John B Sinclair – Signs of the Times

The following are some quotes that I found applicable from an article that I could find nowhere else on the web: 

John B Sinclair – Signs of the Times (1956, Associate Presbyterian Magazine)

Walter Lippmann – ‘’we are in a new and strange country and we are [surveying] strange new ground’’

Dwight D. Eisenhower - ''the policies that were good six months ago are not necessarily now of any validity''

 World Conditions Today (in 1956): 

• ''The great contest between rule by fear and force over against the freedom of self rule continues''.
• ''There may have been some substance in the rumors that followed after WW1 of munitions and manufacturers that wanted war to fill pockets''.
• ''America has depended upon the brilliance of its leaders and the cleverness of their diplomacy to do what only God can accomplish; namely, cause men to love one another''.
• ''[American Politicians] operate on the principle that ‘if you scratch my back, will scratch yours on the next vote’''.

Crime:

• ''Parental delinquency is [the root of the issue]. By their parents you shall know them. In many cases home is only a place to eat and sleep. Affection, love, and constant firm discipline are neglected. W.G. Long, judge of superior court, Seattle Washington, who has heard 50,000 cases involving boys and girls said, ‘’I have yet to see a serious offender whose trouble could not largely be attributed to idleness’’. TV, comic books, movies, and radio feed the imagination of these idle youth w/ TV leading the parade as a negative force''.

Religion With No Meaning: 

• ''Consider the fact that while we have 91,000,000 church members*, only 21,000,000 are regular church attenders. This means that 70,000,000 church members do not care enough about the Lord to come into His house for worship. In many cases drive-in theaters have been taken over in communities for Sabbath morning services. You can come with your picnic baskets, golf clubs, and swimming suits, thus avoiding losing time from an afternoon of pleasure. [These] unconsciously follow the well trodden path of Catholicism, i.e., get your duty to God out of the way early on the sabbath so you can devote the remainder of the day to the Devil''. 
• ''Many church members do not hesitate to leave before the worship service for the most trivial excuse even on Communion Sabbaths. Such action is both harmful and disgraceful to the individual, disrespectful and discouraging to the pastor, but above all dishonoring to God. Some church members who do stay for morning worship hurry home that they may be on time for the afternoon activities of the saddle club, horse show, or rodeo. No activity of the church dare interfere with the Sabbath afternoon baseball game on radio or TV. It is especially shameful when God’s holy day is thus desecrated by his professed followers. Some community sales are held regularly on the Lord’s Day while motion picture houses and super markets are open in almost every community despite the command (Ex 20:8 -  'Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy'). However, God has not left himself without a witness and may are his faithful followers who revere his holy name and earnestly desire to worship Him in sincerity and truth''.

Conclusion: 

• ''‘What is the matter when a church does not grow?...[a minister replied] 'Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he' (Prov 29:18). When I asked [the minister] to explain further, he said, ‘if a church is to grow there must be a passion for souls. In other words’’, he said, ‘the church must be missionary minded’….We should be advancing in our spiritual growth or we retrogress. There is no standing still''.
• ''(Luke 5:4 - 'Now when he had left speaking, he said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught ') Could not this scriptural message be the guide...for our personal prayers? The signs of the time point to the need for a people deeply dedicated to God and ready to serve however and whatever he may call. For what do we live for, what we get or what we give? Get we must if we would give, give we must if we would live. Then let us get and give and live''.

* - see the following for an updated comparison: Smith, Gregory, Alan Cooperman, Besheer Mohamed, Chip Rotolo, Patricia Tevington, Justin Nortey, Asta Kallo, Jeff Diamant, and Dalia Fahmy. 2025. “Decline of Christianity in the U.S. Has Slowed, May Have Leveled Off.” Pew Research Center. doi: 10.58094/4kqq-3112. 

Jones, Jeffery. “U.S. Church Membership Falls below Majority for First Time.” Gallup, 29 Mar. 2021, news.gallup.com/poll/341963/church-membership-falls-below-majority-first-time.aspx.

Jones, Jeffrey. “Church Attendance Has Declined in Most U.S. Religious Groups.” Gallup.com, 25 Mar. 2024, news.gallup.com/poll/642548/church-attendance-declined-religious-groups.aspx.

(Currently only 40% of Americans consider themselves Protestant, and in 2020, 47% of U.S. adults belonged to a church [or otherwise] and 30% of American Protestants are regular church attenders) 

NWO is Cringe

"It is true that in the abstract the unity of the race, unbroken by national distinctions, is the ideal. 

Had sin not entered, this would undoubtedly have been the actual state of things, as it will become so in the final eschatological dispensation [cp. Gal. 3.28]. But for the present intervening period this is not the will of God. 

Nationalism, within proper limits, has the divine sanction; an imperialism that would, in the interest of one people, obliterate all lines of distinction is everywhere condemned as contrary to the divine will. Later prophecy raises its voice against the attempt at world-power, and that not only, as is sometimes assumed, because it threatens Israel, but for the far more principal reason, that the whole idea is pagan and immoral. 

Now it is through maintaining the national diversities, as these express themselves in the difference of language, and are in tum upheld by this difference, that God prevents realization of the attempted scheme. Besides this, however, a twofold positive divine purpose may be discerned in this occurrence. 

In the first place there was a positive intent that concerned the natural life of humanity. Under the providence of God each race or nation has a positive purpose to serve, fulfilment of which depends on relative seclusion from others. 

And secondly, the events at this stage were closely interwoven with the carrying out of the plan of redemption. They led to the election and separate training of one race and one people. Election from its very nature presupposes the existence of a larger number from among which the choice can be made".

- Geerhardus Vos commenting on Gen 10, Biblical Theology Old and New Testaments (1948)

 

"Then, as the customs of regions often express diverse interests and discernments, so persons born in these regions hold diverse patterns in their customs. Accordingly, they are unable to come together at the same time without some antipathy toward each other, which when once aroused tends to stir up sedition, subversion, and damage to the life of the commonwealth. …

The magistrate should know the nature and attitude of his own people, of neighbouring peoples, and of people in general. The nature, condition, and attitude of his own people, or the people subject to him, ought to be perceived, explored, and learned by him in order that he may know in what things and by what means he may lead, motivate, offend, and rule his people, and what sort of laws and manner of governing are consequently most appropriate. …

It is necessary that he know the nature, character, and propensities of neighbouring peoples because treaties, commercial arrangements, wars, and other transactions often develop with them, or because he has need of their services in social life. … Bad neighbours are inflicted by God upon some realm or other in order to reprimand and correct its vices, or to constrain it within its duties"

- Johannes Althusius, Politica, ed. and trans. Frederick S. Carney (1614; Indianapolis IN: Liberty Fund, 1995), 23.14-17. [Quote sourced from https://reformedcovenanter.wordpress.com/2024/08/07/johannes-althusius-on-the-failure-of-multiculturalism/]. 

Crap Shots 6 (2024)

Give me the unadorned Christ. 

    The Logos; undiluted and pure. 

For nothing else can quench my sin; the weakness I see 

looking back in the mirror every day.

Give me my King; who reigns over the church 

for his glory, her benefit, and through whom will the nations learn to bow in subjection. 

Give me the word; 

for he teaches, admonishes, loves, 

and shows how to pray and is our praise. 

Give me my beloved; for he died and lives for me 

though it was me, the whore, who made death necessary.

Give me nothing else 

than the resurrected Jesus; 

for anything less is but my unbelief.  

“Sin by its very nature is more often quiet and secretive than loud and public. For every overt episode of rage, there are dozens of jealousies, manipulations, white lies, and malicious thoughts, none of which immediately register on the conscience. And, according to Scripture, the greatest sin of all is even more covert: I do not love the Lord my God with my whole mind and heart. If our failure to consistently worship the true God is the key feature of sin, we are sinners all.”

― Edward T. Welch,  Addictions: A Banquet in the Grave (2001)

“It is better to be unhappy and know the worst, than to be happy in a fool's paradise.”

― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Idiot (1869)

"Upon the whole I conclude, that the Presbyterian Government is of divine institution. Their Articles of Faith taught by the Scripture, and believed by the Catholic Church. Their worship pure and perfect in all essentials. And their spirit and practice [is] at least as becoming the gospel as that of their neighbours" - Thomas Rhind, A Defense of the Church-Government, Faith, Worship, and Spirit, of the Presbyterians (1820)

“The love of the world cannot be expunged by a mere demonstration of the world’s worthlessness. But may it not be supplanted by the love of that which is more worthy than itself?”

― Thomas Chalmers, The Expulsive Power of a New Affection (1815)

“Theology masters the man; the man is never to master the theology.”

― Carl R. Trueman, Luther on the Christian Life: Cross and Freedom (2015)

“He was so far from being able to carry out such threats that one might conclude that the author of this document was utterly mad. Indeed, the man in the cave had entered a separate reality, one that was deeply connected to the mythic chords of Muslim identity and in fact gestured to anyone whose culture was threatened by modernity and impurity and the loss of tradition. By declaring war on the United States from a cave in Afghanistan, bin Laden assumed the role of an uncorrupted, indomitable primitive standing against the awesome power of the secular, scientific, technological Goliath; he was fighting modernity itself.”

― Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower (2006)

“You can’t always understand something just because you did it.”

― Stephen King, Roadwork (1981)

“Probably it is true enough that the great majority are rarely capable of thinking independently, that on most questions they accept views which they find ready-made, and that they will be equally content if born or coaxed into one set of beliefs or another. In any society freedom of thought will probably be of direct significance only for a small minority. But this does not mean that anyone is competent, or ought to have power, to select those to whom this freedom is to be reserved. It certainly does not justify the presumption of any group of people to claim the right to determine what people ought to think or believe.”

― Friedrich August von Hayek, The Road to Serfdom (1944)

“Words and actions are transient things, and being once past, are nothing; but the effect of them on an immortal soul may be endless.”

― Richard Baxter, Dying Thoughts (1683)

“Psychopaths don't act like Hannibal Lecter or Norman Bates. They come off like Hugh Grant, in his most adorable role.”

― Dave Cullen, Columbine (2009)

“The longer you went without speaking, the harder it gets to break the silence.”

― Stephen King, The Long Walk (1978)

 ''Suppose it be true that devotion to a creed is a sign of narrowness or intolerance, suppose the Church ought to be founded upon devotion to the ideal of Jesus or upon the desire to put His spirit into operation in the world, and not at all upon a confession of faith with regard to His redeeming work. Even if all this were true, even if a creedal Church were an undesirable thing, it would still remain true that as a matter of fact many (indeed in spirit really all) evangelical churches are creedal churches, and that if a man does not accept their

creed he has no right to a place in their teaching ministry'' 

- J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (1922)

“Christ had a Church in the world before there was either Apostle, or Prophet, or Evangelist, or Pastor, or Teacher, and He will have His Church around Him through eternal ages, after all His saints are gathered and perfected, and when oracles, ordinances and ministry shall have fulfilled their work.”

― James Henley Thornwell, The Collected Writings of James Henley Thornwell (1871)

“The basic duties of the husband were to provide for the welfare of his wife and children, to protect his household from any who would harm it, and to rule over his family and servants with a firm but just hand.. 'Above all, the husband was supposed to rule. He alone was master of his house, the one on whom all domestic discipline and order finally depended.' However, the wife 'was no maid or common servant of her husband,' but the husband was 'father of the house,' and his wife 'mother of the house'—'a position of high authority and equal respect.''

― Zachary M. Garris, Honor Thy Fathers: Recovering the Anti-Feminist Theology of the Reformers (2024)

TO THE PÆDAGOGUS.

Teacher, to Thee a chaplet I present,

Woven of words culled from the spotless mead,

Where Thou dost feed Thy flocks; like to the bee,

That skilful worker, which from many a flower

Gathers its treasures, that she may convey

A luscious offering to the master’s hand.

Though but the least, I am Thy servant still,

(Seemly is praise to Thee for Thy behests).

O King, great Giver of good gifts to men,

Lord of the good, Father, of all the Maker,

Who heaven and heaven’s adornment, by Thy word

Divine fitly disposed, alone didst make;

Who broughtest forth the sunshine and the day;

Who didst appoint their courses to the stars,

And how the earth and sea their place should keep;

And when the seasons, in their circling course,

Winter and summer, spring and autumn, each

Should come, according to well-ordered plan;

Out of a confused heap who didst create

This ordered sphere, and from the shapeless mass

Of matter didst the universe adorn;—

Grant to me life, and be that life well spent,

Thy grace enjoying; let me act and speak

In all things as Thy Holy Scriptures teach;

Thee and Thy co-eternal Word, All-wise,

From Thee proceeding, ever may I praise;

Give me nor poverty nor wealth, but what is meet,

Father, in life, and then life’s happy close.

(Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor, 198 AD)