The cry of the Lord these past two years continues to be the same as the 2,000 before, “Repent! For the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!” By all means care for your physical body, after all it is the temple of the Lord. But do not let these physical pursuits blind your eyes from Him who is eternal and who freely gives life to all who ask, seek, and knock! Death is coming. Today then is the day to find life by believing in Jesus Christ alone for salvation. 

Then he departed from Elisha, and came to his master, who said to him, “What did Elisha say to you?” And he answered, “He told me you would surely recover.” But it happened on the next day that he took a thick cloth and dipped it in water, and spread it over his face so that he died; and Hazael reigned in his place.
II Kings 8:14-15
Earlier this week during a driving rain I drove past a Covid testing center. More than 100 people were standing outside waiting for their chance to have a Covid test. The next day I passed a drive thru testing site where cars were lined up for more than a mile. The news is full of similar stories as the world risks sickness from exposure to the elements and spends massive amounts of time for the opportunity not to be treated for Covid, but simply to find out from tests if they might have Covid. The world has trained many to consider health the most important thing in life and worthy of all sacrifice to maintain it for as long as possible.
King Ben-Hadad and his armies had killed untold numbers of people. Men, women, and children had starved under his sieges, kings had been killed in his battles. But when sickness came upon him, Ben-Hadad was so worried he sent 40 camel-loads of gifts to Elisha not as payment to be healed but as payment for the knowledge of whether or not he would survive the illness. On that note, Elisha had good news. Ben-Hadad would recover. The results of the test? The disease was not fatal! The bad news was Ben-Hadad was focused on the wrong thing. He should have been concerned for his soul and his spiritual health more than his physical health which will one day abandon us all. Ben-Hadad was going to die anyway and in a way he seemed to have least expected — his long-time servant Hazael would smother him in his own bed!
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Written by Samuel G. Parkison |
Thursday, April 6, 2023
As a rule of thumb, if you are not sure if a conversation is verging into gossip, err on the side of caution and assume it is, and then be the awkward person and confess and steer the conversation away. Turn the lights on. Pump the breaks. “I’m sorry for any way I’ve fed into this, but it seems like our conversation is verging into gossip and I think we should stop talking about it.”

It is no secret that Ecclesiastes occupies a place in the biblical genre group we call wisdom literature. So, in some sense, we know what to do with this book. We go to it in order to find wisdom. But this does not mean that its instructions are straightforward. Often, it takes wisdom to get the wisdom contained in Ecclesiastes.
One of my favorite chapters in this book (and one which encapsulates this enigmatic nature of its wisdom) is chapter 10. In it we see that one of the key distinctions between worldly wisdom and heavenly wisdom comes down to this central concept: pride vs. humility. This distinction is hinted at all throughout the Proverbs when we learn how the “fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” The one who fears the Lord does not fear others. The one who worships the Lord does not worship the praise of others, the strength of arms, or the prestige of wisdom, wealth, and pleasure. The one who fears the Lord isn’t frantically acting out of a reactionary and prideful sense of self-advancement or self-protection. The one who fears the Lord is content with being forgotten by man, so long as he is remembered by God. The path out of folly and into wisdom, then, is a true and God-given humility. Solomon illustrates this in Ecclesiastes both positively, and negatively. That is, not only does he commend humble wisdom, he also calls attention to the tragedy of prideful folly.
The Self-Destruction of Foolish Actions
“He who digs a pit will fall into it, and a serpent will bite him who breaks through a wall. He who quarries stones is hurt by them, and he who splits logs is endangered by them. If the iron is blunt, and one does not sharpen the edge, he must use more strength, but wisdom helps one to succeed. If the serpent bites before it is charmed, there is no advantage to the charmer” (Ecclesiastes 10:8-11)
Here, Solomon paints a vivid picture of the self-destructive nature of folly. Picture the stubborn and prideful person who despises instruction and recklessly acts to his own hurt. This is the person who digs a pit carelessly, for someone else, and then falls into it himself (a favorite illustration for Solomon). This is the guy doing demolition on a snake-infested wall heedless of the words of caution given by the owner. This is the guy who recklessly quarries stones and splits logs without using the proper protection or protocol. This is the guy who is working away with all his might, trying to cut down a tree with a dull axe, unwilling to heed the counsel of another who instructs him to sharpen the blade first. He can’t be bothered with the counsel of others because he is so pridefully self-assured that he knows what he’s doing.
We can certainly think of other examples. One classic example used to be the husband who refused to ask for directions. And while GPS and smartphones have rendered this particular illustration irrelevant, the problem of folly is not resolved by technology. How many relational bridges have been burned because men and women are too pridefully stubborn to humble themselves and apologize? Think of the husband who refuses to call the electrician because he’s so confident he can fix the problem himself. Think of the wife who stubbornly refuses to heed the counsel of her husband on how to discipline the kids because she is so confident she knows what’s right. Think of the child who refuses to let his mom show him how to tie his shoe, tries to do it himself, and trips a few minutes later. The thing we really need to recognize here is that this kind of stubborn pride is not a personality quirk. It is folly.
And this is as good a place as any to remind my fellow parents of this central responsibility: we are to discipline and disciple the folly out of our children. They are born fools, and we are called to make them wise. The two-year-old’s inability to say “sorry” (or its equivalent) and practice self-control may not seem so bad right now, but when he’s a thirty-two-year-old, it can wreck a home and destroy lives.
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“It’s not a culture war, not anymore. There is no common civic ground on which liberals and conservatives meet and hash things out…The debates are over now. The Woke brigades won’t battle your ideas. The marketplace of ideas offends them—you offend them. Now, they have the power of termination…[T]he Revolution is here and you’re in it…They follow the motto of that brilliant manager of men, Joseph Stalin, who reasoned quite soundly: ‘No man, no problem.’”

Roman Catholic Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò describes the globalist “Great Reset,” devised by Davos billionaires and powerful politicians, as the work of Satan and “Luciferian Globalists.”[1] Protestant American believers warn that “America is writhing in the grip of a full-scale Marxist political and cultural revolution.”[2] Some conclude that the two movements are deeply related. As responsible citizens, Christians must certainly consider what role the church should play in seeking to hold back the progress of godless political power in their own nation.
It may seem unduly sensationalist to describe progressive current politics as Marxist, but wisdom dictates that we think seriously about how the future could pan out. Slow changes can suddenly speed up, causing us to regret not having seen a movement coming. As Mark Bauerlein, professor at Emory University and senior editor of First Things, states: “One moment you’re a citizen of a well-running republic. The next moment you see that the federal government seems unable to fulfill its most basic responsibilities.”[3]
I continue to be motivated by the serious, yet delicate, challenge of showing believers how their faith and gospel witness must be applied to this changing culture, just as Moses warned Israel when going into Canaan. He warned them to be aware of the dangers of living among people who worship false gods, citing the Lord’s judgment: They made me jealous by what is no god and angered me with their worthless idols (Deut 32:21).
When I arrived in America for the first time in 1964, as a naive young European, I was struck at both how “Christian” and how anti-Communist America was. Now recent arrivals from China, like Lily Tang-Williams, and from North Korea, like the youthful and brilliant Yeonomi Park, warn that they see much in America that reminds them of the horrendous cultures they left behind. Ms. Park recently studied at Columbia University and was shocked to see that the Marxist ideology she was taught in North Korea was now being taught in every class at this well-respected American school.[4] As I study Critical Race Theory and the antiracism movements of the day, I realize how ideologically Marxist these movements are; yet they are spreading throughout the culture with relative ease and increasing power—even in the country’s churches. These movements are successfully dividing American culture down the middle, in typical Marxist fashion!
Let’s be clear. The Marxist grab for social power has always sought to divide culture into antagonist segments: the oppressors and the oppressed. In Russia the divide was created between the bourgeois oppressors (land and business owners) and the proletariat oppressed (workers). In China the division was made between the “Black” (professionals) and the “Red” (under-class ) Chinese, whom Mao convinced to murder millions of fellow “Black” Chinese. In Cambodia the divide was between the intellectuals (which included anyone wearing glasses – true!) and the agricultural workers, who were roused by the Khmer Rouge and their cruel leader, Pol Pot, to murder nearly a quarter of the Cambodian population. In our time, Marxist-inspired Critical Race Theory divides Western culture into the oppressors (Whites) and the oppressed (Blacks and other minorities). Some leaders of this movement have clearly stated Marxist goals.
This is not new. According to a first-hand witness, black American Manning Johnson, in his book Color, Communism and Common Sense (1958), describes a vast attempt by Soviet and American communists in 1934–35 to undermine faith in American institutions through a program that would convince the general public that America is deeply racist. Mr. Johnson signed up for this revolutionary program. The goal was to create “a common front against the white oppressors.”[5] Johnson documents that the plot to use “Negroes as the [expendable] spearhead” of the undermining of America was created by Stalin in 1928, ten years after the creation of the Commintern (the World Organization of Communism). This was employed by “the top white communist leaders” hypocritically playing the idea of racial conflict in “a cold-blooded struggle for power” to “advance the cause of Communism” in America.[6] The goal was “to make the white man’s system, the white man’s government, responsible for everything.” He noted: “Smear is a cardinal technique,” seeking to “divide America” that can only be called “a propaganda hoax.”[7] “Black rebellion was what Moscow wanted. Bloody racial conflict would split America. During the confusion, demoralization and panic would set in.”[8] Apparently, the movement had little time for black people. Marx dismissed the black race as much closer to the animal kingdom.[9] Finally understanding his role as a pawn, Manning abandoned the program.
As Black Lives Matter (ironically awarded the Nobel Peace prize of 2021) ultimately shows, the controversy over racism is not so much an attempt at purging real racism as it is a Marxist-driven attempt to divide our culture between the oppressed Blacks and their White oppressors, in order to overthrow civilized Judeo-Christian American culture. The accusation that police brutality is causing black genocide has been shown to be false,[10] but BLM’s self-definition as emerging from Marxism is certain. Using racism as its cover story, Marxism pushes forward with its goal to divide America and to cause a revolution that will “upset the set-up!” An anonymous first-hand ex-participant in BLM (like Manning Johnson, years earlier) states: “I have seen this [racist] ideology up close and seen how it consumes and even destroys people, while dehumanizing anyone who dissents.”[11] In other words, BLM’s Marxism is an essential part of the neo-Marxist revival that seeks to bring an end to traditional Western civilization by the age-old technique of antagonistic cultural division.
Ibram X. Kendi, founder of Boston University’s Center for Antiracism Research was recently given a $10 million “no strings attached” grant by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.[12 ] This is a clear example of “woke capitalism,”[13] by which Dorsey uses his financial power to promote his vision of social justice while silencing opposing views on his Twitter platform, thereby undermining the democratic process. This money will help create a U. S. Department of Antiracism, with the power to overturn any law or policy at any level of government if the department determines that such policies do not contribute vigorously enough to antiracist theory. With the subjective notion of “equity” as the defining term, such a branch of government could, by fiat, redefine public morality. Fallible, omnipotent, moral busybodies will apply inscrutable rules to everyone except themselves. Nothing could be more Marxist! Ironically, Kendi, richly supported by successful businessmen and profiting hugely from the free market system, has announced that he opposes capitalism and free enterprise: “To love racism,” he states, “is to end up loving capitalism.”[14] Equity now determines action, and we will define what it is
Professor Bauerlein understands precisely where we now are.
“It’s not a culture war, not anymore. There is no common civic ground on which liberals and conservatives meet and hash things out…The debates are over now. The Woke brigades won’t battle your ideas. The marketplace of ideas offends them—you offend them. Now, they have the power of termination…[T]he Revolution is here and you’re in it…They follow the motto of that brilliant manager of men, Joseph Stalin, who reasoned quite soundly: ‘No man, no problem.’”[15]
Stalin had many of his dissenting colleagues shot through the head. With cancel culture, it is now, as Bauerlein perceptively observes: “No conservatives, no problem.”[16] Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, and a careful social analyst, says, reflecting on Norway’s recent law declaring illegal speech against transgenderism, even at home:[17] “Free speech in the United States these days is becoming described as a danger that needs to be controlled as opposed to a traditional value that defines this country as a democracy.… [F]ree speech…is under fire and may even be a minority view today.”[18] He refers to President Biden who selected Richard Stengel to take the “team lead” position on the US Agency for Global Media. “Stengel has been one of the most controversial figures calling for censorship and speech controls, a person who rejects the very essence of free speech. He promises the “unity” of a nation silenced by government speech codes and censorship.”[19] He is one of those who knows what equity is.
If this is true, we may be increasingly close to the situation of the German church in the 1930s. It watched the political rise of Hitler and the promotion of NAZI ideology. Individual Catholics and Protestants spoke out, but the church made no public opposition to antisemitism or to state-sanctioned violence against the Jews.[20] After 1945, the silence and even complicity of the church during the Holocaust produced major issues of guilt and recrimination. We may ask, without any sense of superiority: What should the German church have done to stop the slaughter of 6 million Jews, a bloodbath going on right under its nose?
Now is the time to ask what our Christian response must be to a dangerous political program that seeks to the divide culture and may well end up in far more physical violence than we have yet seen. May God grant us wisdom to face such a possible cultural future, not in order to produce a “Christian nation” but out of respect for God and for those made in his image. Yet while we live in this fallen world, we must also defend biblical principles of sound living, and of fair and polite discussion. We have the blessing of a First Amendment, which we would do well to defend. We must also defend the rule of law, any policy that promotes the nobility of the individual, normative male/female distinctions, and defense of the pre-born.
Clearly, truth must speak to power, whatever response it receives—even if it is a violent one. We must preach the gospel fervently both to the oppressors and the oppressed, for we all share a world temporarily under the oppression of the Evil one. We have true peace with God only through the suffering, sacrifice, death and resurrection of our coming King. We must make known the truth about God, the good Creator, whose common grace is extended to everyone and whose special grace is shown to all who will hear and respond to the saving death of his Son, which will produce the redemption of the entire creation (Romans 8:18–21), for God’s final glory—and for perfect, divinely defined, equity.
Dr. Peter Jones is scholar in residence at Westminster Seminary California and associate pastor at New Life Presbyterian Church in Escondido, Calif. He is director of truthXchange, a communications center aimed at equipping the Christian community to recognize and effectively respond to the rise of paganism. This article is used with permission.

[1]WND LINK: “…corrupt civil and church authorities have joined forces to exploit the coronavirus pandemic in their quest to bolster global sovereignty.”[2] “How Big Tech, Big Media, lying Democrats, deep staters and vote fraudsters cheated Trump – and America,” WND (September 02, 2021).[3]AM GREATNESS LINK, see also FRONT PAGE MAG LINK[4] Alex Newman, “Critical Race Theory: Marxist Poison Infecting America,” The New American (August, 9, 2021), 11-17.[5] Manning Johnson, Color, Communism and Common Sense (Martino Fine Books,1958), 7 and 15.[6] Johnson, ibid, 37.[7] Johnson, ibid., 44, 52 and 54.[8]FREE REPUBLIC LINK Joseph Hippolito BLM, Antifa and the Communist Strategy to Destroy the United States Frontpagemagazine | Sep 24, 2020 |[9] According to the recently deceased Walter Williams, see NEWS HERALD LINK[10] The BLM myth is turning the many encounters law enforcement had with African-Americans in 2019 into a racist genocide. In fact, only 9 unarmed blacks were killed by police in 2019 and, according to police records, a majority of the fatal encounters were the outcome of fully justified police actions of self-defense. In the same year, 19 unarmed whites were shot dead by police; yet no one hears or even seems to care about these victims, because they don’t fit the Left’s narrative of black genocide. 93% of all black homicide victims are killed by other blacks. This is the true genocide that needs to be stopped. Police are NOT waging war on African-Americans. This is a profound lie. This is NOT a nation mired in systemic racism. No one knows leftist radicals better than David Horowitz. He says Black Lives Matter, Antifa and Occupy Wall Street all seek the same thing: a progressive, socialist revolution in America – and they are far closer to achieving it today than ’60s radicals ever were.[11]NEW DISCOURSE LINK[12]BU EDU LINK[13] See Vivek Ramaswamy, Woke, Inc: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam, (Center Street, NY, 2021), 19.[14] by FRONT PAGE MAG LINK [15] Art.cit.[16] Art.cit.[17]FAITHWIRE LINK[18]THEHILL LINK[19]JONATHANTURLEY LINK[20]ENCYCLOPEDIA LINK