The Front Page Cover
The Events of the Week -- Featuring:
Mind-blowing revelations in 'The Story of Reality'
by David Limbaugh
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An Oxymoron: 'The Left's Tea Party'
With the all of the protesting and rioting across the country since Donald Trump's election, some in the mainstream media suggest that this is evidence of a leftist grassroots political movement akin to a "progressive tea party." While there is little question these protests and riots attract a lot of media attention, is this really an organized grassroots cohesive movement? Not exactly.
There is a profound and fundamental difference between the Tea Party movement and the current leftist "resistance" temper tantrum. The Tea Party was truly a grassroots movement born out of serious individual concerns over the ballooning national debt, government regulations and the need to lower taxes — the very ideas of Liberty that lit the fires of the American Revolution. It was a melting pot of traditional socially minded conservatives and libertarians — both concerned about the loss of individual liberty and the growing creep of socialism. It was the passage of liar-nObamaCare that saw the Tea Party come into its own as a truly potent political force that helped lead to GOP majorities in both the House and Senate. These Republicans took office with the goal of being reformers, not revolutionaries.
Leftist malcontents currently protesting and rioting aren't interested in connecting with traditional American values, though they like to throw around terms like "un-American." Quite the contrary; they see traditional American values as simply codes for racism, bigotry and sexism. To this leftist grievance class everything is about "equality" or the lack thereof — an inequity of outcome, not opportunity. In reality, what the Left is after is neo-Marxism. When they talk of a grassroots movement, they are speaking of the rise of a new proletariat. They seek a complete re-ordering of society around their leftist concepts of "social justice." In reality, these protesters are hoping to birth a red revolution, not a reformation.
It's individual freedom versus collectivism. American history has shown time and again that Americans prefer individual Liberty with its Rule of Law over and against collectivist tyranny and its rule of men. It seems to us there is no comparison between these movements, only contrast. ~The Patriot Post
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Investigation Exposes UN Agents
Inciting Terrorism, Hate
by Alex Newman
{thenewamerican.com} ~ The United Nations Relief and Works Agency is under fire yet again over employees who publicly promote terrorism, praise National Socialist mass-murderer Adolf Hitler, support violent jihad, and foment hatred of Jews... The latest accusations, documented in a 130-page report provided to U.S. lawmakers, come from an investigation by the non-profit watchdog group UN Watch. Dozens of UN agents and employees were implicated, including many with access to children. The explosive new revelations were laid out late last week at a U.S. congressional subcommittee hearing dealing with the UN, Israel, and Arabs. The investigative report, entitled “Poisoning Palestinian Children: A Report on UNRWA Teachers’ Incitement to Jihadist Terrorism & Antisemitism,” exposes some 40 instances of UN officials and employees — some of whom are in the classroom supposedly “teaching” vulnerable children — spreading hatred, promoting terror, and more. According to a statement released by UN Watch, the investigation found more than 40 Facebook pages operated by UN school teachers, principals, and other employees that incite terrorism and anti-Semitism...
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USS George H.W. Bush Launches
Anti-ISIS Strikes from Mediterranean
by Sam LaGrone
by Sam LaGrone
{news.usni.org} ~ Strike fighters from USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77) launched Monday against targets in Syria as part of the ongoing Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR)... “By defeating violent extremists in Iraq and Syria, we are simultaneously supporting two separate geographic combatant commands. We remain committed to defeating ISIS, committed to our allies and partners, and committed to global security,” Vice Adm. Christopher W. Grady, commander, U.S. 6th Fleet, said in a Navy statement...
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Defense Leaders Agree: US Military
Readiness Is at a Dangerous Low
by John Cooper
by John Cooper
{dailysignal.com} ~ This week on Capitol Hill, several top U.S. military leaders from across the armed services presented a sobering case to Congress... U.S. military readiness is the lowest it has been in decades, leaving it unprepared to defend America’s interests at home and abroad. In testimony before the Senate and House Armed Services committees, the vice chiefs of staff of the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force articulated pressing concerns about the state of their branches’ readiness to respond to conflicts overseas or attacks on the homeland. The hearing highlighted substantial readiness and capacity issues within each of the services:... http://dailysignal.com/2017/02/10/defense-leaders-agree-us-military-readiness-is-at-a-dangerous-low/?utm_source=TDS_Email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MorningBell&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTkdSbU16ZzNNakUzWm1VNCIsInQiOiIzNEQwUmo3WDNhTGNyU29aQndsQVdkWGVBb3RzRUw1XC9SWkFmSk1vS0grbTV0anU5QU1leWw1T3ZJY3lrUHhlQjN4TnUwRGZxbnZEeHIrNDhGNHVaczB5azFKdFY5TDlXSWhNXC9ac09RNmtyVXd1OEpzWmNtaE94VlV2TnA5V1dwIn0%3D
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National Security Advisor Michael Flynn Resigns
by Mary Chastain
{legalinsurrection.com} ~ President Donald Trump’s national security advisor Michael Flynn has resigned after he came under fire over his contacts with Russian officials... The resignation comes after the Justice Department announced that officials had “warned the Trump administration last month that Flynn misled administration officials regarding his communications with the Russian ambassador to the United States and was potentially vulnerable to blackmail by the Russians.” Flynn wrote an extensive resignation letter:...This is a sad day. http://legalinsurrection.com/2017/02/national-security-advisor-michael-flynn-resigns/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LegalInsurrection+%28Le%C2%B7gal+In%C2%B7sur%C2%B7rec%C2%B7tion%29
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White House interviewing Petraeus
as possible Flynn replacement
by Anna Giaritelli
by Anna Giaritelli
{washingtonexaminer.com} ~ President Trump and his top advisers will talk with retired Gen. David Petraeus this week as a possible replacement for National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, according to a report... Trump regularly referenced Petraeus during his campaign speeches last year, telling guests at rallies that the former general was punished more severely for leaking classified information to his mistress than former State Sec. liar-Hillary Clinton was reprimanded for setting up a private email server. Trump had briefly considered Petraeus for secretary of state. He passed over him due to the earlier incident and the problems that might create with confirmation in the Senate, a hurdle which is not in the way for national security advisor... http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/white-house-interviewing-petraeus-as-possible-flynn-replacement/article/2614723?custom_click=rss/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Examiner%20Today&utm_source=StructureCMS
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Mind-blowing revelations in 'The Story of Reality'
by David Limbaugh
{wnd.com} ~ Greg Koukl’s “The Story of Reality” is one of the most important books I’ve read in a long time, and I want to encourage you – Christians and non-Christians – to read it. I know of no more efficient way to introduce you to the meaning of Christianity and the Christian worldview.
Sometimes even Christians reduce the Gospel message to its simplest form and talk as though the Bible began with the New Testament. But the Gospel didn’t arise in a vacuum.
When Jesus died to save sinners, he did so in the context of a divinely orchestrated story line of human history. As Nancy Pearcey observes in her compelling foreword to the book, “Christianity cannot be reduced to a tract or a technique for getting ‘saved.’ It is a comprehensive account of the structure of reality, a rational and real-world account of the history of the universe, a verifiable storyline of the unfolding of the cosmos.”
Though Jesus delivered the most sublime moral teachings known to man, Koukl insists that “the two indispensable things you need to know about Jesus have little to do with his teachings in general. Instead they have to do with who Jesus was and what he came to accomplish, also known as the person and the work of Christ.”
And this is critical: “The divide for Jesus was not between the poor and the rich, but between the proud and the repentant, regardless of income or social standing. Miss that, and you miss everything,” writes Koukl. “These are the facts we must face if we are to get Jesus right. ‘Social justice’ is not the Gospel. It was not Jesus’ message. It was not why he came. His real message was much more radical. Jesus’ teaching – and the Story itself – focuses on something else. Not on the works of Christians but rather on the work of Christ. That is what the Story teaches.”
Koukl, as well as anyone in modern times, summarizes and elucidates the Bible’s grand sweep and shows how it provides the answers to the transcendent philosophical questions that have intrigued and troubled mankind from the beginning. “What is the reason for everything? Why am I here? Why is anything here?”
The author himself doesn’t presume to unveil a complete picture of reality as if he personally discovered it in an exclusive epiphany. Rather, he contends that the God-inspired Bible supplies the answers and that they are accessible to all of us because God intended them to be.
The Bible doesn’t have to be intimidating. It presents the story of mankind, whose author created human beings in his image to share his infinite love and his happiness with us. It is a unified, integrated account from beginning to end (the end not having yet occurred), and we are all part of the story.
Christianity doesn’t begin in Bethlehem with God’s entrance into human history 2,000 years ago. Our triune God created humankind and placed us in his wonderfully crafted world knowing in advance that we would corrupt ourselves through sin. “Evil did not catch God by surprise.”
Our perfect God knew that to restore mankind to our original state, suitable to being in God’s presence throughout eternity, he would have to send his son to become one of us while also retaining his divine nature, suffer the indignities of human existence, live a sinless life, die a sacrificial and substitutionary death for our sins, and be resurrected to life so that by faith in Him, we could be redeemed and saved.
Koukl traces the Bible’s storyline and demonstrates that “Christianity is a picture of reality. It is an account or a description or a depiction of the way things actually are. It is not just a view from the inside (a Christian’s personal feelings or religious beliefs or spiritual affections or ethical views or ‘relationship’ with God). It is also a view of the outside. It is a view of the world out there, of how the world really is in itself.”
But Christianity is not merely one of many possible explanations of reality. It is the explanation of how things actually are – of who God is, why he created us, how we blew it (and continue to blow it) when he created us, how He supplied the remedy and how the story ends. In short, the Bible describes the Creation, the Fall, the Redemption and our ultimate restoration.
The Old Testament isn’t in the Bible for occasional reference. It contains the beginning of the story, and it relates God’s establishment of his chosen nation of Israel through Abraham and God’s promise to bless all of mankind through the Messiah, who would come from that nation. The Gospel must be understood in the context of God’s entire story for mankind.
Once you understand the story – once you grasp the big picture of reality as laid out in the Bible – you will see that certain thorny problems that were formerly obstacles to your faith need not be obstacles at all. For example, the existence and pervasiveness of evil despite there being an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God are not incomprehensible at all. “Evil is not the problem for Christianity that people think it is,” writes Koukl, “because it is not foreign to the Story. It is central to it. It fits right in. In a certain sense, the entire Story is precisely about how the world went bad and how it gets fixed.” Paradoxically, evil is a far bigger problem for the atheist than it is for the Christian – but you’ll have to read the book to see how Koukl fascinatingly unpacks this.
It is extremely difficult to do justice to such a profound book in a short column, but let me just add that it affirms so much of my own thinking about Scripture and its mind-blowing revelations, which really are within our grasp if we’ll just pick up the Bible and read and study it.
The book will facilitate your understanding and accelerate your learning process. It is the most concise, cogent explanation of the Christian message I’ve encountered since C.S. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity.” If you are already a believer, it will clarify and reinforce your faith like few books I’ve read, and if you are not, it might just rock your world.
I have already recommended this amazing work to family and close friends and am now doing the same for all of you. You won’t be disappointed.
Sometimes even Christians reduce the Gospel message to its simplest form and talk as though the Bible began with the New Testament. But the Gospel didn’t arise in a vacuum.
When Jesus died to save sinners, he did so in the context of a divinely orchestrated story line of human history. As Nancy Pearcey observes in her compelling foreword to the book, “Christianity cannot be reduced to a tract or a technique for getting ‘saved.’ It is a comprehensive account of the structure of reality, a rational and real-world account of the history of the universe, a verifiable storyline of the unfolding of the cosmos.”
Though Jesus delivered the most sublime moral teachings known to man, Koukl insists that “the two indispensable things you need to know about Jesus have little to do with his teachings in general. Instead they have to do with who Jesus was and what he came to accomplish, also known as the person and the work of Christ.”
And this is critical: “The divide for Jesus was not between the poor and the rich, but between the proud and the repentant, regardless of income or social standing. Miss that, and you miss everything,” writes Koukl. “These are the facts we must face if we are to get Jesus right. ‘Social justice’ is not the Gospel. It was not Jesus’ message. It was not why he came. His real message was much more radical. Jesus’ teaching – and the Story itself – focuses on something else. Not on the works of Christians but rather on the work of Christ. That is what the Story teaches.”
Koukl, as well as anyone in modern times, summarizes and elucidates the Bible’s grand sweep and shows how it provides the answers to the transcendent philosophical questions that have intrigued and troubled mankind from the beginning. “What is the reason for everything? Why am I here? Why is anything here?”
The author himself doesn’t presume to unveil a complete picture of reality as if he personally discovered it in an exclusive epiphany. Rather, he contends that the God-inspired Bible supplies the answers and that they are accessible to all of us because God intended them to be.
The Bible doesn’t have to be intimidating. It presents the story of mankind, whose author created human beings in his image to share his infinite love and his happiness with us. It is a unified, integrated account from beginning to end (the end not having yet occurred), and we are all part of the story.
Christianity doesn’t begin in Bethlehem with God’s entrance into human history 2,000 years ago. Our triune God created humankind and placed us in his wonderfully crafted world knowing in advance that we would corrupt ourselves through sin. “Evil did not catch God by surprise.”
Our perfect God knew that to restore mankind to our original state, suitable to being in God’s presence throughout eternity, he would have to send his son to become one of us while also retaining his divine nature, suffer the indignities of human existence, live a sinless life, die a sacrificial and substitutionary death for our sins, and be resurrected to life so that by faith in Him, we could be redeemed and saved.
Koukl traces the Bible’s storyline and demonstrates that “Christianity is a picture of reality. It is an account or a description or a depiction of the way things actually are. It is not just a view from the inside (a Christian’s personal feelings or religious beliefs or spiritual affections or ethical views or ‘relationship’ with God). It is also a view of the outside. It is a view of the world out there, of how the world really is in itself.”
But Christianity is not merely one of many possible explanations of reality. It is the explanation of how things actually are – of who God is, why he created us, how we blew it (and continue to blow it) when he created us, how He supplied the remedy and how the story ends. In short, the Bible describes the Creation, the Fall, the Redemption and our ultimate restoration.
The Old Testament isn’t in the Bible for occasional reference. It contains the beginning of the story, and it relates God’s establishment of his chosen nation of Israel through Abraham and God’s promise to bless all of mankind through the Messiah, who would come from that nation. The Gospel must be understood in the context of God’s entire story for mankind.
Once you understand the story – once you grasp the big picture of reality as laid out in the Bible – you will see that certain thorny problems that were formerly obstacles to your faith need not be obstacles at all. For example, the existence and pervasiveness of evil despite there being an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God are not incomprehensible at all. “Evil is not the problem for Christianity that people think it is,” writes Koukl, “because it is not foreign to the Story. It is central to it. It fits right in. In a certain sense, the entire Story is precisely about how the world went bad and how it gets fixed.” Paradoxically, evil is a far bigger problem for the atheist than it is for the Christian – but you’ll have to read the book to see how Koukl fascinatingly unpacks this.
It is extremely difficult to do justice to such a profound book in a short column, but let me just add that it affirms so much of my own thinking about Scripture and its mind-blowing revelations, which really are within our grasp if we’ll just pick up the Bible and read and study it.
The book will facilitate your understanding and accelerate your learning process. It is the most concise, cogent explanation of the Christian message I’ve encountered since C.S. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity.” If you are already a believer, it will clarify and reinforce your faith like few books I’ve read, and if you are not, it might just rock your world.
I have already recommended this amazing work to family and close friends and am now doing the same for all of you. You won’t be disappointed.
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