Renee James

Pastor's wife who loves the Lord, her family & country. As a Reformed Baptist & conservative, I embrace the ideals of the Reformation, 1689 & Founding Fathers.

[Eli Yoder @Yodertoter40]

TikTok says I just violated their policies for educating people how to live off the land like my Amish culture, and they do not want me to teach people how to can their foods with pressure cookers

[Ryan Hall, Y’all @ryanhallyall]

Two 145 mph hurricanes are spinning in the Pacific at the same time.

That has only happened twice before.

The last time? September 1997. Right before the El Niño winter everybody still talks about.

Karina and Lowell are both monsters. Marie is lined up behind them and could become hurricane #3.

None are expected to hit land, but Hawaii will feel the surf.

This Pacific is trying to tell us something about winter.

[Matt Kim @mattkim1]

Trump…

How it Started:

“The US is going to make so much money, we may even eliminate Federal Income Tax”

How it’s Going:

“You take too many vacation days. Work more!”

[Evangelical Dark Web @EvangelicalDW]

Phil Johnson's diatribe against Christian Nationalism instead argues for Christian Nihilism, where Christian involvement in government ultimately accomplishes nothing (so don't bother).

Phil Johnson takes his nihilism to the Bible as well to assert the futility of King Josiah because there was not actually a revival in Josiah’s day, citing that the anger of the Lord still burned against Judah.

Johnson asserts that this is because the revival was fake, but the Bible actually blames Manasseh, a previous king. Josiah was too little too late, but there is no indication that the revival was completely fake in the text.

So Phil Johnson's prooftext on Josiah is a fundamental misread of the text. And this is his closing argument.

[John Mason @LivingGodsTruth]

The sexual immorality is just as demonic as the abortion. This is heartbreaking.

[Ryan Hall, Y’all @ryanhallyall]

September is about to steal an hour and a half of daylight from some of us.

And it happens FAST.

Around this time of year, daylight disappears quicker than almost any other point on the calendar.

Up north, you can lose more than 3 minutes a day.

That means by October, the sun can be setting over an hour earlier than it does now.

And we’re still not done. The days keep shrinking all the way to December 21.

So when it suddenly feels like you’re eating dinner in the dark...

this is why.

[Renee James @NewEraReformer]

More evidence of the dark forces at work.

"Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.". Phil. 3:19

[New York Post @nypost]

Trump calls on Congress to 'save' Hollywood with federal tax breaks https://t.co/MH07kXsETx

[Spike Cohen @RealSpikeCohen]

Cults of personality eventually make you adopt every position you once hated, as if to humiliate you.

That's the point. You must only support the leader. Reject everything you once believed, or be removed so you don't influence the other members to think for themselves.

[Former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 @FmrRepMTG]

Everyone hates data centers and Americans are packing out city halls and county commissioners meetings trying to stop data centers from being built.
They consume the land and steal the water and creates noise pollution that drives people and animals insane, while creating very few permanent jobs past the construction phase.
If Trump wants data centers build them on all his golf courses and country clubs and right in the backyard at Maralago!!
Good luck winning the midterms now that MAGA means mass data centers, flock cameras and the surveillance state, protecting the Epstein class, and the never ending Iran War!!

[Kevin Bass @kevinnbass]

We already know how not do handle data centers. It's how we handled COVID.

We cannot say, "We are the experts, you will accept data centers you idiots".

Or we will 100% create a Data Center RFK Jr. even if data centers rain manna from heaven.

That's happening right now.

[Renee James @NewEraReformer]

@DineshDSouza Please explain Simon Magnus in Acts 8:9-24. He got baptized. He obviously wanted to be a partaker. Why wasn't he filled with the Spirit? Why did he try to buy his way in? Why didn't he listen to Peter and repent and ask God to forgive him if the choice was his?

[Robert Bortins @TheRobertBshow]

After 20 years teaching in both systems, my wife put it plainly.

Public school teaches compliance. Homeschool teaches character.

Public school teaches information. Homeschool teaches wisdom.

Not an opinion. An observation.

[Virgil L. Walker @virgilwalker]

New York City endured the deadliest terrorist attack in American history. On 9/11, Islamist terrorists murdered 2,753 people there.

Twenty-five years later, Governor Kathy Hochul is wearing a hijab.

Who won the War on Terror?

[Renee James @NewEraReformer]

@JoelWebbon Phil Johnson used to be revealing the woke nonsense and those who pushed it. Now he's attacking people who are revealing that and other heretical agendas. Such a disappointment 😞. I tolerated dispys but they are modern judaizers.

[James Fishback @j_fishback]

Us: “An H-1B took my dream job, Blackstone bought my dream home, and Flock is spying on my kids.

Can you help?”

Them: “Lake America 🌅”

[JD™ @LostMyHats]

The Gospel is that Christ died for our sins, was buried, that he was raised on the third day.

Anyone who denies this is anathema. Anyone who twists it, or adds to it, is a false teacher.

That’s Joel Webbon’s gospel. He’s been emphatically clear about the gospel, and both his understanding and pronouncement of this gospel is pristine. If it weren’t, I’d pronounce anathema on him myself.

The Great Commission, on the other hand, is a command from Jesus to His church to go, teach the different nations, and baptize them in the names of the Trinitarian God.

The Gospel is not the Great Commission. The Great Commission is not the Gospel. These are distinct things.

Some poorly catechized, sloppy Christian teachers think the Great Commission is evangelism, aka telling people the Gospel. It isn’t, as you can see. It’s a command to *instruct and develop* the nations.

Different Christian traditions over the years have disagreed about the best way to fulfill the Great Commission, without disagreeing over the Gospel. Because, as we’ve established, the Great Commission isn’t the Gospel. Neither is it to merely preach the gospel.

Here, Mike Winger conflates Joel’s Webbon’s view of the Great Commission (common to post-millennialists, and in the Overton Window of orthodoxy), with his view of the Gospel, thereby alleging Webbon has a false gospel.

This is unfortunate, and a mistake entirely due to Mike Winger’s sloppy, uncatechized misunderstanding of the Great Commission.

If you’re going to disagree with Christian Nationalism, good. Me, too. But if you’re going to slander someone on account of your poor grasp of Christian category distinctions, you should reconsider putting own ignorance on parade.

I was not intending to compliment Webbon’s sterling, impeccable grasp of the gospel today, but Mike Winger made me. That’s what happens when you can’t argue honestly.

You could’ve had me disagreeing with Christian Nationalism along side you today. But nooooooo. You had to make me defend a Christian brother from ignorance-fueled slander instead, because that takes priority.

This is a repeat of every day for 18 months. Debate honestly or get the hatchet.

[Gregory K Bovino @GregoryKBovino]

I sat down with Tucker and told him what they didn’t want said out loud.

I was removed by status quo bureaucrats for going hard.

The war should be fought on American soil.

You are being gaslighted.

They want you to think mass deportations are happening.

They’re not. It’s theater.

Watch the interview. Then decide which movie you’re in.

[HealthRanger @HealthRanger]

Flock cameras aren't dotted along the U.S. border looking OUT and trying to catch illegals. They are placed all across the homeland LOOKING IN to surveil Americans.

Because the establishment sees Americans as the real enemy. That tells you everything you need to know.

[Renee James @NewEraReformer]

@Phil_Johnson_ A member of our church had the CAR T--cell therapy in January and he is cancer free.

[Joseph Spurgeon @Joseph_Spurgeon]

The Calvinism debate can be boiled down to one stubborn question that the Noncalvinist never really answers.

Imagine two twin brothers. Same home. Same parents. Same basic upbringing. Both hear the same gospel. Both are told they are sinners. Both hear that Christ died and rose again. Both are commanded to repent and believe.

One believes. The other rejects Christ. What made the difference? That is the question. Not whether the believer really chose Christ. Calvinists believe that he did. The question is: Why did he choose Christ when the other man did not?

Maybe you say one understood the gospel better. Fine. Why? Maybe one was more humble. Why? Maybe one had experiences that softened him. Maybe certain conversations, sufferings, relationships, memories, warnings, or circumstances prepared him to respond differently. Ok Why?

Because now you are talking about providence.

God put this man in this family, at this time, in this place. God brought these people across his path. God ordained these circumstances. God caused him to hear this particular preacher proclaim this particular gospel message at this particular moment.

So did those providential differences explain why he believed?

If yes, then God’s providence made the difference. And now you have to ask why God gave one man the providential influences that brought him to faith and not the other.

But suppose you deny that. Suppose you say none of those things actually explains the difference. Both men received sufficient grace. Both were equally able to believe. Their circumstances did not determine it. Their experiences did not determine it. Their understanding did not determine it.

Then what did?

Maybe you say the believer had stronger desires for Christ. Then where did those desires come from? If his desires explain his choice, then they are part of the explanation for why he believed.

Maybe you say it was his character. Then what shaped that character?

Maybe you say it was his nature. Then why did his nature move him toward Christ while the other man's did not?

Every time you give a real explanation for why this man believed rather than rejected Christ, you are identifying something that actually made the difference. And then we can ask where that difference came from.

But to escape the difference being God's decisive acts, the non calvinist eventually refuses to let anything explain the decisive difference.

Not providence. Not nature. Not character. Not desires. Not understanding. Not circumstances. Not differing grace.

So what finally explains why one man believed?

His will chose to. Why did his will choose Christ rather than reject Christ?

Because it just did.

That is not an explanation though. Its just arbitrariness. This is the fatal problem with what is called libertarian free will: the will becomes the unexplained explainer.

The libertarian can give you all kinds of reasons the man had for believing. But here is the question that matters: What was the choice-specific reason he believed rather than rejected Christ? If precisely the same nature, desires, reasons, circumstances, influences, and grace could have produced the opposite choice, then none of those things explains why this choice actually occurred.

Everything could remain exactly the same, and the will could simply fire the other direction. This is by definition arbitrary and rationally unintelligible.

The Reformed view does not have this problem because we do not imagine the human will as some autonomous little god floating above the man’s nature, affections, desires, and reasons.

Men choose according to what they want. Their choices are real. Their desires are real. Their reasoning is real. Their willing is real. But the will belongs to a person, and fallen man, left to himself, does not want God. He loves darkness rather than light. He will not come to Christ that he may have life.

So why does anyone believe?

Because God makes the difference. God chooses. God governs providence. God sends the preacher. God brings the gospel. And through that gospel, by the sovereign work of the Holy Spirit, God does not merely stand outside the sinner begging an autonomous will to make the right choice.

God gives life to the dead. He takes out the heart of stone and gives a heart of flesh. He renews the will. He opens blind eyes. He changes what the sinner loves. Christ, whom the sinner once rejected, is now seen as glorious and desirable.

And then the man chooses Christ. Really chooses Him. Freely chooses Him. God does not believe for the sinner. God does not repent for him. God does not drag him into the kingdom against his will. God changes the man, and therefore the man comes willingly.

So put the two brothers beside each other again. One believes. One does not.

Why?

The noncalvinist eventually says, “Because one will chose one way and the other will chose another,” and when you ask why, the explanation finally evaporates.

The Reformed Christian has an answer. God made the difference. And therefore the believer does not finally look at his unbelieving brother and say, “We received the same grace, but I arbitrarily supplied the decisive difference.”

He says with Paul: “By the grace of God I am what I am.”

That is the difference between Calvinism and NonCalvinism. One ends with an autonomous will that has no rational explanation and yet did the most vital work for salvation.

The other ends with grace. From beginning to end, sovereign grace.