Have You Ever Been a Republican or a Member of the Republican Party?
The hatred of anyone who is a conservative or a member of the Republican Party has become so extreme, it’s quickly becoming a now or never moment for people on the right. The Republican Party has ranks that are larger than most any political groups, and yet we are attacked by groups that only have less than one 10th of our numbers.
During the dark days of the 1950’s Red Scare, it would be a career-ending move to admit to being a card-carrying communist. Despite the risk, numerous writers, actors, and directors were willing to stonewall Washington committees that were seeking to identify their party affiliation. Today, if a member of the Hollywood club admits to being a conservative, they are the ones seen as un-American. Any actor who comes out of the closet as a Republican will quickly find himself blackballed by the entertainment industry.
It is very odd that nearly all the major studios are run by liberals. Since the nation is 50/50 on the Republican/Democrat split, you would think that the bias of studios would also be equal. In fact, liberals control 90% of Hollywood.
Actor James Woods is a rare conservative who has been active on Twitter. On July 4th, his liberal agent, Ken Kaplan, dropped him as a client. “It’s the 4th of July and I’m feeling patriotic,” the email from Kaplan began. “I don’t want to represent you anymore.” Woods fired back, “Dear Ken, I don’t actually. I was thinking if you’re feeling patriotic, you would appreciate free speech and one’s right to think as an individual. Be that as it may, I want to thank you for all your hard work and devotion on my behalf. Be well.”
At this point, Woods can just as well consider himself retired. Once a person identifies themself in the conservative camp, their career is at an end.
It is interesting that liberals are the ones who had been moaning for decades about the investigation in the 1950s over the influence that communists had in Hollywood. The House Un-American Activities Committee destroyed hundreds of careers by asking the basic question, “Have you ever been a communist or a member of the Communist Party?”
The liberal media have now become Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, and conservatives are the ones who have to be secretive about their party affiliation. Conservatives are one of the largest voting blocks in America, but we keep finding ourselves marginalized because we don’t have the will to fight back.
When Tim Allen was on Jimmy Kimmel Live on 3/17/17, he talked about going to President Donald Trump’s Inauguration. He jokingly said that “being a conservative in Hollywood is like being a Jew in 1930’s Nazi Germany.” Allen should have been more forceful in his remarks because he quickly became the Jew in the story by having his top-rated Comedy show cancelled by ABC for his conservative views.
Over many years, we have become a punching bag for the left. Today, the most celebrated form of comedy is political attacks on conservatives. If a comedian makes a sick joke about Trump, Yahoo.com will post it as news. If you mock leading Republicans at a correspondents’ dinner, they give you your own show, just like Michelle Wolf.
Cringe comedy is a specific genre of comedy that derives humor from being socially offensive. Sacha Baron Cohen is perfectly set for this form of vile humor because he seems like someone who is incapable of experiencing shame. He will say or do anything for a laugh. Cohen has recently generated news by duping several Republicans into fake interviews on a show called “Who Is America?” Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Republican state Rep. Jason Spencer, former Illinois Republican Congressman Joe Walsh, and Senate Republican Trent Lott were some of his targets.
In his show, Cohen spends most of his time trying to paint Republicans as gun-loving, racist hypocrites. Since it is off limits to go after the true clowns in politics: Hillary Clinton; Maxine Waters; Nancy Pelosi; and Barack Obama, we end up with a very predictable plotline. The debut of “Who Is America?” attracted only 327,000 total viewers and a 0.1 rating among the key demographic of adults age 18-49, according to Deadline.
Showtime’s highly popular “Billions” delivered 1.4 million viewers when it launched in 2016, according to Deadline. The network’s anti-Trump “My Cartoon President,” an animated lampooning of the administration, averages roughly 310,000 viewers, according to Variety, which puts it in the same league as “Who Is America?”
What makes a Republican such an easy victim is that they don’t realize that the world is a constant battle zone. The left is empowered by Satan, and he fights to win.
“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8).
–Todd
Missing Dave Hunt
Circumstances involving an email arose the other day, revolving around a request that I address a question in Bible prophecy. A dear ministry friend had just received the email asking what I meant by something I wrote in a commentary that my friend posted on her website. The question was about Jesus’ prophecy in Matthew 24 regarding the days of Noah and days of Lot–Matthew 24:36-44.
This prophecy is one I consider most relevant to this very moment in which we find ourselves. I believe the Lord was talking specifically to the present generation. We have covered the prophecy a number of times in recent weeks. I am convicted in my spirit that we stand upon the very precipice of its fulfillment.
Here is that prophecy:
But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.” (Matthew 24:37-42)
Jesus followed up the exhortation to be watchful with a second exhortation reinforcing the first: “Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh” (Matthew 24:44).
After responding to the emails from my friend and her website follower, I began to think back on one of the great prophecy teachers I’ve been privileged to call friend and Christian brother. It is Dave Hunt to whom I refer, as the title of this commentary suggests. I’m sure that most all who read this article know about this superb speaker, writer, and teacher of God’s Word.
Dave went to his heavenly home a few years ago. His ministry is The Berean Call, which continues today.
The question of whether the Rapture of the Church is in Jesus’ Matthew 24 Olivet Discourse has long been a somewhat contentious matter among students of Bible prophecy. Most often, the seminary line has it that there is no reference whatsoever to the Rapture in that account, although some within that high realm of Bible academia believe the Rapture is within the prophecy Jesus gave.
I, of course, don’t belong to that high realm, but do believe with all that is within my spirit that Jesus was foretelling not only the Rapture, but a pre-Trib Rapture, meaning that the Rapture will happen prior to the Tribulation era, that great time of worldwide judgment and wrath prophesied by Jesus in the Olivet Discourse, Paul in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, the prophet Daniel in 9:26-27, and John in the Book of Revelation.
The preachers and teachers of this present day continue to neglect Bible prophecy, and almost never express any thoughts whatsoever on the Rapture of the Church. These spend even less time presenting their parishioners with any teaching on the pre-Trib view of the Rapture.
It is with this lament weighing heavily that–upon dealing with the above-mentioned email–Dave Hunt came to mind.
Dave conducted a session at the Pre-Trib Study Group in Dallas on the Matthew 24 prophecy in 1998. I sat in on that early-morning session and was validated in my spirit by Dave’s facing the study group head-on with his lecture.
Many there that morning were of the higher academic sort–good brothers, sisters in Christ all. But, many–probably most–believed the Olivet Discourse held no mention of the Rapture. That prophetic utterance by the Lord, most held, was and is for Israel only.
I looked into my computer and found my files on that session. I have both a transcript of the session and the audio file. I’ve had fun going over both since entertaining the email interaction mentioned above.
Dave Hunt gave a masterful rendering of Matthew 24 that morning in 1998. He began with his terrific sense of humor in full force, although most of us were still trying to come to our senses as we sipped on black, caffeine-soaked coffee.
Dave said:
Well, if the truth were to be known, which is not easy, Tommy [Dr. Thomas Ice, Pre-Trib study group director] scheduled me at this early hour, hoping nobody would show up to here my heresies, and I was hoping the Greek scholars wouldn’t be here, to bombard me with errorist indicatives and that kind of stuff. Furthermore, I knew Tommy was throwing me to the lions this morning, and my name isn’t Daniel, so I got cold feet and decided to change the topic. He said the topic is “Is the rapture in the Olivet Discourse?” Well, I’d like to talk on the topic “The pre-trib rapture in the Olivet Discourse.” I couldn’t quite handle that question. I couldn’t justify why there ought to be any question at all. Why the pre-trib rapture, or the rapture, or the church, or anything else was in the Olivet Discourse.
Dave defended his–and my- belief that Jesus was indeed speaking of the Rapture and even more so to the pre-Trib Rapture in the days of Noah, days of Lot portion of His Olivet Discourse.
We are at a time in human history that Jesus described perfectly, as only the God of all creation could. Again, I believe that Donald J. Trump was put in the presidency of the United States for just this hour. We are, I believe, entering a time of building, buying, planting, socially intensive activity like marrying and giving in marriage, unprecedented in the annals of mankind. It will be just at such a time–“a time you think not”- that the “Son of man is revealed.”
Jesus Christ’s “revelation” to this rebellious world will come in the form of the Rapture of all born-again believers, both sleeping in death and those alive, when He calls, “Come up here!” (Revelation 4:1).
–Terry