When I was younger I remember questioning the name “Good Friday,” instead thinking it should be called “Black Friday.”
In my thinking at the time there was nothing good about it.
On that eventful day our Lord and Savior was maliciously charged with blasphemy by Jewish leaders, handled over to Roman authorities for prosecution, beaten, scourged, forced to carry his own execution device while mocked and heckled by onlookers, nailed to that cross, and then heckled and ridiculed some more while painfully hanging pitifully from the cross for hours – all while enduring real alienation from God His Father.
Eventually, his indescribable pain was finally relieved when death claimed Him. SPOILER ALERT: Death didn’t have him long.
Black Friday was indeed the darkest day in human history when The One who was sinless, who preached love and forgiveness, and who wanted nothing more than to share God’s love and mercy for all, was killed in the most barbaric and brutal method known at the time.
Even as a young Christian raised in the church I knew that many called it Good Friday because it was the day Jesus saved humanity from its sins and made it possible for us to intercede with God.
But it was Easter and Christ’s resurrection that brought us salvation, I remember thinking, because if Christ hadn’t risen from the dead there would be no Christianity (I Corinthians 15:14), no possibility of a direct relationship with God (Ephesians 2:18), no eternal life (John 3:16).
As I’ve pondered on Good Friday since, the reverse of what I previously thought is also true – just as there would be no Good Friday observance without Easter, there would be no Easter without the sorrowful sequence of events that transpired on Good Friday.
Just as darkness comes before the dawn, repentance comes before forgiveness, and the pain of childbirth comes before a newborn is delivered, according to God’s plan his Son, a blameless man who’d led a perfect life, had to be sacrificed before mankind could receive atonement (Romans 8:34).
The day Christ was sacrificed may well be known today as “Black Friday” – if there had been no resurrection and no promise of eternal life. But very few in modern times would know it as anything more than a historic footnote when a homeless Jewish rabbi was used as a useful pawn between Jewish leaders and their Roman captors.
This Good Friday let’s all take comfort in the knowledge that thanks to the selfless sacrifice made possible by a loving God over 2,000 years ago, we need not be alienated from Him. God has a purpose for every life, and while death may be inevitable, it isn’t final and we need not fear it. (1 Corinthians 15: 55-57).
Thanks for reading Dean Riffs. Welcome to those who love American liberty, free enterprise, and who believe God has blessed our country. For those who believe in open borders, safe spaces, and who think free speech is hate speech, move on – there’s nothing here for you to see.
Photo source: billtammeus.typepad.com, Windows On My World, billygraham.org
“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” – JOHN ADAMS
In January we wrote about how fervent Alexander Hamilton was about his Christian faith. Click here for Hamilton: Unapologetic Christian Part One.
A native of the West Indies and orphaned at an early age, Hamilton’s friendship with a Presbyterian minister on the island of St. Croix led to the minister and others sponsoring young Hamilton’s education in New York.
Hamilton finished his formal schooling and earned a Bachelor’s degree at King’s College, now Columbia University, in just one year.
In 1775 Hamilton created a volunteer military company and on March 14, 1776 he was commissioned Captain of New York’s Artillery. His intelligence and skill with artillery caught the attention of Nathaniel Greene, which later led to his introduction to General George Washington.
Hamilton was only twenty years told when Washington promoted him to Lieutenant Colonel and made the young islander his aide-decamp in 1777. Hamilton served as a military secretary and advisor to Washington for four and a half years.
After the war Hamilton turned his talents to politics and the law. A proponent of a strong central government, Hamilton is credited with writing half of the Federalist papers and played an important role in having the Constitution ratified.
A brilliant writer and financier, he skillfully guided the world’s newest country past the pitfalls of its Revolutionary War debt as the nation’s first Treasury Secretary, quickly putting his adopted country on solid financial footing.
Hamilton was happily married to wealthy New York socialite Elizabeth Schuyler (December, 1780) and the Hamilton’s had eight children over the years. The family was well respected locally and was prominent in civic affairs.
Unfortunately like many career-minded people, Hamilton’s personal ambition sometimes caused him to relegate God to the back seat at different periods of his public life. Then as now, this often leads to spiritual problems that manifest themselves in unforeseen ways.
The worst incident for Hamilton became public in the summer of 1797 as a result of an affair six years earlier. Infamously he became the first American politician embroiled in a public sex scandal. While serving as the country’s first Treasury Secretary during the summer of 1791, the 34-year-old Hamilton began a year-long affair with a 23-year old named Maria Reynolds.
Making matters worse Hamilton was blackmailed during the affair by the husband of the woman he was seeing. When all this became public five years later, a ruthless journalist named James T. Callender made the case that Hamilton used government funds as U.S. Treasury Secretary to make the blackmail payments.
He was eventually exonerated on using the payments for his blackmailer but his public reputation was tarnished and his future with the Federalist Party he helped found was ruined.
Stripped of his party and his honor, in 1800 Hamilton focused his efforts on opposing both the Democratic-Republican backed Thomas Jefferson and the Federalist nominee, John Adams. Ever resourceful, Hamilton raised about $10,000 from a group of investors to create a bully pulpit for his political opinions by founding the New York-Evening Post, known today as the New York Post.
Less than a week after the newspaper was created Hamilton’s first born son Philip was shot in a duel defending his father’s honor. Fourteen hours later, with his mother and father at his bedside, Philip professed his faith in Christ before succumbing.
The death of their eldest child crushed the Hamilton’s and their remaining six children. Their oldest daughter Angelica was 17 at the time and suffered a mental breakdown after her older brother’s death from which she never recovered.
Still mourning three months later, Hamilton revealed his own spiritual thinking in a letter to Declaration of Independence signer Benjamin Rush on Feb 12, 1802: “My loss is indeed great…he was a fine youth…But why should I repine? It was the will of heaven, and he is now out of reach of the seductions and calamities of a world of folly, full of vice, full of danger…I firmly trust, also, that he has safely reached the haven of eternal repose and felicity.”
In 1802 Hamilton proposed a Christian Constitutional Society that had two goals: The support of the Christian religion and the support of the Constitution of the United States.
Cynics say that the real purpose of the society was to create a new political party to oppose the other two parties, but in the letter outlining the plan to society co-founder James Bayard Hamilton wrote, “I have carefully examined the evidences of the Christian religion, and if I was sitting as a juror upon its authenticity I would unhesitatingly give my verdict in its favor. I can prove its truth as clearly as any proposition ever submitted to the mind of man.”
Unfortunately like his son Philip, Hamilton was also killed in a duel, this one with Vice-President Aaron Burr on June 27th, 1804. Burr blamed Hamilton’s opposition for costing him both the 1800 presidential election and the 1804 New York gubernatorial election and justified the duel by claiming Hamilton attacked his honor at an upstate New York dinner party.
Historical accounts vary on details of the duel, some saying Hamilton intentionally missed because he personally opposed dueling. Regardless, Burr’s shot struck Hamilton in the abdomen just above his right hip.
Knowing the wound was serious, the next evening Hamilton requested communion be administered by the rector of Trinity Church, the Rev. Benjamin Moore. Moore initially refused because the church forbade dueling, but he agreed the second time he was summoned by his mortally wounded parishioner.
Hamilton’s final words to Rev. Moore hours before his passing were these: “I have a tender reliance on the mercy of the Almighty, through the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am a sinner. I look to Him for mercy; pray for me.”
Thanks for reading Dean Riffs. Welcome to those who love American liberty, free enterprise, and who believe God has blessed our country. For those who believe in open borders, safe spaces, and who think free speech is hate speech, move on – there’s nothing here for you to see.
If Mitch McConnell or Paul Ryan were advising Judas about betrayal, the disciple that sold Jesus out for a mere 30 pieces of silver would have commanded a much higher price for his treachery.
Conservatives, mark down in your history books – 2018 was the year that Good Friday was preceded one week by Black Friday – or maybe it should be called “Red Friday” since it committed taxpayers to billions of dollarsin reckless social services spending with a budget that would make the Kremlin proud.
If Chuck and Nancy do a tell-all book on this disastrous bill, they might well call it “Trumping the Art of the Deal.”
Many Trump supporters experienced disbelief, anger and depression faster than a Lamborghini going from 0-60 mph when shortly after midnight March 23, Senate Republicans joined handswith Democrats to pass the second highest budget in U.S. history.
If the president had followed through on his threat hours after the vote to veto Chuck and Nancy’s pirated pork pie, it is unlikely it would have cost him a single loyal supporter.
A veto would have shut down the government and forced Congress to come back from a two-week Easter recess and renegotiate. If Congress chose not to negotiate and managed to override Trump’s veto, congressional Republicans would have owned this disaster themselves.
Not now – Trump’s signature makes him just as culpable as the Republicans who stabbed their constituents in the back – his good intentions regarding the military notwithstanding.
Bottom line: after the president signed what he himself called a “ridiculous” bill numbering 2,232 pages, it may conceivably cost him millions of supporters and done irreparable damage to his brand as a political outsider and consummate negotiator.
No wonder Democrats were smiling so broadly – they got almost everything they wanted(Planned Parenthood funding, sanctuary city funding, firearms restrictions, funding for the New York-New Jersey underground tunnel), plus they got their Republican counterparts to put a 727-sized hole in Trump’s plans for a beautiful border wall.
That’s two walls the Democrats managed to bring down in time for this fall’s 2018 election – the much promised border wall and Trump’s former wall of invincibility.
Thanks for reading Dean Riffs. Welcome to those who love American liberty, free enterprise, and who believe God has blessed our country. For those who believe in open borders, safe spaces, and who think free speech is hate speech, move on – there’s nothing here for you to see.
Parody (noun): any humorous or satirical imitation as of a person, event, etc.
SACRAMENTO, CA – Department of Justice IG Michael Horowitz’s long awaited report on alleged misconduct by former FBI Director James Comey and others is expected soon, but two high ranking California officials have announced a plan to help protect several Obama administration officials believed to be named in that report.
California Gov Jerry Brown and former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder today announced a new California sanctuary program called the Witless Protection Program, or WPP.
Details of the state-sponsored program have yet to be released, but it’s believed that former FBI officials like Comey, Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and counterintelligence agent Peter Strozk will be offered indefinite sanctuary and sustenance on the state taxpayers’ dime at 5-star hotels in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Beverly Hills.
This will reportedly allow them sanctuary against prosecution if a second Special Counsel pursues criminal charges based on recommendations in Horowitz’s findings, and the freedom to pursue their efforts at getting Hillary Clinton placed as President of the United States.
“Prosecuting high-level DOJ and FBI officials for simply doing the job of throwing a presidential election and sabotaging a duly elected president and his administration is a sad attempt to further divide and polarize America,” Gov Brown said at today’s press conference.
“These political stunts may be the norm in Washington, but they won’t work here in California,” he added emphatically.
Former AG Holder, who is acting as a legal consigliere for California in their efforts to oppose all-things Trump, had this to say:
“I want to use whatever skills I have, whatever notoriety I have, to be effective in opposing things that are, at the end of the day, just bad for the country,” former AG Holder told the media.
“Now is the time to be more visible. Now is the time to be heard. Now is the time to stand with those who know better than voters as to who should run this country and how it should be run.”
Thanks for reading Dean Riffs. Welcome to those who love American liberty, free enterprise, and who believe God has blessed our country. For those who believe in open borders, safe spaces, and who think free speech is hate speech, move on – there’s nothing here for you to see.
Photo sources: americanthinker.com, US News & World Report
The 2016 presidential election is blessed history and thankfully we’ve turned the page on her book tour, but Hillary Clinton persists on “womansplaining” why she lost.
Clinton’s unwillingness to take responsibility for snatching unlikely defeat from the jaws of probable victory is causing lots of angst in the party of angst.
If the “deplorables” comment she made in 2016 wasn’t bad enough, recently in India she started her visit off on the wrong foot when she doubled down on her blame game with this gem:
“I won the places that are optimistic, diverse, dynamic, moving forward. And his whole campaign, Make America Great Again, was looking backwards,” she said about her opponent, Donald Trump.
Wait – it gets better! Two days after International Women’s Dayshe threw half of American women under the bus and back in the kitchen baking cookies when she said this:
“We do not do well with white men and we don’t do well with married, white women. And part of that is identification with the Republican Party, and a sort of ongoing pressure to vote the way that your husband, your boss, your son, whoever, believes you should.”
Clinton may believe that Democrats don’t do well with white men, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t want their “support” – especially when stair steps are involved.
Between her senseless comments and her pedestrian skills, it’s easy to see just how “out of step” Hillary is with most Americans.
Since her earlier physical and diplomatic missteps in India, it’s been reported that Clinton also fractured her wrist after slipping in the bathtub at a five-star resort in India.
Time will tell if #LockHerUp will ever happen, but it seems bad karma is Clinton’s destiny.
Thanks for reading Dean Riffs. Welcome to those who love American liberty, free enterprise, and who believe God has blessed our country. For those who believe in open borders, safe spaces, and who think free speech is hate speech, move on – there’s nothing here for you to see.
Sources: fortune.com, foxnews.com
Photo sources: GOP War Room, theamericanmirror.com
I’d read the media reports about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s latest episode clambering down the Trump-Russian collusion rabbit hole – halfway across the world no less – but decided to check things out for myself.
Two days later I found Mueller and a small team of lawyers aboard a luxury yacht off the coast of Seychelles. At least I assume they were lawyers. Most were wearing loosened Brooks Brothers suit ties with their swim trunks and sunglasses.
Apparently his Special Counselness appreciated the time away as I found him jovial and receptive to my questions.
How’s the fishing?
“Worth the trip! We’ve had some promising nibbles of corruption and Russian cronyism since anchoring here. It may look like we’re casting too wide a net here on the east coast of Africa looking for Trump’s Russian collusion, but it’s out there – we just know it!”
So you’re fishing for collusion?
“Oh yeah! That’s what taxpayers are paying us for. Don’t let the rumors we’ve gathered no proof the past year fool you. The facts that the Russians tried to influence the last presidential campaign by bribing Trump and his campaign team is as plain as the fact Hillary would have won if it weren’t for some illegal leaking of classified information.”
Speaking of leaks, don’t you have that problem yourself?
“We’re leaking?! Omigosh, where’s the life preservers?!”
I was speaking about the leaks coming from your legal team. And isn’t it true that your hiring was based on your pal Jim Comey leaking classified information to a friend who in turn leaked to the New York Times?
“Look here. We’ve got some excellent leads on Trump-Russian collusion that led us here to this remote island location far away from boring grand juries and Fox News. Trust me; the president’s house of cards will be coming down as soon as we connect those dots our witnesses left us like bread crumbs on these pristine waters. Caviar?”
We know you are looking at Blackwater founder Erik Prince’s involvement with a United Arab Emirates contact. Prince never held a formal role in the Trump campaign, transition team or the administration. What gives?
“We’re merely following the evidence where it leads, and specifically whether the UAE was trying to buy political influence by supporting the Trump campaign. Vodka?”
You mean like Hillary Clinton was doing with donations to the Clinton Foundation?
“That’s not in our purview. Our mandate is to prove collusion between Russia and Trump to unduly influence our election. And we won’t quit our first class worldwide jet-setting, nosing in 20-year-old business deals and spending the taxpayers’ money until we do! And that’s a promise you can take to the Clinton Foundation bank!”
So you’re trying to prove the president is guilty of what Hillary did, even though there’s plenty of evidence of Hillary’s complicity and absolutely none with Trump?
“Exactly! Everyone knows Hillary’s guilty and the Clinton Foundation was a cash cow for her and Bill, so there’s no need for lawyers to prove any of that. The money to be had in that case is proving their innocence and frankly, who wants that job?!”
Thanks for reading Dean Riffs. Welcome to those who love American liberty, free enterprise, and who believe God has blessed our country. For those who believe in open borders, safe spaces, and who think free speech is hate speech, move on – there’s nothing here for you to see.
Barack Obama RSVP’ed he wouldn’t be attending any of the memorial services for world renowned evangelist Billy Graham last week but was that a big deal?
Multiple news sources also reported at the time that Obama wouldn’t attend any of the Graham tributes, but no reasonwas given for the former president’s absence.
Pfft. None of the other living presidents attended Rev Graham’s funeral either. But both Bush 42 and Jimmy Carter are 93 years old and their absence was based on health reasons.
Bill Clinton and Bush 43 also didn’t attend Rev. Graham’s funeral, but they did pay their respects to the Graham family earlier in the week in North Carolina.
Obama did find the time to tweet his condolences the day of Graham’s passing. Wasn’t that generous?
So what was Obama doing the week of Rev. Graham’s memorials?
Obama has been busy of late with important issues in the here and now; specifically, issues concerning his favorite subject: his legacy writ large in the form of the Barack Obama Presidential Center in Chicago.
As we wrote earlier in this blog, the 235-foot-tall monument to himself has met with some controversy from conservationists, academics and – here’s the irony – grass-roots activists.
On Feb 27th Obama made a surprise visit to Chicago pleading his caseto residents how his temple – er, library/center – would not force them to eventually relocate by “gentrifying” their neighborhood.
Charles Lipton, a political science professor at the University of Chicago campus adjacent to where the Obama shrine – er, campus – is to be placed says Obama is “indulging himself” by “building a monument along the lakefront.”
Obama’s trip to Chicago was two days before Rev. Graham’s memorial at the U.S. Capitol Rotunda and three days before 2,000-plus attended his funeral.
The juxtaposition between the plain spoken North Carolina preacher who pleaded with millions to come to Christ and the silver tongued former president who pleads for millions of dollars to help build his pantheon tells you all you need to know about true greatness.
Thanks for reading Dean Riffs. Welcome to those who love American liberty, free enterprise, and who believe God has blessed our country. For those who believe in open borders, safe spaces, and who think free speech is hate speech, move on – there’s nothing here for you to see.
Source: dailycaller.com, heavy.com
Photo sources: twitter.com, newyorktimes.com, Nuccio DiNuzzo / Chicago Tribune
The latest Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) deadline of March 5 has come and gone, and both Republicans and Democrats have hit the wall on the problem of illegal immigration – so to speak.
President Obama created the controversial DACA program in June 2012 as he idly fished for votes with his phone and pen during his re-election campaign.
Since then we’ve all had to deal with a questionable program that is constitutionally fishy, and the can of worms it opened for everyone.
An estimated 683,000 DACA recipients are currently protected under the program. Recipients have renewable two-year stays from deportation and enjoy work permits, driver’s licenses, Social Security registration and, rumor has it, all-you-can-eat privileges on Taco Tuesdays and Fajita Fridays.
President Trump discontinued the illegal program last fall and gave Congress six months to come up with a fix so they did what they do so well – kicked the immigration can down the no responsibility road.
Now they’ve stubbed their toes and stirred the anger of DACA recipients who are not melding well in America’s melting pot.
Fortunately there is a solution, and it’s a Dean Riffs exclusive. I propose the following:
We deport every member of Congress who supports illegal immigration
We deport all the groups left and right lobbying for illegal immigration
We deport California’s Gov Jerry Brown, a supporter of sanctuary states, and every mayor who supports sanctuary cities
We deport every journalist that uses words like “undocumented immigrant” and “dreamers” when referring to illegals
We #BuildTheWall and enforce current immigration law until a permanent solution is passed
Phase 2: We require every member of Congress to reimburse the U.S. Treasury for every day a DACA fix was not enacted since Trump abolished the illegal program; we give DACA recipients permanent membership status after the wall is built; we make every illegal wanting to immigrate here enter legally, and all others listed above are subject to passing a class on the U.S. Constitution and a remedial history class.
There – fixed it.
Thanks for reading Dean Riffs. Welcome to those who love American liberty, free enterprise, and who believe God has blessed our country. For those who believe in open borders, safe spaces, and who think free speech is hate speech, move on – there’s nothing here for you to see.
In an abrupt about face, the toy gun ban Wal-Mart announced in late February was quietly rescinded March 5.
Wal-Mart’s move toban the sale of toy guns resembling assault-style rifles was made at the same time as their decision to raise the age to purchase firearms and ammunition to 21 years of age.
The retailing giant gave no reason for the decision to resume selling toy guns resembling assault-style rifles, but one anti-gun spokesperson blamed an intense lobbying campaign from the National Toy Rifle Association (NTRA).
“It’s blatant cowardice for any store to buckle under pressure from the NTRA as Wal-Mart has,” said Elton Fudd of the Coalition to Stop Toy Gun Violence.
“Toy gun groups like Nerf, BOOMco and Star Wars inspired guns should be held directly responsible the next time a birthday party or sleepover gets out of control with reckless shooting and broken furniture,” he said.
Fudd added he was particularly disappointed since the short-lived ban was working as intended, noting that not one public shooting involving a toy gun had occurred since the ban had been in effect.
The article above is satire. No actual retailers or toy gun manufacturers were harmed during production.
Thanks for reading Dean Riffs. Welcome to those who love American liberty, free enterprise, and who believe God has blessed our country. For those who believe in open borders, safe spaces, and who think free speech is hate speech, move on – there’s nothing here for you to see.