Tolerance Will not be Tolerated
The political divide between the right and left has become incredibly wide. In fact, I did not think it would be possible to have a functioning society with this level of political discord. With each passing week, we manage to find a new low.
The latest milestone is that tolerance itself has become a dirty word. If you tolerate your enemy in any way, you are guilty of their political sins. Forget about Jesus’ sermon about loving your enemies. Hate is now the new virtue.
The Friendship between Ellen DeGeneres and George W. Bush has been in many news reports. The two made headlines when DeGeneres was spotted sitting next to Bush and his wife, Laura Bush, at a Dallas Cowboys football game. Ellen defended their friendship, saying, ‘We’re all different and I think that we’ve forgotten that that’s okay, that we’re all different.’
CNN and moderator Anderson Cooper were criticized for ending the night with a question about the TV host’s unlikely friendship with the former president. Cooper could have just as well asked if it’s odd that Trump has black friends. As a member of the leftist cabal, DeGeneres clearly violated some rule with her coziness with Bush.
I knew the day would come when Shepard Smith would leave Fox News. Smith, the network’s chief news anchor and managing editor of its breaking news unit, has worked at Fox News since its inception in 1996. He made headlines for his on-air criticism of President Donald Trump.
Smith was clearly working for the wrong network. He infused his show with a demonstrably hateful, contemptuous, and toxic anti-Trump tone, and his ‘reporting’ often sounds like Democrat talking-point propaganda. He frequently drew criticism from primetime stars like Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson.
I’m sure Shepard Smith will easily get a job at another network. His long career at Fox News may prove to be a problem. Someone will dig up old praises Smith had for a conservative, and that will be the end for him. The former Fox News head Roger Ailes having called Shepard Smith his “go-to guy” for “hard news” might as well be praise from Satan himself.
Megyn Kelly didn’t last long at NBC because she had worked for Fox News. The staff hated her because she, in their mind, could never get the smell of the so-called conservative network off of her flesh. It didn’t matter that Kelly had been a foe of President Trump. NBC had to pay out $25 million to rid itself of her.
Senator Cory Booker recently made an appearance at a CNN town hall, in which he advocated for religious intolerance. He basically suggests that Catholic schools across the country should shut down because they don’t endorse his homosexual lifestyle:
“And so for me, I cannot allow, as a leader, that people are going to use religion as a justification for discrimination. I could respect your religious freedoms, but also protect people from discrimination, and as I said in the earlier answer, I grew up in a household where my parents talked to me about how people used to use religion to justify the discrimination against African Americans.”
I don’t understand where he thinks he has the right to say “I cannot allow.” Catholics have a right to act in ways that don’t harm anybody else, and if they choose to have an institution that elevates heterosexuality above homosexuality, that is not harming anyone else. Booker doesn’t have to participate in that institution.
The sexual views of the Catholic church are based on natural law. For the same reason the Catholics are against abortion and contraception, they’re also against homosexual activity. Namely, they believe that the end of the sexual act is procreation, and that because sex is directed toward procreation and toward the deepening of relationships that end with procreation, heterosexual sex ought to be favored over homosexual activity.
If we cut to the chase on tolerance, the last thing to go will be patience for anyone who claims to be a believer in Jesus Christ. By having given any forms of intolerance a green light, murder will quickly become a reasonable punishment.
“Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name [than Jesus Christ] under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
“When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God, and because of the testimony which they had maintained” (Revelation 6:9).
–Todd
Thinking on Gog-Magog
Regions directly north of Jerusalem are being stirred to turmoil by the whirlwinds of prophetic destiny. Therefore it is the responsibility of watchmen on the wall to closely examine all things powerfully affecting that area so concentric to Bible prophecy yet to be fulfilled.
The specific prophecy, of course, involves that given about the Gog-Magog battle in Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39. We have been watching the stage setting for some time. Russia, which we believe to be Rosh, Iran (the greatest part of which is almost certainly Persia), and Turkey, which we believe to be a reference to most of what was ancient Togarmah, have been coalescing to Israel’s north for quite some time. This alone can be seen as nothing short of astonishing. Now, with the whole region directly to Israel’s north lighting up with what looks to be prophetic pyrotechnics, the spiritually attuned discerner’s observational powers should be fully turned on and in focus.
We have some from the Christian media community making declarations of what developments mean.
Pat Robertson said the following on his 700 Club show: “I am absolutely appalled that the United States is going to betray those Democratic forces in northern Syria, that we possibly are going to allow the Turkish to come in against the Kurds.” In typical “word of knowledge” power he claims to have, he offered further: “The President of the United States is in danger of losing the mandate of Heaven if he permits this to happen.”
While I can’t and don’t wish to be able to claim such “word of knowledge” ability to pontificate, I’m concerned, but not necessarily against, the president’s decision. I certainly don’t believe his decision to withdraw America from the immediate region of hostilities will doom Mr. Trump to a loss in the 2020 presidential election.
It might just be that the move is by the very hand of God. We can know for sure that America withdrawing in such a manner has in no way slipped up on the Creator of all things. This has not escaped His omniscience.
Turkey invading northern Syria to get at rebels of the region is a serious matter. The Kurdish people are in danger. Many among them are Christians, and that is one reason for many concerns among we who pray for our brothers and sisters there. But so should we pray for all who face death and destruction in this or any military incursion. So, I, like you, don’t view all this lightly.
I do, however, consider these matters from a particularly focused perspective. Things taking place in that biblically important part of the world at this late hour in this quickly fleeting Age of Grace must be critically important. In view of all other converging signs we are discerning, any such apparent stage-setting should light up the eschatological radar screens.
It is proper to consider, I think, whether this president’s decision to remove American involvement from that specific area is God-ordained. I don’t mean that Mr. Trump might be aware of it possibly being a directive from on high. That in no way is part of this bit of prophetic pondering on my part.
We know that America is not mentioned by name in Ezekiel’s Gog-Magog prophecy, just as the nation isn’t mentioned in any prophecy by name. Here is what we do know God’s prophetic Word says about the nations observing that attack from the sidelines –the attackers we believe to be led by Russia, Iran, and Turkey.
Sheba, and Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish, with all the young lions thereof, shall say unto thee, Art thou come to take a spoil? hast thou gathered thy company to take a prey? to carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and goods, to take a great spoil? (Ezekiel 38:13)
My scenario-pondering is wrapped up in the following. I claim no “word of knowledge.”
With America removed from that region of interminable conflict, the other nations that presently comprise NATO and all other countries of combatant-loaning sorts might not be willing to intervene against the assault. Most consider Israel as the problem in the world. Think about the UN being almost totally against Israel on every issue.
If America isn’t there at the time of the Gog-Magog assault, these nations will almost without question not seek to oppose the coalition, led by a powerful Russia.
The removal of America at this time from this theater of future war is most interesting to contemplate. God tells in this prophecy that He, alone, will save His chosen nation. There will be no doubt about who does the rescue.
America’s military might won’t do so. That’s for sure.
–Terry