The Citizen

 The Citizen – Pete Garcia - https://www.rev310.net/post/the-citizen “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on forthem to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.” President Ronald Reagan The year of our Lord 2022, as it turns out, is (so far) not a good year to be an American political liberal. In fact, 2022 may go down as the Democrat Party's own versionof a Nakba Year. But instead of losing precious geographical territory, the left is losing its grip on reality causing more and more Americans to begin pushing back against the extreme radical woke-ness that has swept across this nation like a viral pandemic. First is the accelerating mental deterioration of the DemocratParty's chief political operative, Joseph Robinette Biden Jr (aka Brandon). Due to a toxic combination of age, years of lying, and the stress of the highest office in the world, Joe is now finding it harder and harder to distinguish fantasy from reality. Henow operates almost entirely from cue cards as his handlers carefully script his every move made, and word uttered. Even then he fails. It is becoming increasingly impossible to walk back the trainwreck that is Joe Biden's public interaction with pretty muchanyone with a microphone and a camera. I mean, he's shaking hands with people who aren't there. He's nodding off at high-profile events. He seems confused as to who he is or where he is going. He constantly misspeaks and fabricates events. Even his liberalbase is taking notice and it's only going to get worse from here. The second is the rapidly deteriorating American economy thatis literally reversing every economic gain made under the previous administration. With record-high fuel prices, out-of-control inflation, and a potential famine looming on our immediate horizon, Democrats are doing their best to distract their increasinglyshrinking audience with a phony January 6th show-trial/circus complete with oranged-wigged clowns masquerading as witnesses all claiming Trump singlehandedly tried to overthrow the government he was in charge of. Mind you, this is ongoing as real rioters andviolent protesters are actually gathering outside the Supreme Court issuing fatwas against the SC Justices. Speaking of, the third is the recent series of SCOTUS decisionsthat are fundamentally dismantling the foundation the progressives had been building for years. Roe v Wade (the left's sacred cow) is now thrown back to the states to decide. They also took a wrecking ball against the justification for the increasing infringementby blue cities and states upon Americans' 2nd Amendment rights. The SC finally took action allowing for school prayer and other religious activities, which means pushing back against the growing unconstitutional movement for the separation of church and state.Limiting the spread of government bureaucracy (i.e., major questions doctrine) can now be used to stop the creeping bureaucratization of the country. The key takeaway is this: This decision represents the Supreme Court’s first formal assertion of the "major questions" doctrine, applicable when an agency claims broad authority based on new interpretationsof older statutes or statutes in which the grant of authority is not explicitly stated. These are major defeats to the cause of progressive leftism and we should be thankful to the previous administration that they were able to fill the vacancies at the SupremeCourt while he could with conservative-leaning justices. However, what this means now though is the left's reinvigorated attempts to either pack the courts (i.e., add more justices) or discredit the court to the point its decision can be ignored or overwritten.Either way, it would be disastrous for the nation. The fourth is the unraveling Covid/Vaccine Mandate/Ukraine/BLM/J6Committee/Hunter Biden laptop narratives that are all literally falling apart at the seams. It just seems to me that whatever political or cultural event/cause the left tries to rally behind, it takes about three steps forward before completely disintegratingright before their very eyes. Fifthly, the "2000 Mules" documentary has put an uncomfortableand undeniable spotlight on the Democrat's previous 2020 election rigging efforts via ballot-stuffing schemes. State governments and political parties are even now, rejecting the results of the 2020 election in light of the absolutely damning evidence thisincredible documentary presents. Honorable mention goes to the state of Florida and Governor Ron DeSantis in their absolute manhandling of Disney Inc. during their recent attempt to delegitimize the new educationlaws that prevent teachers from sexually grooming their students. The state of Florida very publicly and rightfully stripped the grooming goliath of the special tax status and sovereignty it had long enjoyed since 1967. The last of the bad news for the left is the looming "Red Wave"that threatens to topple Democrat control over both houses in the upcoming Midterm elections. In fact, it's looking so bad that it's not even so much a red wave as it is a red tsunami. Yep, not a good time to be a Democrat. But fear not comrade, the left still has a few political tricks up their sleeves. Assessment If you believe nothing else in this brief, believe this- in the face of impending defeat, the Luciferian Left will not go quietly into the night. They will fight tooth andnail to regain every loss mentioned above as if they are being driven by the very hounds of hell themselves. And in their desperation, believe me when I say this, there is no depth deep enough they won't lower themselves to achieve those ends. They will politicizeanything and everything and somehow flip the narrative so they come out looking like the victim. So what options do they have left to play? So when I say "they," I mean the entire smorgasbord of the political piranha class (i.e, the leftists, globalists, progressives, LGBTQ activists, communists, socialists, RINOs,deep statists, Satanists, etc.). They will absolutely try to bring back a new and improved version of a Covid pandemic in the near future. They will try and promote a new outbreak of MonkeyPox if they could just figure out a way to get it to spread beyondthe homosexual community. Anthrax is not beneath them either. If that doesn't work, they will crash the US Dollar if they have to. Does anyone need $40B out there? There is the aforementioned looming food crisis due to the mysteriously and yet, not-coincidental sabotaging of over one hundred food processing plants and mass animal cullings.Trust me comrade, if there is a way they can resurrect the need for universal mail-in ballots, ballot stuffing mules, and Dominion voting machines, they are going to do it. Come to think about it, they may just go for broke and use the food crisis as a reasonto declare martial law. To heck with the elections! All that said, will flipping the Congress and the Senate in the Fall really save the Republic? Personally, I don't think so. It might buy the nation some time, should the Lord tarry, but it's not going to reverse the downward death spiral our nation and the world are in presently. But what of the recent political wins? Yes, these were absolutely some much-needed national course corrections, however, judgment is still in our forecast. But even apart from the coming divine judgment. Even apart from the prophetic timeline that has governed the affairs of man since time immemorial, there remain the naturallaws God put in place in the first place. Take note of Victor Davis Hanson's wise words of warning regarding the consequences of the excessive abuses by progressive leftism and the woke politics of the Democrat Party and RINOs in their handling of our Constitution- We assumed that our foundational documents—the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution—our natural bounty in North America, our cherished rule of law, our legal immigrationtraditions that drew in the most audacious and hardworking on the planet, and our guarantees of personal freedom and liberty led to such staggering wealth and affluence that nothing much that this mediocre generation could do would ever endanger our resilience. But such inheritances are not written in stone. America, as the world’s only successful multiracial democratic republic, was always fragile. It was and is always one generationaway from disappearing—should any cohort become so foolish as to mock its past, dismantle its institutions, revert to tribalism, redistribute rather than create wealth, and consume rather than invest. We are that generation. And we have an accounting withnature’s limitations, given there is always a corrective, not a nice one, but remediation nonetheless for every excess. Trust me when I say I realize that is not a popular message; it is, however, about as honest an assessment as I can give. As noted in my previous briefs (Threadbare, PropheticRedlines, Running out of Normal, ZAKS, etc), this nation is up to its eyeballs in existential crises. We are literally one "nudge" away from being pushed over the edge into either a full-blown civil war or some version of fiscal, economic, or political insolvency(and then civil war). Read the very excellent article from my good friend Jonathan Brentnerwho is echoing the same warning. The law that entropy increases- the Second Law of Thermodynamics- holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. In fact, entropy appears to be the only truenatural constant. All things fall apart, and human civilization is not exempt. - Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington If you've read my articles over the years, you'll note some trends and themes I keep coming back to often. One of them, entropy, is as Sir Eddington notes quite accurately,the only true natural constant. To this point, the rise and fall of empires, kingdoms, and nations happen at an astonishing rate of repetition. Given this truth, is the USA immune from the same fate that befell every nation before it? Did we think this "AmericanDream" would last forever? Are we too big to fail? I mean, if you talk to people today, many still whole-heartedly believe that America (the way it is today) will still be around when their grandkids are grown up. Trust me when I say I admire their optimism. However, the ONLY way I see that particular scenario happening, is if God puts a lid back on 95% of Bible prophecy so that wecan continue to live our best lives now. I'm not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet, but I think I can speak with a certain degree of scriptural authority when I say, God ain't gonna do that. Don't get me wrong. I believe that America was divinely guided and inspired to form the kind of nation we did, when we did, and to achieve the things we did. But if God didn'twithhold judgment from His own special nation of Israel (see Exodus 19, Deuteronomy 30, Tish b Av, etc.) He's not going to do it for us. We have far too much blood on our hands. We have far too much sin being normalized. We have tolerated far too much apostasy,heresy, and blasphemy to just be let off with a light slap on the wrist. Nope. Judgment is still on the menu. While a red wave might in fact sweep over this once great nation again in the coming Fall, it cannot change what is coming. It is in our nature to assume a normalcy bias.It is in our nature to want the status quo to remain the status quo. And especially in light of recent judicial and political victories, many might boast and beat our chests like the tide is finally turning. But given our knowledge of the grand scheme of things,the boasting appears more like Ozymandias than Nebuchadnezzar. “The non-intervention of God bears very heavy interest, and He is greatly to be feared when He does nothing. He moves in long orbits, out of sight and sound. But He alwaysarrives. Nothing can arrest the judgment of the Cross; nothing shake the judgment-seat of Christ” (PT Forsyth in The Justification of God) Echoing PT Forsyth's haunting statement, there is NOTHING that can arrest God's divine judgment when it swings back around. It's coming, and even all of our great militaryand economic might cannot arrest nor slow its arrival. Thus, as time marches forward, we are as Jesus once said, being pressed into this coming Kingdom and there is nothing anyone can do to stop it. It's coming because the time is drawing near for His Son,our Lord Jesus Christ, to assume His rightful place on the throne of David in Jerusalem as the rightful heir and ruler of this planet (2 Sam. 7:12-13, Luke 1:32-33). But first, He will come for His bride the Church. At the Rapture, He does not step foot on the planet but arrivesin the sky to take us to go be with Him for the Wedding Supper of the Lamb (John 14:1-3, 1 Thess. 4:13-18, 1 Cor. 15:51-55). After this finishes, He will return with the armies of heaven in tow in power and glory (Rev. 19:11-16). At that point, the whole worldwill mourn at His coming as He peels back the sky and reveals Himself triumphantly over a ruined planet below (Matt. 26:64, Rev. 1:7). The Antichrist, the False Prophet, and the ten kings suicidallyredirect their armies to turn and fight Him instead, only to find their weapons useless and their numbers insignificant at His triumphal descent over the land of Israel. He merely utters a word and the armies disintegrate where they stand. The Antichrist andthe False Prophet are tossed alive into the Lake of Fire which burns forever and ever, and Jesus rides the 200-mile stretch of the Armageddon Campaign, utterly destroying the armies before Him with the utmost ease (Rev. 19:17-21). Again, it is as Jesus said in Luke 16:15-17, The law and the prophets were until John. Since that time the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is pressing into it. And it is easier for heaven and earth topass away than for one tittle of the law to fail. In other words, it would be easier for the universe to dissolve into absolute nothingness before even one of God's promises goes unfulfilled. Conclusion As an American, I want nothing more than for me to look back on the 2020s one day and tell my grown children, or perhaps even my then grandchildren, how American patriotsrose up way back then and defeated a great evil that almost swept our nation into generational darkness. Maybe we could be looked at as the new greatest generation; the ones who took Reagan's warning to heart and turned it around at the last minute. Afterall, some of the greatest stories ever told are made of this kind of stuff- the good facing off against evil's insurmountable forces in which the underdogs snatch victory out of the jaws of defeat at just the right moment. It is a good Hollywood ending befittinga nation like ours I think...but then I remember something. This isn't our story. Human history isn't centered around the United States of America, or even, the survival of Western Civilization. It's based on the God-Man, Jesus Christ, and His divine agendato reclaim the planet and banish evil forever. As a Christian, I am a monarchist, and my King is in a state of voluntary, yet temporary, exile at the moment. But one day soon He will return because He cannot break Hispromise not to. As a monarchist, I serve the King of kings, and the cost of servitude is total devotion to His cause. Therefore, my loyalties and citizenship are not dependent upon who controlsthe House of Representatives, the Senate, or even the presidency. I am called to serve Him regardless of who holds power. Since my King is sovereign over the universe entire, and in every realm seen and unseen, my citizenship is securely anchored in the eternal heavens. Thus, as a citizen-in-exile,I am living out this present life as a mortal sojourner caught behind enemy lines. Although I do my best in the here and now and try to be the salt and light to a lost and dying world, ultimately, I know I am not the one who can restore all things. Thankfully,my hope is secured in the One who can. As a citizen of heaven, I realize the true price of freedom wasn't purchased on the streets of Fallujah. It wasn't purchased on the beaches at Normandy. It wasn't purchasedat the battlefield at Antietam. No, my citizenship was purchased nearly two thousand years ago on a lonely hilltop outside of Jerusalem. Furthermore, my freedom wasn't won by battle-hardened soldiers fighting a bloody war to the last man standing; it was fought by one Man. He won it all by laying down His lifeand dying naked, beaten, and bloodied upon a wooden cross. In sacrificing Himself, He did what no other being in the universe could do- He lived a perfect life, and died the only sinless man, defeating death and hell in the process.Thus, in so doing, He now claims the keys of death and hell and has secured mine (and yours) immortal citizenship forevermore. But it's not just mine (or yours). Salvation is open to anyone and everyone. As it is said in Scripture, "Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord SHALL be saved." (Romans10:9-13) So fellow citizen, keep your chin up, but not to look down upon anyone else, for we are all but lowly sinners saved by grace. No, we keep our chin up to keep our eyes focusedon our heavenly home while we await our upward call. And then, God will restore all things. He will renew all things. He will show us the exceeding riches of His grace, in the ages to come. And then, we will finally become the people we were always intendedto be. And our future home in the Kingdom that will never end, and whose nations' the God is the Lord. For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to Hisglorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself. Philippians 3:20-21 Maranatha!