Aphorisms for a Tedious Week

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You cannot invoke the gods of chaos without getting the gods of chaos.

Offended by the president’s lack of basic decency, the respectable leadership of official Washington has declared that it was time to race him to the bottom.

Turns out they show remarkable talent for it.

Official Washington lecturing the president on his lack of decency is like one bikini-clad mud wrestler rebuking the other one because her top was coming loose. “Don’t you have any self-respect?”

Pence was right to refuse the demands that he reject certain slates of electors. Pence was also right to refuse demands that he invoke the 25th Amendment. For the same reason, and against the same kind of bonkers.

This is not because the election wasn’t stolen. It is because, as long as you are trying to maintain the semblance of some sort of stable government, you have to think of what precedents you are setting, and for whom. And who around here wants Kamala Harris to have the sole authority to reject Oklahoma’s electors?

And by the way, if the election wasn’t stolen, then why are they handling it like it was stolen goods? From the way they are driving, they have something hot in the trunk.

Every Republican who votes for impeachment is driving the getaway car.

Resigning your post in the last two weeks of an administration is an admirable way of declaring to the entire world that you will do absolutely anything to save your career in politics.

It is perhaps too early to say, but I am thinking that this ends with Dagon’s temple in a pile of rubble.

The most effeminate thing Trump has done in his presidency was when he taunted Pence at the rally about Pence’s willingness to certify the suspect electoral votes. He was asking Pence to create a constitutional showdown when Trump had the means to do that himself—via insurrection act, martial law, national emergency, whatever. He was demanding that Pence do something he didn’t believe in because Trump was unwilling to do something he did believe in.

Presidents shouldn’t hide behind vice-presidents. It is a bad look.

There are those who say that even raising the possibility of things like martial law is simply irresponsible. Don’t you know that under martial law, you would almost certainly lose your freedom of speech? And if that happened, for example, you could get kicked off of Twitter or Facebook for no good reason.

We should not be surprised at the totalitarian tactics of the Big Tech leftists. We may be surprised at how fast they are moving, and how openly, and how coordinated it all was.

In an old-style coup, say in a banana republic in the 1950’s, the rebels would go for the seat of government, and also for the television and radio stations. Control of how information flows to the people is critical. It is the received wisdom of takeovers.

So in a time of turmoil like this, where reliable information is choked off, anyone who believes the latest hot rumor or conspiracy theory without double checking is a moron. And anyone who believes the official narrative surpasses him easily.

The official narrative will want to be that the country barely survived a vicious assault from hordes of white supremacists. And if you believe that, you have all the discernment of a five gallon wet/dry vacuum cleaner.

The official narrative is that Trump was the problem. No, Trump was the allergic reaction to the problem. The problem remains with us still. The problem looks to be back in charge.

Secularism is bankrupt. That’s why all of their checks are bouncing.

This violence at the Capitol was historically unprecedented, an assault unlike anything we have ever seen in those hallowed halls before. Except for when the dynamite went off in 1915, when four Puerto Rican nationalists opened fire from the gallery in the House in 1954, when the Weather Underground set off a bomb there in 1971, and when radical commies set off a bomb there in 1983. Other than those instances, the hallowed halls have been serene and peaceful.

These events have not been an assault on democracy. They have been an assault on the republic by democracy.

The official narrative wants the contrast to be between their idea of responsible government and a mob storming the Capitol. The contrast actually needs to be between their tyrannical over-reach and millions of Christians worshiping God without a permit.

The contrast needs to be between them restricting worship and us singing psalms anyway. Start with Psalm 124, which I will be preaching on this Lord’s Day.

This has been the logic behind our psalm sings, incidentally. Tyranny must be answered, and it far better to answer it with music than with mobs.

While we are on this point, some of you may remember the arrests at our psalm sing a few months ago. It turns out that what we were doing was entirely legal, and what the city of Moscow did was entirely illegal, and so the city, slathered with much embarrassment, has dropped the charges.

Many of the Christians who accused us of being scofflaws, of egregiously violating Romans 13, and thereby bringing the gospel into disrepute, have since then inundated us with emails, calls, and letters that apologized for having misread the situation. They did not realize that the city was the one violating the law. Actually, just kidding. We have not been so inundated.

Poll watchers were kicked out of their posts “because of COVID” in order to get control over the poll watchers. If you see that, but then let them do the same thing to your worship services, then perhaps a bit too much naivete was poured into you in seminary, and is now sloshing out of the jar.

These totalitarians want to be able to do contact tracing of all Christians who are worshiping God, and this will be totally fine and nothing will go wrong because they are merely concerned about the virus.

Yeah, a virus. That’s the ticket.

It is sometimes tempting to think that God has left the church on earth to give the demons something to chuckle about. But this really is a temptation, one that comes from them actually.

The church’s assigned task on earth is to live in such a way as to demonstrate to the principalities and powers the manifold wisdom of God (Eph. 3:10). Despite appearances, this is actually happening.

Despite appearances, it is actually happening and cannot be stopped.

Walking in faith during these tempestuous times means that we should be looking forward, craning our necks eagerly, watching for the results of what God is doing. He is doing something, mark it well, and I can hardly wait.

There is a kind of election that cannot be rigged.