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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 24, 2025

Week #16 — Day 5

Jesus Exalted in His Session


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.

“that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures”

“So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God.”

“that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places”


“After Christ’s work on earth, He took His seat at “the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Heb. 1:3). Jesus is not simply “away.” He is symbolically on a throne in a real place doing real work. In His rule Christ directs all things to the best ends. He is making His enemies His footstool (Ps. 110:1), frustrating evil and executing preliminary justice (10:2). And He is gathering a church and receiving our praise as we await His return.”


Excerpt From

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


Jesus exalted in his session — “in sitting at the right hand of God the Father.” “The session does not make Christ king. Rather, it represents the public inauguration of Christ in his kingly glory. Upon being seated in heaven, the administration of his reign and rule was formally committed to Christ. . . . Jesus continues to exercise kingly rule, priestly intercession, and prophetical speech, but the work of satisfaction, upon which all the rest is based, has been accomplished.” (DeYoung, Daily Doctrine) While the modern church rarely uses the “session” of Christ to speak of his present status and authority, we do make reference to at least three things Jesus does for us now in his “session.”


Jesus prays for us. He intercedes for us before the Father, having satisfied the Judge of the earth with his own sacrifice for our sins. He pleads our case and our cause. He makes a pathway to God for us to come to him at any time, in any place and in every situation. Jesus also rules over us. He is gathering his Church through the ages and frustrates his enemies and executes preliminary justice (READ Psalm 110). Jesus cares for us by preparing “a place for us” with him in glory. He is like a mother hen gathering her chicks under her wings. We worship this all-seeing and all-caring resurrected Christ seated at the right hand of God the Father.


A Puritan Prayer —

“O DIVINE REDEEMER,

Great was thy goodness

in undertaking my redemption,

in consenting to be made sin for me,

in conquering all my foes;

Great was thy strength

in enduring the extremities of divine wrath,

in taking away the load of my iniquities;

Great was thy love

in manifesting thyself alive,

in showing thy sacred wounds,

that every fear might vanish, and every doubt be removed;

Great was thy mercy

in ascending to heaven

in being crowned and enthroned

there to intercede for me,

there to succour me in temptation,

there to open the eternal book,

there to receive me finally to thyself;

Great was thy wisdom

in devising this means of salvation;

Bathe my soul in rich consolations of thy resurrection life;

Great was thy grace

in commanding me to come hand in hand with thee to the Father,

to be knit to him eternally,

to discover in him my rest,

to find in him my peace,

to behold his glory,

to honour him who is alone worthy;

in giving me the Spirit as teacher, guide, power, that

I may live repenting of sin,

conquer Satan,

find victory in life.

When thou art absent all sorrows are here

When thou art present all blessings are mine.”


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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