After Hurricane Hugo ripped through Charleston, South Carolina, in 1989, construction workers found hidden treasure. While cleaning up the rubble in a decimated church, they saw the cross still standing.
Unable to move it—even with a crane—they eventually discovered that pure gold filled the inside of the cross. Evidently, during the American Civil War, people melted down their gold and hid it there to keep it from invading troops.
The cross of Christ is a place of true spiritual treasure for those who believe in Him, but as the apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, its message “is foolish to those who are headed for destruction” (1 Corinthians 1:18). Those who reject Jesus’ death on the cross might think it foolish to believe that the Son of God died and rose again to release us from the consequences of our sin.
But for those who believe, those who are “being saved,” the cross “is the very power of God” (v. 18). As Paul says, God makes foolish the wisdom of the world but “this foolish plan of God is wiser than the wisest of human plans” (v. 25).
When we submit to God and accept the gift of Christ’s cross, we’ll enjoy the riches of a relationship with Him. We won’t find treasures of gold but the far better gift of abundant and everlasting life with Him. That’s not foolish!
Amy Boucher Pye
When have you experienced God’s wisdom, which the world might see as foolishness? How does the cross of Jesus empower you to live for Him?
Jesus our Savior, thank You for the gift of life in Your kingdom—the greatest treasure ever. Help me to share this amazing gift with others.
Greg Laurie is an American author, evangelist, and senior pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship, a megachurch located in Riverside, California. He was born on December 10, 1952, in Long Beach, California, and according to his own testimony, he became a Christian in 1970 at the age of 17 during the Jesus Revolution involving weird charismatics and, apparently, a practicing homosexual. Laurie has been married to his wife, Cathe, since 1974, and they have two sons, Christopher and Jonathan.
Laurie is well-known in the Calvary Chapel movement and Evangelicalism as a whole. He is the author of over 70 books, many of which are on the subject of evangelism, discipleship, and Christian living. He is also the host of the nationally syndicated radio program “A New Beginning,” which airs daily on more than 1,000 radio stations around the world.
In addition to his role as a pastor and author, Laurie is also known for his large-scale evangelistic events, including Harvest Crusades, which have been held in stadiums and arenas across the United States and around the world. Similar to the Billy Graham crusades, these events have drawn millions of people and often carry with them the spontaneous “conversions” that often expose themselves to be false converts.
A key figure, in the Jesus Movement, and according to Laurie, the man who led him to conversion, was a practicing homosexual named Lonnie Frisbee. Frisbee was known for his charismatic preaching style and his ability to draw large crowds to his events and he was instrumental in the growth of Calvary Chapel, a non-denominational Christian church in Southern California. He played a key role in the early development of the Vineyard movement, a charismatic movement that places undue emphasis on the Holy Spirit and the sign gifts.
Frisbee’s homosexuality was a well-known but largely unspoken aspect of his life. He practiced homosexuality from a young age and engaged in sexual relationships with both men and women throughout his ministry. In the early 1980s, Frisbee’s homosexuality became a point of contention within the Christian community and he was dismissed from the Vineyard movement after his sexual activity was exposed. Many of his former colleagues distanced themselves from him, yet, Frisbee continued to preach and minister until his death from AIDS-related complications in 1993 at the age of 43.
Watch this bizarre story about how Greg Laurie was converted by Lonnie Frisbee:
Turns out, the rainbow-colored sushi wasn’t the biggest buzz at San Jose’s “shark tank” Saturday night. Unfortunately for the NHL, neither was the team’s Pride Night. What was supposed to be a return to the league’s woke normal managed to prove that — at least for some players — there’s no going back.
When the Sharks decided to snap the string of teams who were opting out of rainbow-themed gear for players, Commissioner Gary Bettman had to be secretly rejoicing. The news that San Jose would buck the rebellious trend must have come as a relief to league officials, who’ve had to deal with a fair share of outrage from the LGBT community. With the decisions of the New York Rangers, New York Islanders, and Minnesota Wild, the NHL has had more PR messes to clean up than Madison Square Garden’s custodians.
But Bettman’s celebration turned out to be premature, thanks to a gutsy goaltender named James Reimer. The 6’3″ net-minder was every bit the cultural giant Saturday when he declined to wear the Sharks’ Pride gear that night. In a heartfelt statement released by San Jose, Reimer explained:
“Under the umbrella of the NHL’s Hockey Is For Everyone initiative, the San Jose Sharks have chosen to wear jerseys in support of the LGBTQIA+ community tonight. For all 13 years of my career, I have been a Christian — not just in title, but in how I choose to live my life daily. I have a personal faith in Jesus Christ who died on the cross for my sins and, in response, asks me to love everyone and follow him. I have no hate in my heart for anyone, and I have always strived to treat everyone that I encounter with respect and kindness.
“In this specific instance, I am choosing not to endorse something that is counter to my personal convictions which are based in the Bible, the highest authority in my life.
“I strongly believe that every person has value and worth, and the LGBTQIA+ community, like all others, should be welcomed in all aspects of the game of hockey.”
While three teams scrapped their Pride uniforms before this, Reimer was only the second player to take an individual stand in public. The Philadelphia Flyers’ Ivan Provorov was the first, citing his faith as a reason he would sit out a pre-game skate in January. His jerseys sold out forty-eight hours later.
In some ways, Provorov’s decision was the hardest. Being the first to blaze that trail, to reject the cultural mob, exacts a unique price. But in Reimer’s case, the media seems to be taking it very personally that a North American would rebuff the Left’s orthodoxy. Local reporters scorched him for being Canadian, a place where LGBT advocacy is apparently as plentiful as maple syrup.The video player is currently playing an ad.
Ascribing motives to Provorov and other teams that have no basis in fact, SF Gate’s Gabe Lehman claimed, “Other NHL teams have had to cancel similar Pride-themed jersey plans after players refused to wear them. However, those cancellations were partially believed to be caused by Russian players fearing for their safety in their autocratic home nation, where homophobia is official state law.” But, he complained, “Reimer isn’t Russian. He’s from Canada, a country that legalized same-sex marriage years before the United States.”
Provorov was abundantly clear two months ago that his decision was rooted in religion, not Russian repression. As for the other three teams’ players, they have the luxury of anonymity since their head offices did the right thing and stood together — refusing to single any skaters out.
That doesn’t matter to the insatiable Left, who ripped Reimer from every direction. The ever-inclusive You Can Play Project responded that faith is never a good reason to reject the status quo. “Religion and respect are not in conflict with each other,” it insisted, “and we are certainly disappointed when religion is used as a reason not to support our community. Wearing pride jersey, like any celebration jersey worn, is not about the personal feelings of an athlete — rather the communication from the team that a community is welcome in the arena…”
But professional athletes shouldn’t have to wear a polyester sandwich board for a political message they disagree with to accomplish that. Frankly, the NHL is already tripping over itself to pledge allegiance to the rainbow flag, so if anyone feels unwelcome at these games or in this sport, it’s the non-conformists, the Christians, and conservatives.
Would these same activists be willing to drape skaters in a Christian flag against their will? Maybe force them to show up at an altar call after? Of course not, because they are the ones defining what “respect” is. And respect, to them, is nothing less than full acceptance.
Family Research Council’s Joseph Backholm blasted the incredible double standards at work. “It’s unreasonable to say that respect requires a willingness to promote someone else’s beliefs. This is no different than asking players to wear Trump hats on MAGA Night or skate with an AK-47 for Second Amendment Night. The disrespect is in the request — not the decision to decline.”
In a press gaggle Saturday, Reimer tried to expand on his rationale, rereading his statement and inviting the media to ask questions. “I feel like I’ve treated you guys with respect and dignity,” he told the group of reporters. “And that’s kind of how I treat everyone. … But the other side is that I just can’t, you know, publicly or and personally endorse something that goes against, you know, my beliefs. … Again, if I had a gay teammate, I hope I would be the first one to shake his hand when he comes in and treat him like I would any other teammate.”
Reimer went on for a full 17 minutes, reiterating at one point, “This wasn’t an easy decision for me. You know, I’m not scared to stand up for my faith in Christ, but I wrestle with it because I know the initial reaction of putting out a statement like this … can come across offensive or a slap in the face and obviously … that’s not something that I intend. I mean, I’m by no means perfect in any way, but I want to show that I truly do love and care [but] I just can’t publicly and personally endorse it. … My faith in Christ is who I am. … And at the end of the day, you can’t worry too much about what other people think of you.”
One writer asked if Reimer was worried about his decision affecting his livelihood, considering that he’s a free agent at the end of the season. “I think I’d be lying if I said that it didn’t,” he answered truthfully. “I’m sure there are people in management or ownership that … won’t look favorably on this. And I get that, and I understand that and respect everyone’s right to think and believe whatever they want about me. But at the same time, I hope that there’s another handful of people in management and ownership that … respect me for standing up for what I believe in.”
No matter what those managers decide or how this affects James’s career, one thing’s for sure: the impact of his courage on the league, its fans, and other athletes will outlast any trophy or save percentage. For once, the millions of people who’ve sat in the stands and endured this cultural onslaught have a voice — and, thanks to Provorov, another hero.
Once Sodomites achieve there desired “tolerance,” commanding everyone to submit to their perversion is the next step. Sodomy is nothing to be proud of, and praise God for at least a few teams and players who are standing against today’s onslaught of apostasy.We are now paying the price for Christians not taking a stand for the last fifty years.
Right, and like Barack Hussein Obama, he formerly said “Marriage is only for one man and one woman.” We are paying the price for Sodomites ruling our land and a pagan president who endorses them. In Christ, Pastor Steve <><
Protecting children from premature, harmful exposure to gender ideology and its life-altering consequences is “close to sinful,” said President Biden Monday on “The Daily Show.”
Protecting children from premature, harmful exposure to gender ideology and its life-altering consequences is “close to sinful,” said President Biden Monday on “The Daily Show.” The remark came as Biden searched for language strong enough to describe Florida’s recent efforts to protect children — he also called it “terrible” and “cruel.”
President Biden said:
“What’s going on in Florida is, as my mother would say, ‘close to sinful,’ alright? I mean, it’s just terrible what they’re doing.
“It’s not like a kid just wakes up one morning and says, ‘You know, I’ve decided I want to become a man,’ or ‘I want to become a woman,’ or ‘I want to change.’ I mean, what are they thinking about here? I mean, human beings — they love, they have feelings, they have inclinations that are — I mean, it just, to me, is, I don’t know, it’s cruel.”
Mainstream media publications like The Hill connected Biden’s remarks to the recently introduced Florida House Bill 1421, which states that “a physician may not perform or provide gender clinical interventions to a minor,” including “sex reassignment surgeries or any other surgical procedures that alter primary or secondary sexual characteristics” and “puberty blocking, hormone, and hormone antagonistic therapies.”
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) responded, “It is not ‘sinful’ to prohibit the mutilation of minors.”
If that was Biden’s target, he must have been unaware that the Florida Boards of Medicine and Osteopathic Medicine already agreed upon professional guidelines prohibiting gender reassignment procedures for minors earlier this year. It’s also strange that he would single out this Florida bill at the beginning of the legislative process, when four other states have already passed laws this year restricting gender transition procedures for minors.
Perhaps it was habit that caused President Biden to draw on his Florida talking point. The president has routinely contrasted Florida’s conservative success story with his own administration’s radical LGBT agenda. Last spring, Biden (along with many national Democrats, celebrities, and the mainstream media) obsessed over Florida’s Parental Rights in Education bill (which they absurdly labelled the “Don’t Say Gay” bill), calling it “hateful” for providing transparency for parents and restricting age-inappropriate sexual conversations in K-3 classrooms.
National leftists repeated their false claims of censorship in Florida as the DeSantis administration removed explicit books from school libraries — so graphic that news stations covering a press conference cut their feeds rather than show the examples.
Whether Biden intended to target Florida HB 1421 or a different action that state has performed to protect children, his comments made news for the mismatch between his undeserved, barely coherent insults and the state’s stellar track record. “Like a sparrow in its flitting, like a swallow in its flying, a curse that is causeless does not alight” (Proverbs 26:2).
First, the theological aspect. “‘Close to sinful’ is not a biblical category,” director of FRC’s Center for Biblical Worldview David Closson told The Washington Stand.
Instead, the Bible says sin “clings so closely” to us that we must struggle against it (Hebrews 12:1,4). Sin is lawlessness (1 John 3:4), failing to do what we know is right (James 4:17), and “whatever does not proceed from faith” (Romans 14:23). In the Bible’s accounting, anything that isn’t righteous is sinful, and it doesn’t make sense to call righteousness “close to sinful.”
Nor is such a buffer category much use to us, as all mankind blows right through it into full-fledged sin. “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves,” and “we make God a liar, and his word is not in us” (1 John 1:8,10).
Nevertheless, Closson said the president’s meaning was clear. “From his perspective, support for commonsense legislation like Florida’s House Bill 1421 … is tantamount to a moral wrong that ought to be opposed.” Perhaps “close to sinful” was Biden’s mother’s (and his) shorthand way of saying, “the church doesn’t say this is wrong, but I think it is.”
“Ironically, the Florida bill, not the president’s position, is in line with historic Christian sexual ethics and a biblical understanding of sex and gender,” Closson added. “The very first chapter in the Bible makes it clear that God’s design for His image bearers is that we are born male and female, and that this design is good and ought to be acknowledged and embraced.”
“I’m fascinated by the use of religious language,” said Jennifer Bauwens, director of FRC’s Center for Family Studies, on “Washington Watch,” because “this absolutely has spiritual implications.” Bauwens said the spiritual influence is evident from the unnaturally political pressure behind this supposedly medical practice. “Never in my whole time of practice or research have I ever seen the level of political power, political effort and finance to go into something as a treatment. … In the natural it doesn’t make much sense.”
Bauwens also called attention to Biden’s claim that children don’t wake up one morning and decide they identify as transgender. “Not true, that’s exactly what’s happening,” she said. “The way that these kids get pulled into gender ideology is very different than it was, you know, say, 10 years ago. We don’t have scientific data on that. But we can see from a spiritual standpoint, there is some kind of wave sweeping over this land, over our nation.”
“Here you have someone who’s saying protecting children through these bills like Florida is actually missing the mark. But he’s the one who’s missing the mark here,” said Bauwens. Inflicting gender transition procedures on children “actually is cruel.”
“The president’s own church recognizes this reality,” added Closson, “and it is a shame that he continues to push the policies of the moral revolution that will only bring pain and hurt to its victims.”
Biden has proven a leading exponent of Western gender ideology to an unreceptive world.
“To further repair our moral leadership, I’m also issuing a presidential memo to agencies to reinvigorate our leadership on the LGBTQI issues and do it internationally,” said Biden during his first major foreign policy speech in February 2021. During Biden’s first full month in office, he signed a “Memorandum on Advancing the Human Rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex Persons Around the World” and allocated $10 million for a “Global Equality Fund” to promote pro-LGBTQ views, including extreme gender ideology, worldwide. For instance, $300,000 in U.S. taxpayer funds went to increase “social acceptance” of homosexuality and transgenderism in Botswana.
The memo promises to use “the full range of diplomatic and assistance tools,” including “financial sanctions,” against nations deemed insufficiently pro-LGBT.
More than 30 of Africa’s 54 nations have laws against engaging in homosexual relations, according to the Associated Press — largely due to broadly shared religious convictions. That list includes Nigeria, which the Biden administration removed as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) despite intensifying persecution of Christians.
The State Department held a tense confrontation with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni about his country’s LGBTQ laws last December 14, one day after Biden signed the so-called Respect for Marriage Act. But the Biden administration’s diplomatic pressure seemed to bear little fruit.
“We are not going to follow people who are lost,” said President Museveni, referring to Americans and others in the West, during a rally in Uganda last month. “These Europeans are not normal. They don’t listen.” He added that Western leaders “don’t respect other people’s views; and they want to turn the abnormal into normal and force it on others. We shall not agree.”
His remarks came as Uganda’s parliament introduced a bill banning the promotion, recruitment, and funding of LGBTQ actions and advocacy. “You are either with us or you’re with the Western world,” said the Speaker of the Parliament of Uganda, Anita Among.
“We do not support gay and lesbian rights as a country,” said Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema, who is widely regarded as harboring more positive views of LGBTQ ideology. “Zambia is a Christian nation, it’s clear!” he added.
Last Friday, the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops slammed a decision by that nation’s Supreme Court to allow LGBTQ groups to register as NGOs, which they called “an effort towards the promotion of the LGBTQ ideology, which seeks to destroy life. It is an attack on humanity.”
“This ideology is an attempt to undermine the family and cultural values which are rooted in the very nature of humankind,” the Kenyan bishops added.
In Nigeria, constitutional lawyer Dayo Akinlaja said the threat of Western “sanctions should not deter us from abhoring what we consider to be immoral or sinful,” because the law should “reflect our culture and values. We cannot repeal our law to reflect the American way of life.”
Yet the Biden administration is expected to continue its pressure for the global LGBTQ agenda when Vice President Kamala Harris visits Africa from March 25 to April 2. She is scheduled to meet with the presidents of Ghana, Tanzania, and Zambia.
Biden’s foreign LGBTQ advocacy also affects everyday Americans. Biden committed the U.S. immigration system “to protecting vulnerable LGBTQI+ refugees and asylum seekers” worldwide, boosting the number of refugees able to resettle in the U.S. from 15,000 to 125,000.
The Biden administration has also touted the fact that 14% of Biden’s appointees identify as LGBTQ+, making them radically overrepresented in U.S. government compared to their numbers in the general population (7%).
Biden’s missionary work on behalf of gender ideology continues even as some European nations have stepped back from transgenderism’s most extreme claims. “The knowledge base, especially research-based knowledge for gender-affirming treatment (hormonal and surgical), is deficient and the long-term effects are little known,” the Norwegian Healthcare Investigation Board (NHIB/UKOM) concluded last Thursday. “This is particularly true for the teenage population where the stability of their gender incongruence is also not known.”
A February Pew poll found that 50% of respondents expected evangelical Christians to lose influence during the Biden administration, while 60% of Americans expected the LGBT movement to gain power.
Friedrich Gustav Emil Martin Niemöller [1892-1984] was a German theologian and Lutheran pastor who served from 1931 to 1937 at Saint Anne’s Lutheran Church in Dahlem, a wealthy suburb of Berlin.
Believing as a young man that Germany needed a strong leader to promote national unity and honor, Niemöller thought that could be achieved by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist Party touting nationalist slogans and advocating autonomy for private worship of the Christian faith. Niemöller voted for the Nazis, both in the 1924 Prussian state elections and in the final national parliamentary elections of March 1933.1
Most Germans hailed Adolf Hitler’s appointment as German chancellor on January 30, 1933, but few were more jubilant than Protestant church leaders, who welcomed the possibility of national regeneration. Yet, following Hitler’s rise to power and Nazism’s interference in church governance, Pastor Niemöller became a disillusioned and outspoken critic.
Niemöller had come to the ministry late in life, at nearly 40 years of age. A gifted charismatic preacher, he soon became widely known for his critical sermons against the state and the view that neopaganism was being encouraged by the Nazis.
As a consequence, Pastor Niemöller was frequently arrested between 1934 and 1937. In February 1938, he was sent off and held in solitary confinement in Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
In 1941, the Gestapo transferred the pastor to Dachau. The last eight years of Nazi rule, Niemöller spend in Nazi prisons and concentration camps. Martin Niemöller was a complex man and a self-confessed antisemite, in contrast to modern Evangelicals, who are viewed as Israel’s best friends due to the Abrahamic Covenant, which came about when God said to Abraham, “I will bless those that bless you and curse those who curse you, and I’m giving you the land.”
As an aside, I went in 2013 with my friend Ralph Hallow [1938-2020], the celebrated chief political correspondent for the Washington Times, to his scheduled interview with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. When asked in the foyer outside Abbas’ office, “Why do the Evangelicals back the Jews over the Palestinians?” I answered by paraphrasing Genesis 12:1-3;7: “God said to Abraham, ‘I will bless those that bless you and curse those who curse you, and I’m giving you the land.’” The official responded, “So you’re saying that I’m not a son of Abraham?” I replied, “You are a son of Abraham, and you came through Ishmael.” All hell broke loose.
Ralph and I were thrown out of PLO Headquarters in Ramallah for articulating the very last truth that God spoke to Moses in Deuteronomy 34:4: “This is the land that I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your offspring.’”
Niemöller’s unscripted remark from his 8-year period of captivity is what he’s best known for today. He said: “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.”
Pastor Niemöller’s colleague Dietrich Bonhoeffer [1906-1945] didn’t fare as well. A Lutheran pastor, theologian, and anti-Nazi dissident, Pastor Bonhoeffer’s theology would not lead him away from the German public square, but instead deeply and profoundly into it.
In witnessing the atrocities of the Nazi Regime and the unspeakable human suffering, Bonhoeffer became involved in a plot to assassinate Hitler. Imprisoned for the last two years of his life, Pastor Bonhoeffer was executed at dawn on the morning of April 8, 1945, having been led naked into the execution yard while prison guards jeered and ridiculed him.
At the foot of the scaffold, Bonhoeffer paused to kneel and pray, then got up and climbed the steps to the gallows. Using a meat hook from a slaughterhouse, Bonhoeffer was then slowly hoisted by a noose formed of piano wire. Asphyxiation is thought to have taken half an hour … one of the last gruesome acts of Adolf Hitler.2
The SS camp doctor who witnessed Bonhoeffer’s death later recalled a man “devout, brave and composed; I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.”
Pastor Martin Niemöller came to the realization that compliance and doing nothing, as expressed in his ‘they came for’, is that which led Germany to Adolf Hitler, a despot “who consorted with crazies and criminals and was often seen carrying a dog whip in public.”3 Niemöller’s adage is especially prescient and current as America drifts idly towards the abyss, having surrendered the culture to religious secularism over the last 100 years or so.
Last week, Canadian Pastor Derek Reimer was arrested by Calgary police over his protest at a drag queen story time at a public library. Tucker Carlson reports: “Canada has now become an atheist totalitarian state with amazing speed, and in Canada, it’s now become a crime to object to sexualized Drag Queen Shows for children … you’re not allowed to say a word.
“Late last month a pastor in Calgary was violently thrown out of an all ages – in other words, children’s Drag Queen story hour – for daring to object to the sexualization of children.
“In Canada, showing any disloyalty at all to the Trudeau government can get your bank account frozen, your truck seized.”
Jesse Kelly’s insight from last week comes to mind: “We’re not playing offense yet. We’re in the early stages of playing real defense. But no offense yet. It will take time to learn. You’ll know we’re playing offense when we’re pushing OUR values in schools. Not just stopping theirs. When we’re building OUR statues …”
Contemporary American Christendom looks like the boxer in Apostle Paul’s account from 1 Corinthians 9:26. It is nothing more than shadow boxing – just beating the air and failing to land any telling blow. Unlike early America, where 106 of the 108 early American colleges were distinctly Christian, if contemporary Christianity even dares to get into the ring with its opponent, secularism, it just flails around like one beating the air.
Yet, praise be to God as Gideons and Rahabs are beginning to stand.
BY MICHAEL SNYDER/ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG MARCH 14, 2023
Many believe the endgame of where we are heading is the widescale acceptance of digital currency controlled by the Federal government. With the loss of confidence in the banking system the Government will ride in to rescue the day but the price of that ‘security’ will be complete and total control over everything in the monetary system.
Did you think that the Federal Reserve was just going to stand by and watch the U.S. banking system completely collapse?
In response to the stunning failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, the Federal Reserve announced a rescue plan on Sunday evening that is going to radically change banking in America forever. All deposits at Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank will be fully guaranteed and will be available on Monday.
Of course the Federal Reserve can’t just make an exception for these two banks. If they are going to do this for them, that means that they are going to have to do it for everyone else too. So what this means is that from this point forward the Federal Reserve is essentially promising to guarantee every bank account in America. Considering the fact that more than 19 trillion dollars is deposited with U.S. banks, that is quite a promise to make.
I want to show you that I am not exaggerating one bit. The following is the announcement about this new plan that was just posted on the official website of the Federal Reserve…
To support American businesses and households, the Federal Reserve Board on Sunday announced it will make available additional funding to eligible depository institutions to help assure banks have the ability to meet the needs of all their depositors. This action will bolster the capacity of the banking system to safeguard deposits and ensure the ongoing provision of money and credit to the economy.
The Federal Reserve is prepared to address any liquidity pressures that may arise.
The additional funding will be made available through the creation of a new Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP), offering loans of up to one year in length to banks, savings associations, credit unions, and other eligible depository institutions pledging U.S. Treasuries, agency debt and mortgage-backed securities, and other qualifying assets as collateral. These assets will be valued at par. The BTFP will be an additional source of liquidity against high-quality securities, eliminating an institution’s need to quickly sell those securities in times of stress.
With approval of the Treasury Secretary, the Department of the Treasury will make available up to $25 billion from the Exchange Stabilization Fund as a backstop for the BTFP. The Federal Reserve does not anticipate that it will be necessary to draw on these backstop funds.
After receiving a recommendation from the boards of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Federal Reserve, Treasury Secretary Yellen, after consultation with the President, approved actions to enable the FDIC to complete its resolutions of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank in a manner that fully protects all depositors, both insured and uninsured. These actions will reduce stress across the financial system, support financial stability and minimize any impact on businesses, households, taxpayers, and the broader economy.
The Board is carefully monitoring developments in financial markets. The capital and liquidity positions of the U.S. banking system are strong and the U.S. financial system is resilient.
Depository institutions may obtain liquidity against a wide range of collateral through the discount window, which remains open and available. In addition, the discount window will apply the same margins used for the securities eligible for the BTFP, further increasing lendable value at the window.
The Board is closely monitoring conditions across the financial system and is prepared to use its full range of tools to support households and businesses, and will take additional steps as appropriate.
Please don’t just skim those paragraphs.
Take the time to read them in detail, because what the Fed just did literally changes everything.
From now on, nobody will have to worry that their bank will fail, and the Fed has decided to completely end the war against inflation.
Translation: the Fed’s hiking cycle is dead and buried, and here comes the next round of massive liquidity injections. It also means that the Fed, Treasury and FDIC have just experienced the most devastating humiliation in recent history – just 4 days ago Powell was telling Congress he could hike 50bps and here we are now using taxpayer funds to bail out banks that have collapsed because they couldn’t even handle 4.75% and somehow the Fed has no idea!
That analysis is right on the money.
I warned that our system could not handle higher interest rates, and higher rates were directly related to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.
So there won’t be any more rate hikes.
In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if the Fed started cutting rates very soon.
In addition, all of the fresh money that the Fed will be injecting into the financial system now will be highly inflationary.
We are being told that the Fed’s plan won’t cost taxpayers a dime, but the truth is that inflation is a tax on all of us.
So the financial community may be praising this “extraordinary intervention” by the Fed, but there will inevitably be a very high price to pay for spraying money around so recklessly.
But what other choice did the Fed have?
As I have repeatedly warned my readers, our fundamentally flawed system simply cannot survive without artificial support.
As a result of the Fed’s reckless rate hiking strategy, U.S. banks are now sitting on 620 billion dollars of unrealized losses.
That is “billion” with a “b”, and that is a ticking time bomb that is not going to go away any time soon.
Meanwhile, the housing bubble is imploding, we are heading into the worst commercial real estate crisis in all of U.S. history, and now faith in the U.S. banking system has been greatly shaken.
This crisis is not even close to over.
And every time there is a new eruption somewhere, the Fed will try to put the flames out with generous injections of fresh liquidity.
Virtually everyone applauds when the Fed starts spraying money around, but by now all of us should realize that this story is not going to have a happy ending.
Many believe the endgame of where we are heading is the widescale acceptance of digital currency controlled by the Federal government. With the loss of confidence in the banking system the Government will ride in to rescue the day but the price of that “security” will be complete and total control over everything in the monetary system.
Central bankers will be able to see what is in your bank account, who you transact with, what you purchase, and anything else they are curious about in your financial life. That full transparency with the state removes all elements of privacy, while also giving the institutions the ability to censor any and all transactions, regardless of whether they have a legitimate reason or not.
Anything and everything that requires an exchange of currency can be monitored, and transactions can be denied for such things as firearms, meat, or other (currently) legal but politically incorrect purchases. Already the World Economic Forum is launching a coalition to reward people with “carbon credits” for using fewer resources. Digital currency will also allow the government to seize assets at will.
This is the type of power and economic system the Book of Revelation describes where no one can buy or sell without the ‘authority’ of the Beast and his mark.
Digital currency makes this all possible and thanks to current events, it may be a lot closer than you think.
Judges 7:20 King James Version (KJV) And the three companies blew the trumpets, and brake the pitchers, and held the lamps in their left hands, and the trumpets in their right hands to blow withal: and they cried, The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon.
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The Amen Corner
Most evolutionists seem to know everything about the missing link except that it is still missing.
When one fellow admitted to me that there were a few missing links in the evolutionary chain, I advised him that in reality his whole chain is missing. -Dr. Shelton Smith
Give me one hundred preachers who hate nothing but sin, fear nothing but God and who love nothing more than the lost souls of men and I care not one wisp whether they be clergymen or laymen. -John Wesley
The only permanent pain and harm that can come to me from the offenses committed against me is the irreparable injury I do myself by hatred of those who wrong me! -Harry Rimmer
A leader, once convinced a particular course of action is the right one, must have the determination to stick with it and be undaunted when the going gets rough. -Ronald Reagan
Live every day as if it were your last. Do every job as if you were the boss. Drive as if all other vehicles were police cars. Treat everybody else as if he were you.
Infidelity reproves nothing that is bad. It only ridicules and denounces all that is good. It tears down but never builds up, destroys but never imparts life, attacks religion but offers no adequate substitute. -Joseph R. Paxton
I saw about a peck of counterfeit dollars once. Did I go to the window and throw away all my good dollars? No! Yet some reject Christianity because there are hypocrites, or counterfeit Christians. -William E. Biederwolf
The future success of America is not in the Constitution, but in the laws of God upon which this Constitution is founded. -President James Madison
Leave tomorrow’s trouble to tomorrow’s strength, tomorrow’s work to tomorrow’s time, tomorrow’s trial to tomorrow’s grace and to Him who is God today and tomorrow.
There are those who believe that a new modernity demands a new morality. What they fail to consider is the harsh reality that there is no such thing as a new morality. There is only one morality. All else is immorality. -President Theodore Roosevelt
I remember two things: I am a great sinner and I have a great Saviour. And I don’t suppose a [former] slave trader needs to remember much more than that. -John Newton
An infidel said, “There is one thing that mars all the pleasures of my life.”
“Indeed!” replied his friend. “What is that?”
He answered, “I am afraid the Bible is true. If I could know for certain that death is an eternal sleep, I should be happy; my joy would be complete! But here is the thorn that stings me. This is the word that pierces my very soul – if the Bible is true, I am lost forever!”
In the Bible, the temptation that Satan made to Adam and Eve is quoted in Genesis 3:5: “God knows that, when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” This doesn’t mean “knowing” in the sense of “recognizing,” but rather in the sense of “determining.” Satan tells the first couple that disobeying God will liberate them from the control of God, so that they can determine good and evil for themselves, apart from the standards of God.
That temptation is a lie (John 8:44). There is no autonomy from God, not even for Satan himself (Job 1:6-12). It should be obvious that Satan cannot give what he himself does not have.
In Mormonism, there is a doctrine that says that Jesus and Satan were brothers in their preexistence. The Father put a challenge to them to carry out His plan of salvation. Satan offered, instead, a plan of universal salvation. The LDS website explains it this way (references are to Mormon scriptures): “It was in this setting that Satan made an unwelcome and arrogant proposal to change Heavenly Father’s plan so that it provided universal salvation for everyone (see Moses 4:1). Before we discuss how he claimed to accomplish this, it is important to note that Satan is referred to in these verses as ‘the father of all lies’ (Moses 4:4). On another occasion he is called ‘a liar from the beginning’ (D&C 93:25). We would be absurdly naïve to assume that Satan was telling the truth when he made this exaggerated claim of universal salvation.”
According to Mormonism, how is the individual supposed to make the right choice between the Father’s plan of salvation and Satan’s? Their answer is found in Doctrine and Covenants 9:8: “Behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right.”
Do you see any parallels there? While the biblical God commands us to believe on the basis of His word alone, the Mormon God says that each person will be able to decide on the basis of a subjective feeling. Go back to Genesis 3:5 above. Is that not the same thing that Satan offered, falsely, to Adam and Eve?
While Mormons claim that their doctrine is the rejection of Satan’s lies, that doctrine is the same as Satan’s lies, as recorded in the Bible.
The only hope for the Mormon is to repudiate his autonomous determination of what is right or wrong and to submit to the infallible declaration of truth by the triune God of the Bible.
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