Some are more equal than others.

Seattle police arrested a street preacher on charges of being a risk to public safety for reading his Bible aloud at a public park near an LGBT pride event.

Matthew Meinecke, who identifies himself as The Seattle Preacher on Twitter, was surrounded by Seattle police officers as he was reading his Bible and was subsequently arrested and fingerprinted at a police station before being released.

The preacher also posted a video showing a protester seizing his Bibles and ripping pages while shouting, “Get the f— out of here! Get your holy water off my ovaries, b—-! Get the f— out!”

He was also arrested at a Roe v Wade rally.

Readers are well aware of the typical things I recommend when going hiking, even for a day hike with no plans to spend the night.  You make plans to spend the night anyway.

A large bore handgun, redundant fire starter, poncho, parka, paracord, knife, light, compass, energy food, and plenty of water (or a water filtration device), and minimalistic IFAK.  This simple kit, while fairly light, gives you water, food energy, means to find your way out if you can navigate, cover for the night by use of the poncho and paracord, warmth for the night with the parka, and means to have fire.

Unprepared hikers rarely thing about these things, and often have to be rescued.  Take for example these native Texans who went hiking in Colorado.

Hikers left the Texas heat to a camp on a cold, rainy Colorado trail, officials said. The duo hiked up Lake Como Road and into Colorado’s Sangre de Cristo range on Monday, June 27, the Alamosa Volunteer Search And Rescue team said. They never made it to Lake Como and set up camp about a quarter-mile from the lake.

Lake Como is an 8.3-mile out-and-back trail near Blanca, about 210 miles south of Denver. It’s considered a challenging route, according to AllTrails. After some time, they started experiencing hypothermia. They called for help and said they were cold. One of the hikers started throwing up and was severely dehydrated with a headache.

Rescuers brought the hikers hot water bottles and sugary drinks to help them warm up and rehydrate. They were brought down the road and checked by medical professionals. Nearly six hours after the call for help, the rescue was complete. Officials said it was a difficult operation because of the rain making the road rocky. “Lake Como Rd was exceptionally dangerous this trip due to heavy rain, high chance for rockfall and extremely slippery rock,” officials said in a news release. “On the descent down, there was a river running down the entire road.”

The hikers weren’t prepared for their trek. They didn’t pack extra clothing to stay dry, and their tent had no rain fly, officials said. The hikers also didn’t have extra food or water, and they didn’t have layers to survive the night temperatures. “These hikers said they did not understand why it was so cold and rainy in Colorado, because it has been ‘so hot in Texas’ where they hike all the time,” rescuers said. “They never checked any weather forecasts.”

I’ve hiked in Colorado in the middle of summer near snow covered peaks.  Their actions were very dumb, and could have cost them their lives.

Perhaps worse still was this hiker who tried to brave a swamp in the Adirondacks.

NORTH HUDSON — It’s known by forest rangers as the Dix Pond Swamp, and may be one of the more miserable and foreboding places to find oneself in the Adirondack High Peaks backcountry.

Created by a “blowdown” — a mass knockdown of trees — 50 years ago and characterized by knee-deep muck, jungle-thick new-growth trees and voracious black flies, a solo hiker from Singapore earlier this month was rescued after wandering desperately and aimlessly in the swamp for three days after leaving a marked trail and becoming disoriented.

 

“He told his wife that he was never going to hike that mountain range again,” Forest Ranger Jamison Martin said during an interview with fellow Ranger Andrew Lewis about the Wednesday, June 22, search-and-rescue effort.

Great lessons learned.  Know your season.  Know your terrain.  Have maps.  Be able to navigate.  Have various foods.  Have clean drinking water or filtration.  If you can’t rest, you begin to hallucinate and make awful decisions.

And if you’re in a swamp, retrace your steps and get out.

A little history and a good point; go to the range!

Even the first celebrations of the Declaration of Independence involved firearms. Five days after the Declaration’s signing, it was read aloud in New York City in front of General Washington and his troops.

The reaction was as stunning as it was fitting. Soldiers and citizens went to Bowling Green, a park in Manhattan, and promptly tore down a statue of King George III on horseback. To add insult to injury, they melted the statute for musket balls, 42,088 of them to be exact.

Guns, and often big guns, were used to mark America’s independence. July 4, 1777 saw ships’ cannons fired 13 times in honor of the colonies, along with fireworks. George Washington celebrated in 1778 with a double ration of rum for the troops and an artillery salute. In 1810, the War Department established the “national salute,” of firing one gun for each of the states, which was 17 at the time.

Do what you can while you can.

“Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” – Galatians 6:7

Independence Day? America isn’t independent; it’s a primary component of the Global Order. The US has sown its seeds for a century, creating problems all around the world, and it’s going to come back home, all of it. America can’t fight Russia; the proposition is absurd. The US Military isn’t fit. I don’t mean physically fit, although that’s probably true, it’s not fit in any respect; knowledge, equipment, leadership, capabilities. It’s pathetically led, full of soft perverts and freaks at all levels. America is way over its head in UKR.

The continued promotion of the idea of East-West conflict is ruinous. The threat the northern peoples face is from the south, yet our leadership insists that Europe and America be overrun with heathens having no regard for European history or culture. The European peoples are in a deep crisis, and making total war on each other will have disastrous consequences. It’s all being done on purpose and probably can’t be stopped at this point. If not war with Russia, it’ll be something equally destructive and hollowing to civilization.

“37 But though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him: 38 That the saying of Esaias the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spake, Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed? 39 Therefore they could not believe, because that Esaias said again, 40 He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them. 41 These things said Esaias, when he saw his glory, and spake of him. 42 Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue: 43 For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.” – John 12:37-43

In this section of Scripture, we see several prophecies by Isaiah referenced in speaking of the first century Jews being blinded to Christ. Verse 38 of John 12 refers to Isaiah 53:1 and verse 39 to Isaiah 6:9. Verse 42 refers to Isaiah seeing the glory of the Lord; that’s likely Isaiah 6:1.

God has at times blinded the eyes of those under judgment. This is an interesting topic today because so many claim to see, but they can’t, or won’t, discern causality as though they are blind to the sin of America and God’s judgment. Part of the problem is the “end times” prophecy business, and it is a business that has so coopted the topic of God’s judgment that Christians rarely consider that what’s coming upon America is simply a regular judgment of God for our disobedience to Him. The determinations of God for disobedience are horrible and involve pestilences, wars, famines, and the like, often over several generations. The problem in understanding the occasion of judgment is that there are similar features in Scripture when God brings it.

The devil-possessed people running the world aren’t the problem or the cause of the looming judgment of God. God uses human instrumentation to carry out His determinations. Throughout Scripture, God uses the enemies of good to bring wrath upon those He is correcting.

A component of the arriving takeover by those filled with evil is society’s inability to recognize that sin has bloomed both because they allowed it and deserve the consequent corruption. You are perhaps intensely aware of the growing wickedness, but God blinds the eyes of those under His judgment, lest they repent and be saved.

“The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.” – Proverbs 16:4

Those used by God in judgment are later the worse recipient of His wrath for it. Though evil may have its day, there will be recompense. Nobody will tell you this stuff. God looses the forces of evil to judge His people, and when He has satisfied His wrath against them, He destroys those evil ones with even greater power.

God blinds the eyes of those upon which He will bring His manifest judgments. The problem in America is Americans! You are the problem. You want everybody else to stop sinning while you maintain yours! The New Religion in the American Church won’t tell you this lest they lose the mortgage money they pay to the Global Banking Cartel, the same people Jesus scourged. The New Religion would empty the “Churches” if they started telling the truth; nobody would believe it. This message, and it’s true, has never been popular. Nobody wants to acknowledge it. Blinded to the reality of the power of the Gospel, they stoned the prophets of old and hanged Jesus Christ on a cross for telling the truth.

God holds back the spirit of antichrist, and that’s the only way an upright civilization exists. God in His mercy sometimes waits for several generations. Still, eventually, God blinds even His own that have warranted the forces of darkness to come upon them that they may reap the whirlwind of their own creation.

So what can Christ’s men do? Plant seeds that later generations will nurture and grow. God’s word indicates that He will always have a people. We must prepare as many who will listen to lead the people back to God. If you know these facts, leave a pure remnant, trained, organized, and equipped to rebuild upon a blessed day that Holy God stays His hand, allowing the wrath and reign of evil no more.

Be the remnant planning, preparing, and training the young so that God may use your children’s children to re-institute just law under God. Perhaps they’ll hear of you, those crazy few who believed the promises of God and refused to let the teaching of Christ die on the vine. Be of those that made a covenant with God to never back down in the face of evil, purposing in your heart never to deny the Lord who bought you. Plant a seed, water, and nurture the next generation teaching them how to build a civil, just, and functioning nation under God. Be the solution, willing never to see the harvest reaped that you’re sowing in this life.

The devil would have no power except that which Christ allows, which means several things. The first is that Christ defeated the devil (John 12:31). Therefore, this must mean that the evil now growing manifest on a global scale is the will of God. And, thirdly if God has loosed evil upon us, it must mean that we deserve it. God is not a petty tyrant. He exacts that measure necessary to work His plan. Here’s the part that you will take the most exception to, since it appears that the judgment of God is upon us through human instrumentation, which is His most often chosen means, then we can correct the course that we’ve taken; to end the judgment. Christians ignore the solution because analyzing the problem is much easier than doing the hard work that Christ commands. “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” – John 14:15

Christians don’t even know what our weapon is and God’s chosen manner to employ it, nor do they know the person who accomplishes the work. Christians in America deny the power of the Word of God and deny that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God unto salvation; they deny the power of the Holy Spirit as anything other than that annoyance to keeps telling them to stop watching porn, and always they seek to escape the Holy Spirit quenching Him all the day long and living no differently from the lost sinners all around them. They must; we can only recon, be blinded to the Gospel. Saved and blinded, is that even possible? Something is desperately wrong with American Christians.

The Pharisees were blinded, so they rejected the Gospel of Jesus Christ when He would have personally delivered them! And for denying Him, Christ destroyed their religion, country, and entire way of life and scattered them to the wind. And America is doing the same thing, rejecting the word of God, the Gospel as the power of salvation, and the ultimate ally, God Almighty. If only the American Churches would teach this lesson.

Judgment, it would seem, is arriving, and Christians blame the devil by his human agents, or democrats, or anybody else when it’s their fault for unbelief. America is awake to the problem and blind to the cause.

“For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk: the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up.” – Hosea 8:7

“But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.” – Matthew 13:8

“IT seems to me that there is a higher joy in looking at a body of believers than that which arises from merely regarding them as saved. Not but what there is a great joy in salvation, a joy worthy to stir the angelic harps. Think of the Saviour’s agony in the ransom of every one of His redeemed, think of the work of the Holy Spirit in every renewed heart, think of the love of the Father as resting upon every one of the regenerate: I could not, if I took up my parable for a month, set forth all the mass of joy that is to be seen in a multitude of believers if we only look at what God has done for them, and promised to them, and will fulfil in them. But there is yet a wider field of thought, and my mind has been traversing it all this day,—the thought of the capacities of service contained in a numerous band of believers, the possibilities of blessing others which lie within the bosoms of regenerate persons. We must not think so much of what we already are as to forget what the Lord may accomplish by us for others. Here are the coals of fire, but who shall describe the conflagration which they may cause?

We ought to regard the Christian Church, not as a luxurious hostelry where Christian gentlemen may each one dwell at his ease in his own inn, but as a barracks in which soldiers are gathered together to be drilled and trained for war. We should regard the Christian Church, not as an association for mutual admiration and comfort, but as an army with banners, marching to the fray, to achieve victories for Christ, to storm the strongholds of the foe, and to add province after province to the Redeemer’s kingdom. We may view converted persons gathered into church-membership as so much wheat in the granary. God be thanked that it is there, and that so far the harvest has rewarded the sower; but far more soul-inspiring is the view when we regard those believers as each one likely to be made a living centre for the extension of the kingdom of Jesus, for then we see them sowing the fertile valleys of our land, and promising ere long to bring forth some thirty, some forty, some fifty, and some a hundredfold. The capacities of life are enormous, one becomes a thousand in a marvellously brief space. Within a short time, a few grains of wheat would suffice to seed the whole world, and a few true saints might suffice for the conversion of all nations. Only take that which comes of one ear, store it well, sow it all, again store it next year, and then sow it all again, and the multiplication almost exceeds the power of computation. Oh, that every Christian were thus year by year the Lord’s seed corn! If all the wheat in the world had perished except a single grain, it would not take many years to replenish all the earth, and sow her fields and plains; but in a far shorter time, in the power of the Holy Spirit, one Paul or one Peter would have evangelised all lands. View yourselves as grains of wheat predestinated to seed the world. That man lives grandly who is as earnest as if the very existence of Christianity depended upon himself, and is determined that to all men within his reach shall be made known the unsearchable riches of Christ.

If we whom Christ is pleased to use as His seed corn were only all scattered and sown as we ought to be, and were all to sprout and bring forth the green blade and the corn in the ear, what a harvest there would be! Again would it be fulfilled, “There shall be an handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains;”—a very bad position for it,—”the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon: and they of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth.” May God grant us to feel some degree of the Holy Spirit’s quickening power while we talk together, not so much about what God has done for us as about what God may do by us, and how far we may put ourselves into a right position to be used by Him.”

[…]

“Ye are not under the law, but under grace:” hence you do not obey the will of God because you hope to earn heaven thereby, or dream of escaping from divine wrath by your own doings, but because there is a life in you which seeks after that which is holy, pure, right, and true, and cannot endure that which is evil. You are careful to maintain good works, not from either legal hopes or legal fears, but because there is a holy thing within you, born of God, which seeks, according to its nature, to do that which is pleasing to God.”

-Charles Spurgeon, The Soul Winner, excerpts Chapter 11, https://thesoulwinner.org/

Yes, what he said!

“The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; and he that winneth souls is wise.” – Proverbs 11:30

The void left by atheism is easily filled by father government. The promoters of this must know that.

“The Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) was officially titled ‘DRL FY20 IRF Promoting and Defending Religious Freedom Inclusive of Atheist, Humanist, Non-Practicing and Non-Affiliated Individuals,’” Banks and the Republicans wrote.

And this news: Supreme Court declines religious challenge to COVID-19 vaccine mandates in New York

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Thursday declined to take up a challenge to a vaccine mandate for health workers in New York that does not include a religious exemption, the latest decision in which the high court has allowed state health requirements during the COVID-19 pandemic to stand.

That’s not good at all. Having long-term authoritarian implications, you can be confident the government(s) will use it against you again.

From Darrell Miller, a professor at Duke University (I don’t go behind paywalls).

Before Bruen, lower courts had held that national parks and the parking lots of rural post offices were sensitive, and had indicated that libraries, museums, hospitals and day-care centers may also ban guns.

I responded with this note.

National Parks haven’t been ruled “sensitive places” or any such thing.  You should check your facts before running your mouth (or cutting loose on your keyboard).

In 2010, Congress passed, and the president signed, a law legalizing guns in national parks (they were already legal in national forests, of course, as too with wilderness areas).

I did a FOIA request several years later to find out if there had been any increase in homicides.  There hadn’t.

To the contrary, within a year, the first person (after that law was signed) engaged in self defense and saved his life by killing an attacking bear as a result of being allowed to carry.

Dummy.

Degrees on top of degrees, all backed up by layers and layers of fact checkers.

To no avail.