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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 12, 2025

Week #41 — Day 1

Not Magic!


Q. 91. How do the Sacraments become effectual means of salvation?

A. The Sacraments become effectual means of salvation, not from any virtue in them, or in him that doth administer them; but only by the blessing of Christ, and the working of his Spirit in them that by faith receive them.

1 Pet. 3:21; Matt. 3:11; 1 Cor. 3:6-7; 1 Cor. 12:13.


Q. 92. What is a Sacrament?

A. A Sacrament is a holy ordinance instituted by Christ; wherein, by sensible signs, Christ and the benefits of the new covenant are represented, sealed, and applied to believers.

Gen. 17:7, 10; Ex. 12; 1 Cor. 11:23, 26.


Q. 93. Which are the Sacraments of the New Testament?

A. The Sacraments of the New Testament are Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper.

Matt. 28:19; Matt. 26:26-28.


““What hath stage magic to do with sacramentology? Most people probably would think absolutely nothing! But interestingly, the common utterance of the illusionist—“hocus pocus”—actually originates from a misunderstanding of the Lord’s Supper. In the Roman Catholic Mass, the priest would lift up the bread and say, “Hoc est corpus meum” (Latin meaning, “This is my body”).”


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


Not magic! This week we take an in-depth look at the sacraments, called “sacramentology” by theologians. From a Roman Catholic point of view, the bread and the drink taken at the Lord’s Supper become the body and blood of Christ, mysteriously and magically. This is called transubstantiation. Then there is the view of “consubstantiation” and a determination that these are merely symbols and not “seals” of the grace of God to us. And then, are there only two sacraments? Why not more? In other words, debate and some controversy surround baptism and the Lord’s Supper. We need to clarify and outline what sacraments are and do for the Christian believer.


What we can say at the outset is that no magic, no “hocus pocus” happens at baptism and the Lord’s Supper or Communion. There is indeed mystery in Christianity (think about the Virgin Birth) but not magic. The Puritans in the Catechism make clear that these sacraments “become effectual means of salvation not by any virtue in them or in him that doth administer them.” They are taken and received by faith alone in Christ alone for the glory of God alone.


A Puritan Prayer —

“Glorious Trinity, impress the gospel on my soul,

until its virtue diffuses every faculty;

Let it be heard, acknowledged, professed, felt.

Teach me to secure this mighty blessing;

Help me to give up every darling lust,

to submit heart and life to its command,

to have it in my will,

controlling my affections,

moulding my understanding;

to adhere strictly to the rules of true religion,

not departing from them in any instance,

nor for any advantage in order to escape evil,

inconvenience or danger.

Take me to the cross to seek glory from its infamy;

Strip me of every pleasing pretence of righteousness by my own doings.

O gracious Redeemer,

I have neglected thee too long,

often crucified thee,

crucified thee afresh by my impenitence,

put thee to open shame.

I thank thee for the patience that has borne with me so long,

and for the grace that now makes me willing to be thine.

O unite me to thyself with inseparable bonds,

that nothing may ever draw me back from thee, my Lord, my Saviour.”


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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