Sky Links 3-7-20

What a Former Democrat Learned From a Trump Rally
-Zuby

Karlyn Borysenko is an organisational psychologist, author, coach, and public speaker.  She had been a Democratic Party voter for 20 years, but recent incidents caused her to question some of her beliefs. Her Medium article documenting her experience at a Trump rally went viral and has now been viewed over 3 million times.

Ezra Levant
-Eric Metaxas Show

Canadian journalist and radio talk show host Ezra Levant brings hard facts about the horrifying culture of "rape gangs" in the U.K. and the persecution of Tommy Robinson whose only "crime" is trying to expose them.

 Sen. Joni Ernst: Abortion Survivors Should Receive Standard Medical Care

In this episode of American Thought Leaders 🇺🇸 at CPAC 2020, we'll sit down with Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. We discuss different pro-life legislation she co-sponsored which were blocked by Senate Democrats, including the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act and the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. 

Joe Biden – Not a Socialist, Just a Scoundrel
-Kevin D. Williamson

He is a vicious self-serving political hack, for one thing, one whose ambition leads him from time to time into shocking indecency. You may have heard that Biden lost his wife and daughter in a horrifying drunk-driving wreck, the fault of a monster of a man who irresponsibly “drank his lunch,” as Biden puts it.

Never happened.

Biden’s wife and daughter did, in fact, die in a car wreck. That is true. It is not true that the driver of the other car was drunk, that he had been drinking, or that there was any reason to believe he was drunk or had been drinking — or even that he was at fault. The late Mrs. Biden “drove into the path of [the] tractor-trailer,” the police report says. But Biden, like every other third-rate ward-heeler of his ilk, thinks and speaks only in terms of good guys and bad guys, white hats and black hats — and if something bad happens to good people, then it must be because somebody in a black hat did something nefarious. The driver of that truck went to his grave haunted by Biden’s lies, to the point where his children were forced to beg the vice president to stop defaming their late father. The casual cruelty with which Biden is willing to subordinate the lives of ordinary people to his political ambitions — for the sake of a petty tear-jerker line in one of his occasionally plagiarized stump speeches — is remarkable.

Drill Down Episode 1: Joe Biden
-Peter Schweizer

Best-selling author Peter Schweizer examines the ways Joe Biden's son Hunter benefitted financially through deals that mirrored his father's travels and actions as Vice President.

The FISA Swamp
-John Spiropoulos

The U.S. Intelligence community has repeatedly misled the FISA Court over the years. The result is that the 4th amendment rights of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Americans, have been violated. What's gone wrong? It's a complex problem. This report provides a streamlined overview.

 Interview with Nate Cain, FBI Whistleblower
-Bards of War

The Moses Complex and Rulers Over God's People
-Wade Burleson

There are two unbiblical practices in the present-day institutional church that foster the mistaken notion that there is an inherent authority in certain “offices of the church” that enables pastor/elders “being over other people” instead of “being the greatest servants of all the people.” 

One of those false practices is the division between clergy and laity where the former does all the work of ministry and the latter pay the salaries of the former for doing the work.
I am not saying it is wrong to draw a salary for pastoring people, or for doing any other ministry in a local church for that matter. But I am saying that the division between clergy and laity is not a concept found in the text of scripture. 

...The other false practice that winds up elevating some people OVER others in the local church is when pastors, elders, or deacons are thought to be RULING LEADERS in the local church because of a supposed OFFICE of the pastor, elder, or deacon, that has a supposed “inherent authority” within the office. For this reason, some within a local fellowship will grant “authority” to the “pastor” [Southern Baptists have done this with the office of Deacon as well] because they believe God has given the pastor/elder [deacon] greater authority because of having that “office of” concept fostered by the KJV. 

Neither of these concepts of authority over people has a textual basis in scripture and, thus, lack a biblical basis for such a view at all. 

The constitution of an institutional [think 501c3 non-proft] church must grant “legal authority” to a group of trustees [or appointed people called "elders" or "deacons"], and may even call them "officers" of the 501c3 non-profit to operate within the guidelines of the state. But this is a cultural construct and practice and has no biblical basis at all.

How Jesus Faced Death
-Regi Campbell

By now, you’ve probably heard, but on January 24th, Radical Mentoring Founder Regi Campbell went home to meet His Heavenly Father. You can read more about Regi and his cancer journey here. 

When first told that I had a rare, fast-growing, incurable cancer, it didn’t register with me. It’s like you know something is real, but it takes a while before you know it. It’s “both/and,” not “either/or.” Even knowing His ultimate earthly destiny, Jesus seemed to keep rockin’ along until He decided to go to Jerusalem for the Passover feast. That’s when He talked more often about what was going to happen to Him.

But there’s one big, interesting thing I noticed. Whenever Jesus told people He was going to die, He always told them He’d be coming again. I’ve made that a principle. I never talk about my end on earth without connecting it to my beginning in the next life. It reminds me of my hope for Heaven, and it reflects my faith that Jesus is going to take me there.

Something else I share with Jesus. Before his crucifixion, there were multiple efforts to kill Him . . . from Herod trying to wipe Him out just after His birth (Matthew 2:13), to the crowd in Nazareth trying to drive him off a cliff (Luke 4:28-30) to a near-stoning in Jerusalem (John 8:58-59). My lung transplant and other illnesses feel like dress rehearsals now. The adrenaline of His certain destiny was probably familiar.

John 12 recounts how Mary anointed Jesus with perfume in an act of worship. James 5 instructs us to call on elders to anoint us and pray over us. My elder prayer session at North Point Community Church was one of the highlights of my life. I think elder prayer may be an important part of God’s process for preparing His sons and daughters to transition to the afterlife.

A few other things I noticed about Jesus. He prayed. Alone with His Father. He asked others to pray for Him. He didn’t back down or back out of His earthly ministry. He continued to take hard stances in front of His enemies, and He kept investing in His guys, even after they waffled and ran. He got His house in order for His mom. And when the time came, He suffered courageously.

A lot of people question Jesus’ words from the cross when He asked, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46b). To me, these words show the strength of their relationship. Jesus doesn’t doubt God’s existence. He’s still talking to Him. He’s missing God’s presence, which had been there since the beginning of time and was, at that moment (and for the next three days), gone.

But because of Jesus’ obedience to His Father in allowing Himself to be sacrificed like an innocent lamb, we never face a single second of separation from the Father. When the lights go out in this life, they’re already on in the next. And His face is the first thing we’ll see. For me, I’ll meet in person, for the first time, the pen pal I’ve been in intimate friendship with for thirty-eight years.

When it’s time for my last words, they won’t be about being forsaken. They’ll be, “Thank You for loving me. Thank You for adopting me into Your family.”

Scripture: After that, we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord. (1 Thessalonians 4:17)