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DAILY DEVOTIONAL 
By Carl Shank March 22, 2025
"Only the facts. Ma'am!" I recall that phrase said over and over again on TV as a kid watching the old TV series, "Dragnet." Dragnet was an American crime drama television series starring Jack Webb and Harry Morgan which ran for four seasons, from January 12, 1967, to April 16, 1970. This very famous and dour saying was Jack Webb's cryptic remark to interviewed witnesses of a crime. He did not want superfluous or extraneous or personal opinions to cloud the real "facts" of the crime or situation at hand. A current public radio program claims that they are following "only the facts," that they report only factual events as they really took place. They claim to be free of bias and not "progressively oriented" in their reporting. Consequently, a recent show on abortion offered the scientific "fact" of an unborn baby, or fetus, achieving "life status" at so many weeks of gestation. This was said in response to a conservative caller who phoned in citing other "evidence," including the Bible's take on conception, as the beginning of life. The public radio station claimed that the caller was wrong and cited "scientific facts" about the "real" beginning of life. This is an instance and example of what modern society, especially anti-Christian society, considers as "factual" and therefore worth reporting and worth our time. There are actually three problems with what are called "facts" today even when claiming to be fair and unbiased. The definition of what is "factual" has shifted, first of all, over time and history. Hillsdale College publishes speeches in a format called "Imprimis" ( https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/ ) This very conservative institution offers excellent and gifted speakers who go against the tide of "progressivism" in the country. While they and their invited speakers are often dismissed and ignored by most public and social media today, they offer another look at American culture that is Constitutionally based. One of those speakers noted that in the court system today, progressive constitutional thinking has replaced and overtaken original constitutional mandates. This can actually be traced in the history of the court system. "Facts" seen as such years ago are now replaced by "real" facts, modern facts, today's facts. This is part of the problem of a public radio station purporting to only report the "facts" of a situation today. In the second place, reporters and journalists today have been schooled and educated by liberal elite to discard "old" ways of thinking, especially conservatively based thinking, and report things as they "see" them. And this is the problem. How we process what we see is often, whether consciously or unconsciously, biased in favor of a liberal, anti-Christian way of thinking and seeing. Rather than admit such presuppositional flavoring to "factual" reporting, the modern way is seen as the "only" way to see and process everything. Scientific reasoning, crafted by liberal theologians and philosophers of the Enlightenment, has replaced and driven out any hint of truthful reporting that takes into account biblical truth. And, of course, "religious" truth has been replaced by "scientific" truth, as if humanity's way of reasoning trumps God's revelation. Third, American individualism, copying the French Revolution, has defined American "freedom" today. This requires some explanation. Os Guinness in his Last Call for Liberty: How America's Genius for Freedom has Become Its Greatest Threat (InterVarsity Press, 2018), has carefully cited historical "facts" that link the 1789 French Revolution and the American Left — "The former struggled for "liberté" and "egalité" the latter for "liberation" and "social justice." The former won through violent revolution, whereas the latter seeks to win through a cultural revolution, after which the elite imposes its will through administrative and bureaucratic procedures (regulative bodies and the law courts). And both are characterized by their reliance on the state, their open hostility toward religion, their radical separation of religion and public life, their attempt to control language in order to control reality (French and Soviet "Newspeak," "doublespeak," and American "political correctness"), their unashamed espousal of power, their egalitarian appeal to envy rather than liberty, and their naive utopianism that the removal of repression will mean fulfillment of freedom." (51) He says that American has rejected its covenantal/constitutional heritage of freedom as a republic surrendering to those supoposedly "democratic" forces that redefine our "facts" and our heritage. "Only the facts, Ma'am!" has taken on a new meaning, a new way of thinking and processing, and an anti-Christian, anti-biblical, anti-religious cast that we cannot even see or take into account in our reporting of the "facts."
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Oct 2, 2025

Week #39 — Day 5

Communion As A Means of Grace


Q. 88. What are the outward and ordinary means whereby Christ communicateth to us the benefits of redemption?

A. The outward and ordinary means whereby Christ communicateth to us the benefits of redemption are, his ordinances, especially the Word, Sacraments, and prayer; all which are made effectual to the elect for salvation.

Matt. 28:19-20; Acts 2:42, 46-47


“We see, touch, and taste the Lord’s Supper and know that as surely as we do so, so surely has Christ given Himself for our sins. The sacraments have therefore been called “visible words” because they make tangible the pledges of God in His Word.”


Excerpt FromGlorifying and Enjoying God: 52 Devotions through the Westminster Shorter Catechism (Boekestein & Cruse & Miller)


Communion as a means of grace. Kevin DeYoung points out in his “Daily Doctrine” the vast and today underrated importance of the Lord’s Supper — “The importance of the Lord’s Supper is so obvious in Scripture and in church history that it’s amazing the sacrament has become so unimportant in so many churches today. The celebration of the Last Supper and the corresponding institution of the Lord’s Supper (“Do this in remembrance of me”) occur in detail in all four Gospels.” He makes four observations concerning this sacrament or ordinance.


“The Lord’s Supper is a sign and seal—a sign of Christ’s death on the cross and a seal of the remission of sins we have by faith through Christ’s atoning sacrifice. The Lord’s Supper is a family meal and a covenantal meal. God not only gathers into his family those who were once strangers and aliens; he also feeds us as his children. The Lord’s Supper is for our help. It is a cup of blessing (1 Cor. 10:16). God supports our earthly life with physical bread and physical drink; he nourishes and strengthens our spiritual life with living bread and the cup of life.


The Lord’s Supper orients us in two directions. It orients us vertically as we remember the body and blood, give thanks for his sacrifice, commune with him by faith, and proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes again. It also orients us horizontally as we are moved in grace toward our fellow believers. We discern the body of Christ upward in glory and outward in love.” Ponder and recall these four points the next time you observe the Lord’s Supper.


A Puritan Prayer —

“Lord, I thankfully obey thy call,

accept of thy goodness,

acquiesce in thy gospel appointments.

I believe that Jesus thy Son has plenteous redemption;

I apply to him for his benefits,

give up my mind implicitly to his instructions,

trust and glory in his sacrifice,

revere and love his authority,

pray that his grace may reign in my life.

I will not love a world that crucified him,

neither cherish nor endure the sin that put him to grief,

nor suffer him to be wounded by others.

At the cross that relieves my conscience

let me learn lessons of self-denial, forgiveness and submission,

feel motives to obedience,

find resources for all needs of the divine life.

Then let me be what I profess,

do as well as teach,

live as well as hear religion.”


Excerpt From

The Valley of Vision

Edited by Arthur Bennett



"We must unquestionably receive its [the Bible's] statements of fact,  bow before its enunciation of duty, tremble before its threatenings, 
and rest upon its promises." – B.B. Warfield


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