“Every man dies, not every man truly lives. We must fight for that authentic freedom and live, my friends, by God we must live,”
https://t.co/ScVWhP699C
The stereotype is that educated families raise secular kids.
The GSS disagrees.
Never-attenders and weekly churchgoers are now equally likely to have a college-educated parent — a gap that was real and measurable as recently as 1980.
It ended with US conquering Japan and is the sole conqueror in the Pacific region. Based on the doctrine of debellatio under international law, the US is the only country that has power over the legal status of Taiwan.
See "an Analysis of The International Legal Status of Taiwan based on The San Francisco Peace Treaty and The Taipei Peace Treaty" by Prof. I-kai Chen
The US government, citing national security authorities, has issued an export control directive to suspend all access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 by any foreign national, whether inside or outside the United States, including foreign national Anthropic employees.
The net effect of this order is that we must abruptly disable Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all our customers to ensure compliance.
Access to all other Claude models is not affected.
We apologize for this disruption to our customers. We believe this is a misunderstanding and are working to restore access as soon as possible.
Read our full statement: https://t.co/bwn0sximKZ
❖ Has the Sun Stopped Rising Yet?
Imagine a father promises his son an inheritance, a home, and a future.
Years later, he gives those promises to someone else and tells his son they were only symbolic all along.
Would we call that faithfulness?
Yet that is essentially what Replacement Theology asks us to believe about God.
The issue is not ultimately Israel.
The issue is whether God means what He says.
❖ What Did God Actually Promise?
God made specific, unconditional covenants with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David.
📖 "To your descendants I have given this land..." (Genesis 15:18)
📖 "I will establish My covenant... for an everlasting covenant." (Genesis 17:7)
📖 "I will give to you and your descendants after you the land... for an everlasting possession." (Genesis 17:8)
📖 "Your house and your kingdom shall be established forever before you." (2 Samuel 7:16)
📖 "He remembers His covenant forever... the covenant which He made with Abraham." (Psalm 105:8-11)
📖 "The LORD has chosen Zion; He has desired it for His dwelling place forever." (Psalm 132:13-14)
These were not vague spiritual promises.
They involved a real people, a real land, a real kingdom, and a real future.
If God intended something else, why did He repeatedly speak in such specific terms?
❖ The Cosmic Test
Perhaps the strongest challenge to Replacement Theology is found in Jeremiah.
📖 "Thus says the LORD, who gives the sun for a light by day and the fixed order of the moon and stars by night..." (Jeremiah 31:35)
📖 "If this fixed order departs from before Me... then the offspring of Israel also will cease from being a nation before Me forever." (Jeremiah 31:35-36)
Has the sun stopped rising?
Has the moon ceased shining?
Have the stars vanished?
Then neither has God's covenant with Israel.
God did not compare Israel's future to political events.
He compared it to the stability of creation itself.
❖ Paul Anticipated This Debate
Many claim Israel's role ended and the Church inherited her promises.
Yet Paul asks:
📖 "Has God cast away His people? Certainly not!" (Romans 11:1)
📖 "God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew." (Romans 11:2)
Certainly not.
the Greek is:
μὴ γένοιτο (mē genoito)
It is the strongest possible denial available in Koine Greek.
Then Paul explains:
📖 "A partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in." (Romans 11:25)
The hardening is partial.
The hardening is temporary.
The hardening is not permanent rejection.
Then Paul goes even further:
📖 "The gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable." (Romans 11:29)
📖 "And so all Israel will be saved." (Romans 11:26)
Why would Paul devote an entire chapter to Israel's future if Israel had no future?
❖ A Remarkable Historical Irony
For centuries critics insisted Israel would never return.
Then 1948 happened.
They said the Jewish people would eventually disappear.
Instead they were regathered from over 100 nations.
They said Hebrew was a dead language.
Today millions speak it.
They said the land would remain barren.
Yet the desert blooms.
The prophets anticipated this long ago:
📖 "I will take you from among the nations and gather you out of all countries." (Ezekiel 36:24)
📖 "He will assemble the outcasts of Israel and gather the dispersed of Judah." (Isaiah 11:12)
📖 "Can a nation be born in a day?" (Isaiah 66:8)
History itself has become a witness to the faithfulness of God.
❖ Two Competing Approaches
Replacement Theology often says:
• Israel = Church
• Land = Heaven
• Jerusalem = Symbolic
• Kingdom = Spiritual
But the plain reading of Scripture says:
• Israel = Israel (Romans 11:1)
• Land = Land (Genesis 15:18)
• Throne = Throne (2 Samuel 7:16)
• Jerusalem = Jerusalem (Zechariah 14:4)
• Kingdom = Kingdom (Isaiah 9:7)
The same literal method that correctly understands Bethlehem, Calvary, and the empty tomb should also be applied to God's promises concerning Israel.
❖ The Hermeneutical Question
Consider this:
We interpret literally:
✅ Bethlehem (Micah 5:2)
✅ The virgin birth (Isaiah 7:14)
✅ The Messiah's death (Isaiah 53; Psalm 22)
✅ His resurrection (Psalm 16:10)
✅ His ascension (Acts 1:9)
✅ His promise to return (Acts 1:11)
Why then do many abandon literal interpretation when Scripture speaks of Israel's restoration?
📖 "I will take you from among the nations..." (Ezekiel 36:24)
📖 "I will put My Spirit within you..." (Ezekiel 36:27)
📖 "I will plant them on their land, and they shall never again be uprooted." (Amos 9:15)
What changed?
The text?
Or our theology?
❖ Israel's Story Is Not Finished
The prophets do not merely predict Jewish survival.
They predict Jewish repentance.
📖 "They will look on Me whom they pierced." (Zechariah 12:10)
📖 "I will pour out on the house of David... the Spirit of grace and supplication." (Zechariah 12:10)
A future remnant will emerge through tremendous refinement.
📖 "I will bring the third part through the fire..." (Zechariah 13:9)
📖 "A Redeemer will come to Zion." (Isaiah 59:20)
And ultimately:
📖 "All Israel will be saved." (Romans 11:26)
📖 "You shall not see Me again until you say, 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!'" (Matthew 23:39)
God is not finished with Israel.
The King is coming back to Jerusalem.
📖 "His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives." (Zechariah 14:4)
The covenants will be fulfilled.
The nations will see it.
❖ The Real Question
The real question is not:
"Do you support Israel?"
The real question is:
When God makes an unconditional promise, does He keep it exactly as He said?
Because if God can redefine His promises to Israel, what assurance do any of us have that He will not redefine His promises to us?
The good news is that He cannot.
📖 "God is not a man, that He should lie." (Numbers 23:19)
📖 "The Strength of Israel will not lie nor relent." (1 Samuel 15:29)
📖 "He who promised is faithful." (Hebrews 10:23)
The God who keeps His promises to the Church is the same God who will keep His promises to Israel.
And that is good news for everyone who trusts Him.
🚨 CALIFORNIA'S EXTENDED COUNTING MAY BE ON BORROWED TIME 🚨
@JonathanTurley : “A majority of the justices were prepared to say that when federal law says election day, they mean election day.”
Psalm 146:3
ג אַל-תִּבְטְחוּ בִנְדִיבִים-- בְּבֶן-אָדָם, שֶׁאֵין לוֹ תְשׁוּעָה.
3 Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.
The TFR of Taiwan is extremely low in all regions, but there are still some interesting patterns: The TFR of the capital Taipei is higher than the country average and also higher than in the suburbs.
The TFR of the northern city of Keelung is just as low as in Macao and is likely the lowest of any city in the world (outside Mainland China).
Man did not invent capitalism. He discovered it by obeying the Ten Commandments. When we align ourselves with this law, we can bring Paradise to Earth.
LONG LIVE FREEDOM, DAMN IT...!!!
"On earth as it is in heaven" is not a liturgical formula. It is a program. Material prosperity is the natural consequence of spiritual obedience.
LONG LIVE FREEDOM, DAMN IT...!!!
In a world where the state wants to take the guns away “for safety”, one of the few places where that wasn’t the case was Peru in the 80s and 90s.
Former President Fujimori, to combat terrorism, armed the people in the “rondas campesinas” to allow them self defense against Sendero.
This is one of the main reasons Peru was able to defeat Marxist Terrorism.
Javier Milei has significantly liberalized Argentina’s gun laws, including lowering the minimum age for ownership and ending a decades-old ban on many civilian-owned semi-automatic rifles.
During Milei’s presidency, the homicide rate has fallen to record lows in #Argentina
🚨 WOW! President Trump says the Kurds OBSTRUCTED him trying to arm the Iranian people, and he'll NEVER forget what they did
"The Kurds let us down. I disagreed with the decision. I said, they won't deliver them. I think they KEPT them for themselves. I'll remember that, KURDS!" 👀
"We actually sent them weapons, and we were VERY disappointed by the Kurds, to be honest with you."
🚨BRITISH MILITARY COLONEL SAYS CIVIL WAR IN UK IS INEVITABLE THANKS TO ISLAM
"The UK is heading toward Civil War, because the Government is scared of stopping the Islamification of the UK."
This campaign is not about Democrat v Republican. It's about common sense, change, practical solutions.
I'm not a politician. I'm an outsider, running for governor to shake up a system that is obviously not working. Here's my story:
It's very common for 16-17 year old young women to be sexually active, and marriage is the only proper context for sex. So allowing marriage at 16 makes perfect sense from a Christian perspective to prevent young people from engaging in sexual immorality.
More than half of American women have already lost their virginity by age 17, so why wouldn't we want them to be married at that age?