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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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April 25, 2025

Week #16 — Day 6

Jesus Exalted in His Return (1)


Q. 28. Wherein consisteth Christ’s exaltation?

A. Christ’s exaltation consisteth in his rising again from the dead on the third day, in

ascending up into heaven, in sitting at the right hand of God the Father, and in coming to judge the world at the last day.

1 Cor. 15:4; Mark 16:19; Eph. 1:20; Acts 1:11; Acts 17:31.


“because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”


“The Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works” (Matt. 16:27). Christ first came to earth as a tender child; He will return as a terrible warrior. He first came to earth to be judged. He will return to judge every person. On that day, “for the first time in all human history, absolute justice is going to be dispensed to the human race.”


Excerpt From

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


Jesus exalted in his Return— “and in coming to judge the world at the last day.” The emphasis is placed on “restorative justice” in the Return of Jesus Christ. Yet we must not think of this as “getting back” at those who mistreated or misused us. That is personal vengeance not restorative justice. God will come back in the Person of Jesus Christ to make things right. 


The three words used in Scripture for Christ’s Return are “parousia,” the most common word for Christ’s Return (Matt. 24; 1 Thess. 2:19; 3:13; 4:15; 5:23; 2 Thess. 2:1; James 5:7, 8; 2 Pet. 3:4); “Apocalypsis” (2 Thess 1:7; 1 Peter1:7, 13)’ and, “Epiphaneia” which is the word for “appearing.” Jesus’s return is described as “the appearance of his coming” (2 Thess. 2:8) and as “the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Tim. 6:14).


A Puritan Prayer —

“THOU GREAT I AM,

Fill my mind with elevation and grandeur at the thought of a Being

with whom one day is as a thousand years,

and a thousand years as one day,

A mighty God, who, amidst the lapse of worlds,

and the revolutions of empires,

feels no variableness,

but is glorious in immortality.

May I rejoice that, while men die, the Lord lives;

that, while all creatures are broken reeds,

empty cisterns,

fading flowers,

withering grass,

he is the Rock of Ages, the Fountain of living waters.

Turn my heart from vanity,

from dissatisfactions,

from uncertainties of the present state,

to an eternal interest in Christ.

Let me remember that life is short and unforeseen,

and is only an opportunity for usefulness;

Give me a holy avarice to redeem the time,

to awake at every call to charity and piety,

so that I may feed the hungry,

clothe the naked,

instruct the ignorant,

reclaim the vicious,

forgive the offender,

diffuse the gospel,

show neighbourly love to all.”


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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