Did your Sunday school teach you about the sin of Hypocrisy?

 

Mine did not. I don't ever remember hearing about the sin of Hypocrisy in Sunday school, not during the childhood years when kid's brains are sponges. Hypocrisy got covered in the older youth group, but only in passing, as a bad Pharisee thing.
It wasn't until I joined the now defunct CrossWalk forums in the early 2000s that I dug into studying the scripture dealing with hypocrisy on my own (because I desired and did win a debate taking on the "Don't Judge" trope — both Mt 7:1 and Rom 2:1 contextually fall under Hypocrisy).
But my findings and My Point is: With the exception of failure to accept Jesus, Hypocrisy is probably the greatest of the "sleeper sins" that civil law never addresses. Hypocrisy brought out Jesus' righteous anger whereas the sins most people think are worse were met with compassion.

...if you are able to call out hypocrisy as a genuine warning instead of as an insult, that would be an act of love.

Did Freemasons found America?

 

I keep running into people who post on political forums that REALLY, REALLY (without knowing anything about me) seem to be on a mission to convince me that Freemasons founded America.  That America was corrupt and bad from the get-go.They take No Excuses for not swallowing their spiel!  They particularly like to quote George Washington complimenting the Freemasons' good works in their attempts to convince me that he was "all in" and part of a traitorous plot to destroy the fledgling nation. 

I don't buy that. The following is my answer to one of these folks:

This is somewhat misleading BECAUSE... Satan was late to the party. During colonial America, Freemasonry had not yet gotten a strong foothold. It was largely business networking, akin to the lower three levels of Freemasonry today: male socializing, contact hobnobbing, and a side of charity work. The deep weird stuff, the freemasonry of France, was an ocean away. The masons were present, but not strong enough to effectively influence the culture.

 
The TIPPING POINT on that can be traced to around 1789-1791. By the Lord's Providence, America had her Constitution written and ratified before the masonic infestation could push their ideas with any degree of impact. That started to change when Pierre L'Enfant leveraged those "business contacts" and obtained the contract to design the new capital of Washington DC in 1791.

So here's the Truth: The founding of the District of Columbia (Washington) was the beginning of Freemasonry being able to make inroads in our government. Our founding documents had been written and voted upon prior to masonic influence. Satan was metaphorically still spreading tares when the Founding Fathers made their covenants. By the time they germinated and the thief's crop could be harvested, our Declaration of Independence (which Honored our Creator), and our Constitution (which was patterned after biblical law) had already been secured. Freemasonry has been a problem ever since, but America was not founded upon it.

Thoughts on Today's International Court ruling against Israel

Zechariah prophesied: 

 Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling to all the surrounding peoples. Judah will be besieged, as well as Jerusalem. On that day, when all the nations of the earth gather against her, I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples; all who would heave it away will be severely injured… 12:2-3

I do not think we are there—yet. But the Bible runs many patterns, and we are in one of those foreshadowing systems. Various translations use drunkenness, staggering, intoxication, and reeling in place of 'trembling.'  I believe that this International Court opinion opens the door to a biblical pattern when the nations of the world will be shaking, trembling, and staggering under a combination of political, technological, financial, and natural geomorphic events. The season has only just begun, but we had a hydrothermal explosion at Yellowstone yesterday, BRICS appears to have driven a gold rush, and the "democracy" party has a presumptive nominee that no one has voted on...  'Sounds like a pattern of shaking. And now the UN has provided a new catalyst!

If you are unaware of the UN Court ruling, here's the beginning of LifeSite's article covering it—

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (LifeSiteNews) — The International Court of Justice (ICJ), the highest court serving the United Nations, ruled Friday that Israel is legally obligated to end its 57-year military occupation of internationally recognized Palestinian territory as rapidly as possible, evacuate hundreds of thousands of Jewish colonizers from settlements, and pay reparations to all Palestinians who have suffered injury or loss of land or property.

This non-binding 80-page legal opinion also judges that UN member states are obligated to “not recognize as legal” the situation resulting from Israel’s illegal occupation or “render aid or assistance” to Israel in maintaining the situation. Furthermore, the UN, especially the General Assembly and Security Council, should strive to consider and implement the most effective means for bringing an end to the unlawful Israeli occupation of Palestine “as rapidly as possible.”

The hearing for this case was last February, and the opinion was released today, July 26, 2024. It was pretty much expected to go this way because only four nations, the UK, the USA, Hungary, and Fiji, had originally testified that Israel had a right to defend itself after being attacked in October. Zechariah said "all" and that's four short. 

 

The United Nations keeps dooming itself piecemeal by provoking God a little bit at a time. And my only complaint is that God seems to have given them copious and excessive amounts of time to repent. I console myself that it could equally be that He has given them time to dig themselves in even deeper so that He can justifiably remove the UN altogether.  I'm good with that too.

It's a blessing to the USA that their court is in the Hague and not on American soil—at least we avoid that curse on our land.  Messing with the JQ puts a person on perilous standing with the Lord. 

[The term "JQ" stands for Jewish Question, and was coined by Karl Marx in the 1840s; originally it meant the question of Jewish political freedom in Prussia, a secular government. It has since expanded in meaning to refer to the global influence of Jews in banking, government, big corporations, and even Hollywood.] 

Christians ought to be more pragmatic and practical regarding the Palestinian Question, but the devil has sold two opposing lies which make that emotionally difficult.

• One end of the JQ spectrum reveres everything Jewish as "God's chosen." If you are a low-information Christian who supports Israel "because it's in the Bible where Jesus came from," you really need to work out 2 Timothy 2:15.  In the Passion paraphrase, that verse goes like this: Always be eager to present yourself before God as a perfect and mature minister, without shame, as one who correctly explains the Word of Truth. In the King James Version it goes: Study to show thyself approved unto God... 

The pragmatic response would be to respect God's choice (not revere His ethnic group). The fact is, he didn't choose them because they were inherently good. God chose an irascible and intractable people i order to show Himself strong and that He is up to the challenge. That has not changed. Respect the authority of His choice.

• The other end of the JQ spectrum got hoodwinked by "Replacement Theology," which contends that the NT church has replaced Israel. It has not. The Church is not the New Israel; she is the Bride of Christ. People at the RT end of the spectrum have a hard time distinguishing between the Abrahamic Covenant, which applies to all nations for perpetuity, and the Mosaic Covenant, which was made with the twelve tribes and has portions that timed out at Jesus' resurrection, e.g. animal sacrifices. The fact is, Eratz Yisrael, the Land, (which is what the United Nations is arguing over here,) was claimed as God's in His covenant with Abraham. This cannot be changed by a UN edict. God will have His land and His capital of Jerusalem under His Jewish control at the changing of the Age.

Yes, there's a lot of "bad Jewish stuff." Mossad and the CIA are running neck-and-neck in their dirty deeds for world control. Jewish bankers are working the 'blessing' part of God's provision while kicking the can of 'cursing' at others. Not good. But none of that changes the reality that God has already staked His claim on Israel The Land, and to oppose that is to make life harder for yourself.

Any move that takes way or 'gives' Israel less land than what the UN recognized in 1948, and that takes away what has been conquered in wars since is, as Jesus said to the Jew, Saul of Tarsus, "Kicking against the goads." That should be the pragmatic Christian position: Don't oppose what God has already decided.