the elect, before they believe, are hated by God in one sense while being eternally loved by Him in a different sense. If God can love and hate the elect at the same time in different senses, He is perfectly capable of doing the same for the non-elect.
Furthermore, Romans 9:13 is not even about the individuals Jacob and Esau. Paul quotes Malachi 1:2-3, which speaks of God’s special blessings on the nation of Israel, blessings withheld from the nation of Edom. Consider Malachi 1:1-5:
1 The burden of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi. 2 I have loved you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob’s brother? saith the LORD: yet I loved Jacob, 3 And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness. 4 Whereas Edom saith, We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places; thus saith the LORD of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down; and they shall call them, The border of wickedness, and, The people against whom the LORD hath indignation for ever. 5 And your eyes shall see, and ye shall say, The LORD will be magnified from the border of Israel. (Malachi 1:1-5)
Romans 9:13 never denies that God loved Esau—God is able to love sinners in one sense while hating them in another. More fundamentally, Romans 9:13 is not even about the individual people Jacob and Esau at all, except insofar as they are the progenitors of the nations of Israel and Edom.
These passages of Scripture are simply taken out of context by hyper-Calvinism.
Hyper-Calvinism Employs Exegetical and Logical Fallacies
When Arguing God Does Not Love the Non-Elect:
Texts on God’s Special Love
Advocates of hyper-Calvinism can also argue that Scripture speaks of God’s love in passages that limit His love to the elect. There are indeed passages of Scripture that show that Jehovah has a special love for His believing people. However, this no more denies that God loves the non-elect than does the fact that a Christian husband has a special love for his wife proves that the husband hates everyone else. Hyper-Calvinism needs texts of Scripture that affirm that God does not love some people, not passages that say God does love some people. There simply are no such texts in God’s Word.
Hyper-Calvinism Makes Further Exegetical
and Historical Fallacies
Hyper-Calvinism also makes other fallacious exegetical arguments. Indeed, hyper-Calvinism does not even accurately represent the teaching of John Calvin. Calvin, speaking about the rich young ruler in Mark 10:21, wrote: “Jesus beholding him, loved him [Mark 10:21]. … [A]ll the creatures of God, without exception, are the objects of his love. … God is sometimes said to love those whom he does not approve or justify … Christ … love[d] a man [like the rich young ruler] who was proud and a hypocrite, while nothing is more hateful to God than these two vices[.] (John Calvin and William Pringle, Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists Matthew, Mark, and Luke, vol. 2 [Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010], 398–399.)
Thus, the teaching of hyper-Calvinism that God does not love every individual grossly misinterprets Scripture while also misinterpreting history. Even John Calvin did not teach the hyper-Calvinist notion that God loves only the elect. Since neither the Bible, nor even John Calvin, taught this false idea, you should not teach or believe it either. Reject such a slander on the character of God and recognize that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). Please read God Does Not Love Everyone: A Hyper-Calvinist Error for more information.
–TDR
Evangelistic Christian T-Shirts, Collared Shirts, Car Magnet
God the Father, Son, and Spirit are seeking for true worshippers (John 4:23); nobody can truly worship the Father through Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit without being born again (John 3:3). Have you thought about whether you should have some evangelistic clothing that offers people the gospel, or whether your car can preach the gospel? In the Millennium even the bells on the horses will be holy to Jehovah (Zechariah 14:20). Why not make your mode of transportation clearly identified with the risen Christ now?
I created a few designs at Zazzle of evangelistic T-shirts, collared shirts, bumper stickers, and a car magnet with Bible verses that point people to faithsaves.net with its evangelistic material. (It is almost always best to click through a portal to save a bit extra whenever shopping on the Internet.)
The evangelistic shirt I am wearing in the pic below is one of those I designed. My wife and I were hiking in God’s creation to the top of a place called Bald Mountain in the Bay Area. (It is near the town of Ross. I feel very welcome there-it’s a nice place, for sure.) I usually wear this neon shirt when I am biking back and forth to work. That way I am not just visible on my bike, but everyone who goes by can have access to the gospel. Furthermore, when I am at work I basically need to have someone else initiate the conversation if I am going to talk about the gospel, but if coworkers see the shirt I am wearing when I bike in they know I am a Christian and also know how to find out more about the gospel without me having to say anything, as well as knowing that if they want to learn more about their Creator they have someone to ask about it. So that is very good.
By the way, we actually hiked to the planet Saturn on the same walk up Bald Mountain-here are pictures to prove it.
So now you know–a What is Truth? exclusive–now you know that all that stuff about Saturn being a gas planet and it being very far away from the sun and very cold is not true. You can actually hike to Saturn from Marin County near San Francisco, California, and the temperature on Saturn is remarkably temperate. Maybe the Seventh-Day Adventist prophetess Ellen White was actually right when she counted the moons of Jupiter and Saturn and said that “the inhabitants are a tall, majestic people.” I’m pretty tall, and at least my wife thinks I can be majestic. And here I was, hiking to the planet Saturn. Thanks, Mrs. White!
Fake news you can trust, eh?
This shirt comes in a variety of sizes and colors (you don’t need neon if you don’t want that color.) My wife Heather also has a nice shirt that says “Ye must be born again” and has the faithsaves.net website on it.
The evangelistic car magnets are also great. (We have had the bumper stickers for a while already.) It is a blessing that if we are in the parking lot at the grocery store, or are stuck in traffic, it means that the people next to us have a chance to come to know the true God and receive eternal life instead of spending eternity in hell. Why should a zillion companies advertise their products on their cars, but believers not evangelize with their cars?
Obviously, God has given us a great deal of liberty within His guidelines of modesty and gender distinction about what we should wear, as long as we do it for His glory (1 Corinthians 10:31). I would encourage you to consider using that liberty to confess Christ and offer the gospel with evangelistic clothing and evangelistic transportation in this desperately needy, hell-bound world.
–TDR
Sanctification: Bible, Keswick, Wesleyan, Pentecostal Views
Confusion on the nature of progressive sanctification is widespread today. What are the basic differences between the views on sanctification taught in the Bible and the views of sanctification promoted by the Wesleyan (Methodist, Holiness), Keswick (Higher Life), Pentecostal (Assemblies of God), and what I call the Weak on Repentance (“free grace,” anti-Lordship) movements?
As part of the series on how to lead an evangelistic Bible study (the studies themselves are here), I provide an overview of these five different positions (one true, four false) in the video below, which can also be watched and commented on YouTube here.
–TDR
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