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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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Sep 9, 2025

Week #36 — Day 3

Human Autonomy


Q. 82. Is any man able perfectly to keep the commandments of God?

A. No mere man since the fall is able in this life perfectly to keep the commandments of God, but doth daily break them in thought, word, and deed.

Ecc. 7:20; 1 John 1:8, 10; Gal. 5:17; Gen. 6:5; Gen. 8:21; Rom. 3:9-21; Jas. 3:2-13.


Q. 83. Are all transgressions of the law equally heinous?

A. Some sins in themselves, and by reason of several aggravations, are more heinous in the sight of God than others.

Ezek. 8:6, 13, 15; 1 John 5:16; Ps. 78:17, 32, 56.


Q. 84. What doth every sin deserve?

A. Every sin deserveth God’s wrath and curse, both in this life, and that which is to come.

Eph. 5:6; Gal. 3:10; Lam. 3:39; Matt. 25:41.


“With whatever mix of reason, feeling, desire, and imagination, Eve (vocally) and Adam (mutely) are like company employees who fancy themselves as the boss’s managing director, as if she should submit to them her report on what is good and evil so that they can decide whether or not they will sign off on it. This pretend usurpation has two sides: an implied demotion of God’s status and an implied promotion of Adam and Eve’s. In terms of the first, D. A. Carson has coined the term the de-Godding of God to describe this autonomous attitude and its effects.” (Christopher Watkin, Biblical Critical Theory)


Human autonomy. The root and cause of all sin and its consequences is the autonomous self. What we want. What we envision. What we consider our right. God becomes a “helper” along the way, Someone to pander to our desires and wishes. After all, we reason, He created us for such roles. God in this scenario is not God anymore. Oh, we may need him to help us out of tight jams and life threatening difficulties, but we can pretty much rule our own lives and frame our own futures. This is what sin does. It dethrones and replaces God with us as “gods.” The human fall into sin has left us scrambling to plot our own destinies. It is no wonder that guilt and death and judgment mark the human race. This is why we need the gospel and God to rescue and save us.


A Puritan Prayer —

“O GOD MOST HIGH, MOST GLORIOUS,

The thought of thine infinite serenity cheers me,

For I am toiling and moiling, troubled and distressed,

but thou art for ever at perfect peace.

Thy designs cause thee no fear or care of unfulfilment,

they stand fast as the eternal hills.

Thy power knows no bond,

thy goodness no stint.

Thou bringest order out of confusion,

and my defeats are thy victories:

The Lord God omnipotent reigneth.

I come to thee as a sinner with cares and sorrows,

to leave every concern entirely to thee,

every sin calling for Christ’s precious blood;

Revive deep spirituality in my heart;

Let me live near to the great Shepherd,

hear his voice, know its tones, follow its calls.

Keep me from deception by causing me to abide in the truth,

from harm by helping me to walk in the power of the Spirit.

Give me intenser faith in the eternal verities,

burning into me by experience the things I know;

Let me never be ashamed of the truth of the gospel,

that I may bear its reproach,

vindicate it,

see Jesus as its essence,

know in it the power of the Spirit.

Lord, help me, for I am often lukewarm and chill;

unbelief mars my confidence,

sin makes me forget thee.

Let the weeds that grow in my soul be cut at their roots

Grant me to know that I truly live only when I live to thee,

that all else is trifling.

Thy presence alone can make me holy, devout, strong and happy.

Abide in me, gracious God.”


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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