Letters About Our Incipient Criminality

What if you made one of your books to contain a complimentary fake ID, based on a discount code field that only in-the-know people had and that actually makes the price go up a tad? It’s a struggle for me to read this without coming to the conclusion that you have one of these IDs yourself, and are quite pleased with it. I’m hoping to fight the battle without the need of one of these, but I also hope I don’t have to use my AR-15. I’d love to get my hands on one of these as a backup. Can you hook me up? I mention the “discount” field because I have a hard time imagining I’m the only one in your readership who wants to prep a bit on the paper side.

Martyn

Re: The Scouring of the American Shire “And listen for the horn that will raise the Shire.”

I just had another thought about this. What if the horn we think we’re waiting for isn’t from a particular leader or a specific person, event, call, etc.?

What if the horn is a bunch of us talking to neighbors, one by one, or simply going about life as normal while others enslaved to this madness look at us and envy us, and then decide to join us in freedom?

grh

Firstly, I would just like to express my thanks for your ministry, which across the Atlantic in my country (England) is a wonderful breath of fresh air. My girlfriend and I recently finished reading Reforming Marriage, which we thoroughly enjoyed and I pray will set us on the right course for our life together.

I am writing to enquire about the extent to which we should be taking our principled resistance to the imposition of various COVID measures, such as lock downs, mask wearing and lastly, vaccine passports (for leisure and workplaces etc).

I am in pretty much 99% agreement with you about the legitimacy of these COVID measures, and am in full agreement that Christians can peaceably disobey these laws and orders with a clear conscience. I also am of the opinion (which I believe you are too, though please correct me if I have made an assumption!) that Christians should seek to politically oppose the continued imposition of lock downs and the introduction of vaccine passports, on the grounds that we wish to live full lives as God intended and that loving our neighbour means that we are bound to disobey laws which prohibit us from doing so. Therefore, it becomes a point of principle to continue living Godly lives, even when the government imposes stay-at-home orders and tells us we must have a vaccine passport to go into a shop or a pub, let alone a church.

I hope that provides some clarifying perspective to my question. I can see that in your country and mine, vaccination may soon become a condition for keeping one’s job and that without a vaccine passport, one could be fired. My girlfriend is going to start working as a paramedic (I believe an EMT is the US equivalent?) in October, and I am hoping to move workplaces in the next few months. The government in England has already made vaccination a requirement for workers in care-homes for the elderly, with no major political opposition. With this precedent, it is a realistic possibility that healthcare staff, like my girlfriend, will need to have a vaccine in order to keep their jobs. Moreover, when flu and winter illnesses hit our atrociously-run hospitals later this year, I can foresee a situation where the government decides to make vaccination a condition of employment more widely, in order to apparently ‘stop’ the latest wave of COVID deaths—you know the playbook well.

My girlfriend and I are both vaccinated against COVID, though we were careful not to take MRNA vaccines. This was for the simple reason that although we do not think COVID is anywhere near as serious as it is made out to be, we are happy to be protected against some of the more severe symptoms. In any case, should it be decided that vaccination becomes a legal or contractual obligation for employment, logistically and practically it would not be a problem for us. However, I feel compelled to opt out of any vaccine certification process as part of these mandates, and would prefer simply not to disclose that we’ve had vaccines if asked by our employers. The real question I would like to seek your advice on is this: if disclosing whether or not we have had a vaccine becomes a condition of employment, on pain of being fired or being rejected for future job openings, should we comply or should we carry on and potentially get fired for doing so? I am conflicted by our need to oppose these tyrants, and the need to provide for my girlfriend and me when we get married next year.

If I may also ask, there is likely to be a so-called ‘booster shot’ programme in England later this year as well: another great way to siphon off public money into the coffers of Big Pharma no doubt. However, as my girlfriend is going to be in a patient-facing role as a paramedic, I can also easily foresee a situation where she is either forced, or heavily ‘encouraged’ to take a booster shot—ostensibly to protect her against the XYZ new variant. Again, in this situation, should she take the shot (having already been fully vaccinated and happy with the protection this provides) or would it be best not to?

My apologies for how long this message is—thank you for taking the time to read it.

Steve

I am writing to you from South-Africa and I thought you would be encouraged to know that your work is highly appreciated by many of our family and me.

Many of us also listen to the podcasts on Canon Press. I find your videos and blog posts on all things “pandemic” and COVID-related very insightful and helpful in these times. Thank you for your guidance.

I am a pastor in a small Afrikaans-speaking congregation in Graaff-Reinet, Eastern-Cape. Since the lock downs began in 2020 we have battled to stay open as a church. It has been quite the uphill battle and we have recently written a public declaration to provide brothers and sisters with a Biblical answer regarding lock downs and the closing down of churches.

I was wondering if you would mind reading the declaration and give your thoughts on it? (It would mean a lot to us is you decided to sign it, if that is at all something you would consider?)

May God be greatly honoured and glorified in your work!

Your “always reforming” brother in Christ,

Marnix

Thank you for your article. I’ve sent it to friends and family. Where on earth did this all come from and so suddenly ? I understand now. Thank you for your very well written article. I especially liked the paragraph on American pastors. It was exactly what I experienced at our small church in Camarillo, CA. I told them if they continued with this nonsense, it would eventually impact the congregation. We left that church. I still think on it. I’m so upset , they abandoned the flock “so they wouldn’t break the law”citing Romans 13 to me.

Thank you for your article. You clearly lay out how we got here and what our only hope is.

Harry

In regards to your thoughts on Christendom and political liberty, I would commend Reading the Bible with the Founding Fathers by Daniel Dreisbach (mispelling possible). Chapter 9 deals with how the founders understood and expounded upon texts regarding Christian liberty.

Jeremy

“The road must be trod, but it will be very hard. And neither strength nor wisdom will carry us far upon it. This quest may be attempted by the weak with as much hope as the strong. Yet it is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: Small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere.”

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Zachary

Hey Doug, honest question. Would you consider it fair for the insurance companies and/or hospitals to say that if someone is unvaccinated then they should bear 80-100% of the hospital costs of ICU should you become infected? Asking the medical system to bail someone out financially if you’re unvac’d seems immoral. And yes I do see the “but what about xyz reason people go to the ICU” here with people going to the ICU due to behaviors that are completely their fault (diabetes, lung disease, heart disease—you know, modern life stuff). But that said, its a lot of hospital visits and a genuinely big bill when you factor in all of the ICU patients nationwide. Why should other entities/insurance payers be held responsible if a vac is refused and someone decides they may want to see if a hospital can save their life for say $250k of someone else’ money?

Thomas

I’m not particularly fond of the vaccination cards, although it seems they do play a role in the current situation—if it’s not the coronavirus filling up the hospitals world-wide, how do you propose to explain that? The politicians and acquaintances who seem to expect them to be relevant in perpetuity, though—the more or less blatant disregard for the laws about how we handle emergencies—the flip-flops and insistence that disagreement with the latest is “disinformation”—that’s the sort of thing that lends credence to your arguments.

But you know what damages your arguments?

You suggest that our Aussie friends might handle these “lock downs” by practicing house-churching: this seems eminently sensible, but I think it’s the first time I’ve seen it suggested. The Reformed, with our multiplicity of elders, would seem better set than most to accommodate themselves; but you and others have insisted the church falls outside the purview of health regulations at all.

And masks? I don’t like the things, but if there’s one thing that’s obviously going to limit transmission of an airborne pathogen, it’s covering up the nose and mouth. The studies purporting to show mask mandates are ineffective mostly say this is because people don’t follow them, which hardly proves anything other than a will to rebellion.

And finally, what on earth is prompting the rejecting of the vaccine, simpliciter? Show-your-card mandates, sure, especially if they continue; but the idea of vaccination itself? Granted this coronavirus is not particularly deadly, it is particularly infectious—even supposing as many as two thirds of cases in the US are misidentified through haste, panic, or malice, you’d be left with an astonishing number. And due to the case load, same for deaths. To say nothing of the situation elsewhere.

True, the vaccines don’t seem completely preventative, but they certainly appear to reduce severity of infection and chances of death. And while I’ve seen questions raised about the others, all the authorities I’ve seen investigate the development have concluded the Moderna and Pfizer products, at least, were free of the conscience-complicating stem-cell usage.

As far as I’m aware, there are quite a number of vaccines supposed to be administered to all of us, mostly as children. Are you going to shortly be telling us to object to all those too? And on what possible grounds?

Jonathan

Spot on as usual, Mr. Wilson. What a humbling read. As a Christian and a soldier, I’ve struggled to piece together exactly how I feel. But you’re pointing of the finger back at the U.S. could not come at a better time. How can we truly worry about another country at this point when we have a massive log in our own eye? How can certain people cry for women and children when they have abandoned the women and children in this country? What an awful predicament the powers that be have put us in. This quote means more currently then it has in my 34 years on this earth so far;

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.

“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

Greg

Thanks for your ministry and I normally agree with most of your viewpoints. However, I think I disagree with your viewpoint on the Afghan Exit and want to ask some questions in the hopes that I might learn something.

You said this in Afghan Travesty: “Whether or not you believe we should have been there in the first place, we had a solemn obligation not to leave in the way we did.”

Could you please explain the details of the “solemn obligation” you have mind? I was hoping to hear more on that in the article, but I do not think you got back to it. Here are my basic questions:

1) On what Scripture(s) do you base the foundation for the solemn obligation?

2) How specifically would the Afghan Exit have been different if the USA had respected that solemn obligation? (I don’t expect nitty-gritty details, but I think readers like me need to hear some specifics in order to understand.)

This is my viewpoint: There was no possible way to exit the country without it turning out this way. Afghanistan was doomed to collapse because the regime propped up by the USA had zero trust or legitimacy in the eyes of “the Afghan people.” I say that in quotes because I hardly even think you can accurately call them “the Afghan people”—that country is a madhouse of varying disconnected ethnicities and ruled by tribal loyalties that stretch across national borders into Pakistan, Tajikistan, etc. Bottom line: There were never any preconditions for a graceful exit regardless of solemn obligations.

But like I said, I am more than happy to learn something if you’re kind enough to explain to me.

Thanks,

Austin

To your list of the transgressions of which we ought to repent the following should be appended:

We must repent of our usury, our love of money and our contraception which rejects the children God wills to send us.

Michael

I hope you and your family are well. I have a question about Revelation 20: is the resurrection of the beheaded martyrs a spiritual or physical resurrection? I ask because in the Reformed Study Bible the footnote says that if it’s physical than the premils are right because of what they say 1 Corinthians 15 says about when Christ returns. Can you shed some light on this? Could it be it is physical but Paul was just speaking about the general resurrection for all of us? Or is it spiritual? I feel like it is because Christ must be at God’s right hand until all His enemies are a footstool so if death has not been defeated yet He can’t have returned, right? Please let me know what you think. By the way, I have “When the Man Comes Around” but we are moving soon so it’s in a box! It will be out soon.

In Christ,

Grant

Do you have a recommendation for a book that provides guidance on understanding the role of government authority, the proper limitation of power, and Christian responsibility? You wrote about our responsibility to resist as a government tries to oppress, but also the responsibility to obey in a case where the government has successfully subdued the people under them (my apologies if that’s not exactly what you wrote). I need some help thinking through these kind of situations.

Thanks a bunch.

John

What are some of the ways you engage young believers and children with texts such as Eph 2:1-3 and Titus 3:3? I’m in a congregation where most families would be . . . looking . . . as it were, for those enslavements, malices, evils to have definitively showed themselves in each child. A place where young belief would be looked at with some measure of skepticism, and believers are encouraged to look back, if not at a date, then at least for that “moment” of clear heart change away from deep rebellion. I love the church we are at, but we do have our differences and I need to anticipate some of the teachings for my own children that I’ll need to address and safeguard against doubt.

I think I would say that these generally describe who we are apart from Christ. The first century believers Paul is talking to had entire lives lived apart from Christ. They had maturity and ability that sin took a hold of and did dreadful things with. And we are roped in with them one and the same. Apart from Christ, we use every tool we have in rebellion. But the thing is, babies have such small tools to work with. I’m of the opinion that it can be hard to distinguish immature (tiny), but good, fruit, from small rotten ones. Difference between picking a tiny wild plum vs a swollen apple. Requires much discernment, yet fruit is the primary indicator that Scripture points us to in accessing belief. Not age, not a perfect doctrinal statement. And believers still sin, even young ones. Even me.

I know my children need Christ, just as I do. I know they were born in sin, they inherited a sinful nature from their father, me. But if John the Baptist leapt in the womb, and elsewhere we are told that we are not too dissimilar in nature to the prophets (James 5:17), then I have to accept that I may not have eyes yet to see exactly what work has been accomplished and secured for my toddler and infant. Either way, it will come out of the woodwork, as it were. They’re trees.

I feel like I’ve rattled on as I’ve been thinking about this. Any corrections you would have on that line of thinking?

Thanks

Alexander

Thank you for all of your books, sermons and podcasts. I have benefited greatly from your biblical approach to raising sons, education and Bible-centered view on current affairs. My family and I have lived and worked in Saint Petersburg, Russia for 25 years. Over the years I have read your books and your blog. I have often thought about what it means to be an American Christian in a cross- cultural setting. During my time their I have seen the US lose ground to and then be surpassed by Russia in terms of moral clarity. Russian society is much more “biblically based” than the US, particularly in the matter of sexual identities and perversions.

My son and his wife are also working and living in Russia and they delivered my first grandson there in the midst of COVID. My question is about emigration for religious reasons. I read what you have written to your Australian readers and wonder if you think its time to think about leaving the US to raise the next generation?

John

This is more for Jacob and Barry who wrote to you last week, and anyone else in Australia struggling with the apparent lack of biblical courage from servants of the gospel. When we locked down last year we decided to take our church underground. We could have publicly appeared as normal but figured it would not do anyone any good to give the media something to point to. Our goal was to remain faithful to Christ in worship and petition him by our actions rather than Caesar.

We gave people the option to come or not, wear masks or not, sing or not and sit where they felt most comfortable.

We’re doing the same thing now and I suspect we will be doing this into the future.

I hold out very little hope for the future of denominational Christianity in our country and for those whose allegiances are to those denominations.

As for the government injectable, taking coverage under the blood of Christ, rather than the blood of the unborn, is a hill I am willing to die on.

Repentance is the only thing that will bring us through.

Richard

I am unable to find what I’m searching for online. Would you be able to recommend a single work (book or YouTube video) that reviews all of the major biblical eschatological views. (i.e. Amillennial; pre-trib; post-trib; etc.) As a Christian, in light of current events. Obviously, I have access to the Bible, myself, but I am looking for a “guide” of sorts.

NOTE: I’m sure you have your own view on this subject that you subscribe to, but I’m asking for your support to help me explore this topic exhaustively.

Thank you in advance!

Best,

Nick

Are you familiar with the book “Fractals” by Jason Lisle?

He is a Christian who, according to Amazon is the Director of Research and a featured speaker and writer for the Institute for Creation Research.

This book summary is from Amazon:

What if mathematicians discovered a secret code embedded in math disclosing an amazing work of art hidden in the numbers? Just such a code of astounding beauty was discovered in the 1980s. The artworks displayed in this book have always existed, built into the numbers at creation. Dr. Lisle suggests that only the Christian worldview can make sense of this secret code. As such, the images in this book are a demonstration of the truth of that worldview.

* Demonstrates that even abstract concepts like numbers could not exist apart from God

* Shows the beauty of God’s design and creation through full-color representations of numbers

* Confirms that the Christian worldview makes sense of mathematics and mathematical properties

I just heard about this book from Wretched Radio.

Robert

I’ve read your book, ‘Ploductivity’, and was greatly blessed by it, but it left me wondering. When I look over into Moscow world and see the incredible amount of content you all are putting out over there, and even simply you personally with how prolific you are and all your teaching ministries and being a grandpa of so many and everything else you’re up to: I have to ask, how in the WORLD do you do it all? Coffee?

I am 20-years-old, recently married, a full time painter (houses, not canvases), studying to be a minister some day. I have a great desire to do what you all are doing in Moscow wherever I am and wherever the Lord brings me. That being said, I can barely keep up with classes at times, work often consumes my mental energy, loving my wife who has a chronic illness often weighs heavily on my heart; how might I imitate you, Pastor Sumpter, and the many many other hard working Christians I have learned so much from, as you imitate Christ in constant hard work? I often feel as if I can barely keep up with what you’re all putting out, much less as if I could someday produce so faithfully!

To put it simply, how does ambition, contentment, desire to produce, need for rest; how does it all play out in your world, how do you remain so steady in abundant fruitfulness?

My wife and I have been more blessed by your ministry than you could ever know, and if I could say nothing else to you ever again; know that we are grateful to God for you, and you and yours are often in our prayers all the way from Louisville, KY.

Isaiah

It may be early days to be worrying about this, but then again, maybe not. When does flight equal cowardice, and when not? I mean scenarios where there is live action, like the cops busting an underground church service. Or showing up to arrest you because you didn’t get your vaccine papers in order. Or your church gets torched by protestors. My working hypothesis is that flight is not cowardice if you manage to clear everyone else out first. But I can see there also being times where, due to the principle, you might resist to arrest or even bloodshed. What I’m not clear on in my mind yet is the line between the two.

Douglas

Greetings Doug. With respect to the Chimp, reconstructionism and “making all the ladies wear head coverings” (ha ha); the statement seems to be making sport of 1900 years of Christian worship, tradition and culture that acknowledged our creation and sexuality before the Lord Jesus Christ. A simple, milk of the Word, biblically understood command, practiced by all churches for centuries, but cancelled in modernity. And on our failing to “listening to others”, I really do wonder if his name should be called crazy Calvin or is he more prophetic in wisdom regarding this same subject? Calvin says this about women wearing a hat or scarf in worship, “Since this is the way it is, we see that the order of nature is changed and perverted unless we govern ourselves as He indicates.” A society changed and perverted by worship? Really? Could Calvin be correct in believing the way we worship (as we say we believe), actually changes culture? Could it be that centuries after Calvin, higher criticism came along infiltrating seminaries and churches, attacking the creation narrative, and slowly but surely one by one each denomination gave into modernity, being embarrassed by the practice of wearing a simple hat? And now, succumbed by pride, we have convinced ourselves with a multitude of reasons, it’s just not necessary anymore. We are more mature and understand that as Adam would eventually be allowed to partake of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we no longer have to observe this obsolete command. We can go ahead and take down a physical symbol in our garden sanctuary acknowledging God’s headship, because He knows, we understand it in our hearts.

The way I see it, all ministers, from conservative to the LGBT type, now have this in common when it comes to the way we worship. They have all been inoculated into modernity at a stage of infancy. And those who profess the deepest knowledge of God, have in later life, willfully taken its booster. If you would allow me, I’d like to share a little more of the wisdom of Calvin respecting this subject. Our worship is that important and transformative.

“When we move backwards and abolish a thing which is good and proper for the common benefit of the Church, where does that lead except to this; we show that the Church of God is just a game to us, rather than showing the decency with which it should be treated.

“If we are hardened in our evil customs, let us take great pain to escape. Let us not be as the obstinate who say, “Hey, look! We were brought up this way, and never saw it any differently.” Indeed. And yet if there is no foundation, ought one to build upon such obstinacy? Being an old evil makes it so much the worse and more displeasing to God. Therefore, let these abuses be reformed, and let no one answer back, “We have grown accustomed to it by practice.” Indeed. But must God be wronged by an evil practice?”

Steve

I hope this finds you well. I have a question regarding reading and discipleship.

If you were to make a reading plan for men in the church, what might be on the list?

That is, what would you recommend if you had a limit of 36 books/resources that would be carefully considered?

I’m especially interested the works which formative to your thinking. Thank you for your consideration.

In Christ,

Nick