My mother, herself a trained registered nurse, received a pig valve in her heart in her ’80s, and it apparently extended her life to almost 91.

But pig blood? In her veins, mixing her human blood with that of a pig?

Never! And no doctor worthy of his certificate would ever suggest it.

Why? Because human beings are created different from other animal forms. While we can accept blood from other humans, we dare not corrupt or pollute our human blood with that of any other life form. Our DNA forbids it, and it’s not negotiable. Messing with our created state is deadly.

What is America’s DNA?

“We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” – Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence

Catch that word, their “Creator”? Our founders knew – and publicly proclaimed – that our rights, and life itself, flowed directly from the power and benevolence of our Creator! And that a democratic republic, unprecedented in human history, must be comprised of, and governed by, individuals who would diligently endorse and obey the rules laid out by that Creator for the continuance of that free society.

There was no other way to perpetuate our new liberties, including equality for all citizens. That way was based completely on the Bible, and on the precepts God had revealed unmistakably in His Book. Without the Bible, we would never have had our Constitution.

 The signers of the Constitution knew that full well. Has anybody ever informed you that virtually all the 55 writers and signers of the United States Constitution of 1787 were members of Christian denominations?

Twenty-nine were Anglicans, 16 to 18 were Calvinists, two were Methodists, two were Lutherans, two were Roman Catholic, one lapsed Quaker and sometimes Anglican – and Ben Franklin, who attended every kind of Christian worship, called for daily prayer during the Constitutional Convention and contributed to all the denominations.

Some revisionists today want you to believe otherwise. When I talked about this with Bill Maher, a cynical unbeliever, he sent me an Los Angeles Times article declaring that all the framers were deists or outright atheists, not Christians.

I responded, drawing his attention to the byline, attributing the distortion of facts to a member of an atheist organization who deliberately lied, ignoring the historically recorded truth.

I also sent him a quote from John Jay, appointed by President George Washington as the first chief justice of the Supreme Court, who helped form the Constitution itself:

“Providence (God) has given to our people the choice of their rulers,
And it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our
Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.”

Why? Because it was Christians, guided by the Judeo-Christian Bible, who created the profound document guaranteeing liberty and equality to all, including atheists. They were – and are – the veins through which the blood of freedom flows!

And the blood of freedom is the Word and will of God.

So what’s my point? I hope it’s obvious. Just as your body, and mine, is created to run on one fuel – and only one – so our America was created to operate on only one set of principles. They are our very DNA. And those principles are found only in the Bible. Yes, the Bible.

“Separation of church and state?” Take the “church,” the institution that promulgates Bible principles, out of the “state” – and you will not have the “state” called America. It will be something else (and some today seem to prefer it), but it will not – could not – be the America that became the greatest nation in history.

Our Supreme Court is faced right now with its greatest challenge, ever. By June, concerning the very definition of marriage, nine human beings will decide whether we remain “one nation under God,” governed by the God who created us and them – or take on a new fuel, the treacherous, fickle, amoral “popular opinion,” a synthetic mixture of poll results, ignorance of unchangeable biblical principle and outright hedonistic rebellion.

Already this court has ruled against equality, dictating that innocent babies still in their mothers’ wombs have fewer rights than their mothers. And in so doing, they’ve ruled against life itself – at least for the near 60 million babies aborted since their infamous decision in 1973.

That leaves liberty.

Thomas Jefferson, the “separation of church and state” guy, spoke to that:

“God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever.

– Jefferson’s words on his Memorial in Washington, D.C.

If you have any knowledge at all of our Founding Fathers’ intentions and guiding principles, can you seriously imagine their considering marriage, even for a second, as anything but the union of a man and a woman?

Were they stupid or naïve or ignorant about human inclinations?

Of course not. But they were very clear on God’s intentions, detailed in Genesis 2:

“For this cause a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall become one flesh.

And these men knew the dangers of polluting the blood of freedom. John Adams warned, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Ben Franklin added: “Only a moral and virtuous people are capable of freedom. The more corrupt and vicious a society becomes, the more it has need of masters.”

And as true now as then, our concepts of morality and virtue come directly from God, through His Bible. That’s undeniable. His love is universal, for all of us. But His blessings are promised only to those who honor and obey His Word. When a society decides to substitute its collective will for His, it changes its spiritual and moral DNA – like pumping pig’s blood into human veins.

People, we must pray, and pray very earnestly, for the nine human beings who will soon decide the future of America. Only if we remain “one nation under God” will we long survive.

Actually, there was no such fabric. But the designers counted on his incredible vanity, and when they went through the motions of trying this unprecedented “garment” on the naked emperor and raving about how handsome he looked in it, he exultantly proclaimed he’d parade through his kingdom, proudly showing off his new sartorial splendor.

And as he was transported through thousands of his subjects in his royal chariot, standing and preening to their cheers of delight, all of them embarrassed to admit that they couldn’t even see the “robe” because of their own cultural inadequacy, he stopped momentarily as a large crowd had to be moved aside. And at that moment, a little boy, who hadn’t been instructed to keep his mouth shut, shouted in innocent wonder, “Mommy, the king doesn’t have any clothes on! Why is he naked?”

And suddenly, the whole massive crowd could admit that they saw no finery either, and that the emperor was indeed … naked.

It’s a funny story, of course, and quite pertinent today. But I think it needs to be made more contemporary, so we get its possible meaning for our society and see if there are obvious parallels. So …

Once upon a time , there was an emperor, self-proclaimed though not elected to that office by his people. He held sway, incredibly, over a mighty nation called America – previously a democratic republic in which the people governed themselves. He accomplished this by “executive decisions,” largely ignoring the restrictions of the country’s constitution, by appointing unelected “czars” to positions of power, by hypnotizing the media into slavish acceptance of his every word and deed, promising minority groups everything they wanted at taxpayer expense, and forcing gigantic unaffordable national obligations down the throats of a mind-numbed Congress … all purposely designed to give him unbridled power no previous president ever dreamed of, or wanted.

Before most of the citizenry quite realized what was happening, he “fundamentally transformed” the country into a socialist dictatorship, ruled by an emperor. Himself.

Even he was surprised at how easily he did this, as was his fawning court. While piling impossible assignments on a hapless, hopelessly divided Congress, he played golf and took incredibly lavish vacations, always transported by the most expensive, state-of-the-art giant airplane, dubbed “Emperor I.” A slight majority of the people, hating to even entertain the idea they’d been deceived, kept telling each other the emperor was doing “his best,” though mounting unpayable debt and insane borrowing was driving the nation into bankruptcy and ruin.

Soon, the mighty regent, fairly intoxicated with his unlimited power, asked his court to devise a new impossible task for his slaves – a “sequester” – a deadline by which the Congress either gave him even greater power to tax and spend trillions of dollars however he chose, or he would have the power to hack and cut away programs that weakened the military (for which he had no regard, though he was its “commander in chief”), and hurt many innocent people who he thought would then turn to him as their savior.

Once the deadline was reached, and he felt he had won a great victory, he gave his minions a new assignment. Since he had earlier promised the “most transparent administration in history,” he asked creative people to fashion new garments for him to wear, befitting his ascendancy to near divine status. And fittingly, the designers garbed him in such diaphanous, gauzy, sheer fabrics that they were virtually invisible.

At his first public appearance, to the shock and anger of the emperor, a young lad named Bob said loudly, where millions heard him, “The emperor is naked! He’s lying to us! Why is he doing this?”

And rather than being shocked into silence, increasing numbers of previous supporters began yelling questions at the startled, suddenly embarrassed ruler.

“Why are you keeping all your early school, passport and travel records sealed permanently, so that we can never know how you came to this position? And whether you are actually, legally entitled to rule over us this way?”

“Your Highness, since no hospital in this country claims you were born there, why do you not produce an actual birth certificate or some verifiable proof of your citizenship, as the Constitution demands? What’s with your Social Security and Selective Service numbers, that first belonged to other people?”

And immediately another voice cried out, “Yeah, you told us on national TV you were putting a copy of your birth certificate on the White House website, making fun of anybody who doubted you. But when we went there to look, we found a photoshopped creation, a fraud, not a copy of anything! Just something you had somebody make up! You think we’re too dumb to notice, or afraid to do anything about it! Why are you doing this to us, to our country?”

The emperor cringed, momentarily unable to respond. He tried to look imperial, but he looked down and saw that he had indeed become transparent. The citizens, even some of his guilty co-conspirators, were seeing right through him. They began to edge away from him, hoping to melt into the growingly hostile crowd.

“Yeah, Emp,” yelled a big truck driver, “how come you appointed so many actual Communists and socialists to powerful positions? You tryin’ to make us a socialist country? You don’t like a ‘we the people’ kind of government?”

An emboldened Catholic priest called out, “Why can’t you leave marriage alone? Why do you try to force people of faith to give in to your perverted ‘evolving’ ideology? Didn’t you claim to be a Christian? Have you actually read more than a few verses of the Bible?”

Sweating and nervous, looking smaller and trying to cover his private parts, the naked man intoned, “I am not a dictator. I’m not really an emperor … I’m the president.”

At that, realizing they’d been duped, even swindled and lied to, the massive crowd began to chant angrily, “The TRUTH! THE TRUTH! TELL US THE TRUTH!”

Unable or unwilling to do what they asked, the small naked man made his way into the crowd – and disappeared.

Isn’t God, as He is pictured and worshiped by millions of us, all powerful, all knowing , omnipresent, full of grace and divine love for us all? Couldn’t He – didn’t He – know this demon-driven young man, armed and bent on terrible annihilation, was heading toward the school with unthinkable murder in his heart and blood already on his hands?

Couldn’t He have stopped him, caused his car to blow a tire or even be stopped by a state trooper for some violation? Couldn’t He have intervened in any number of ways and prevented the senseless deaths of 20 little, trusting and beautiful children, created in His very image?

Where was God?

God was where He always was. Where He always is. Present.

He wasn’t in the school; the school was in His presence. We are in His presence. The Bible reveals that the whole panoply of human existence, all that ever happens, down to the most personal detail, is known to the One who created all things. It’s beyond our comprehension, of course, because we are finite, limited in our ability to understand the Infinite, but God sees, God knows, God intervenes when He chooses, but mainly when He’s invited into the human condition by those He created and gave free will.

And God weeps. I’ll come back to that.

Like all of us who have become parents, He loves us deeply and wishes that each of His children would have trouble free, happy and productive lives. But like us, He knows that His kids, if left totally to their own devices and desires, will mess up in ever worse ways, and eventually make choices that will lead to disaster or destruction. In fact, His Bible states flatly, “It is not in man that walketh to direct his own steps”; and again, “There is a way that  seemeth right to a man … but its end is the way of death.” Proverbs 14:12

Still He loves us, and doesn’t want us to be robots, programmed to obey Him without question or even choice. Like us (or really, us like Him), He wants children who choose, even desire to be like Him and seek relationship with Him. He knows we’ll mess up and often follow our own selfish desires – and as part of the learning process, He allows us to suffer the consequences of our choices.

Wait, though. Like us good parents, He’s cautioned and taught and admonished His children in good directions, even created and given us the most miraculous Book ever written – the Bible –which explains simply and completely where everything came from, what it all means, and Who He is and how willing He is to help us live healthy and productive lives. In effect, it’s actually the manufacturer’s handbook, the instruction manual for life.

In the first 200 years of our existence as a nation, the Bible was our guide, the source of our laws and the bedrock of our character. Every one of our early great colleges, and all our schools, taught the Bible along with science, history, math and the arts. It formed the DNA of America. And America became the greatest nation in the world.

Then some strange things began to happen.

“Progressive,” “humanistic,” relativistic, even atheist activists approached the courts and schools across America and persuaded some like-minded people in influential places that it was unconstitutional to have a moment of voluntary prayer to start the school day, and eventually even the mention of God’s name in a school program or a student’s valedictorian address!

The vast majority of Americans allowed a few militant, narrow-minded activists to effectively exclude the calming, moral, motivational and spiritual guidelines for healthy living from the daily environment of our children.

We let them shut God out of our schools and out of the very lives of countless young kids.

With what predictable result? In just the last few years, unprecedented in our history, our schools are hotbeds of drug usage and trafficking, guns and violence, rampant sexual immorality (some involving teachers with students), increasing required subject matter teaching kids all manner of things that the Bible condemns. And we don’t see the connection?

And the quality of the education itself is declining in shocking, undeniable ways. Of course, how could it be otherwise, in such a rudderless, polluted environment? While parents send their children to school, hoping they’ll come back alive?

Since the Sandy Hook tragedy, I’ve watched scores of “experts” suggesting gun control, mental health programs, more government involvement and supervision (like this president’s former “safe school czar,” Kevin Jennings, an avowed homosexual and pedophilia advocate). All proposing Band-Aids for an open, festering, obvious moral cancer in our belly.

I’ve wanted to shout from the housetops, “Stop addressing the symptoms of all this corruption and degradation! Let God back into our schools, our classes, our children’s lives!! Can’t you remember just a few years ago, when kids were reminded daily about “the Golden Rule,” “Thou shalt not kill,” “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world”? Were there any roaming monsters in the school halls, then, gunning down anybody they confronted, including their own classmates?”

Above, I quoted the shortest verse in the Bible: “Jesus wept.” (John 11:35)

You need to read that episode to get the full impact of that: God, in the flesh, weeping over the mortality, the sorrow, the “lostness” of mankind. He was present, He was involved, “deeply moved in spirit,” and He could do something about it. And He did. He raised Lazarus from the dead. But He was invited, He was sought, He had a personal relationship with the mourners. He was their friend and brother. He had not been excluded from their lives.

And very soon after that, He hung mutilated, crucified, excluded and dying on a cross, crying to His Father, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

God hadn’t forsaken His own son. Together, before the world began, they had agreed to pay the price for our own terrible choices and to offer eternal salvation to all, to every one who would believe and receive it. He would not always prevent a doomed world, a fallen humanity, from suffering the consequences of excluding Him from our lives.

But He was present. At the cross and at Sandy Hook.

Present. And weeping

Lots of people still don’t know I – a Southern white Christian – wrote the words for Israel’s “second national anthem,” Ernest Gold’s inspirational classic, “Exodus (This Land is Mine),” now one of the world’s favorite songs.

How could that have happened?

Well, I grew up in Nashville, Tenn., son of a building contractor and my mom, a registered nurse. Two very practical professions. And for my brother, Nick, and two sisters, Margie and Judi, our consistent church involvement and frequent Bible readings together at home were two more practical parts of our lives. My parents’ example and emphasis taught us that the Bible was God’s handbook for successful living, very real and practical.

And we knew early on that the whole “Good Book” was written by, about and for Jews.

It was some years before I came to realize, to my surprise and concern, that most Christians don’t quite grasp that. But Mama and Daddy had helped us realize that just as Moses and David and Isaiah the prophet were Jews, so were Peter and James and John and Jesus Himself.

The Apostle Paul, himself a very strict Jew, informs us that we gentile believers in the Jewish Jesus and Abraham’s God are “wild branches grafted in to the Jewish olive tree,” the family of His chosen people. And some years ago, when I was invited to address a convention of Jewish rabbis, I introduced myself as a member of “the fourth branch of Judaism”; and as they glanced quizzically at each other, I went on to explain that everything I believe and consider holy comes wholecloth out of historic Judaism – the Messianic branch. And that what we today call “the church “was simply called “the Way” in the first century, when thousands of Jews and many rabbis perceived that this Jesus was the fulfillment of every prophecy concerning the promised Messiah.

It was controversial then, and it’s controversial now. And it’s a heinous truth, a perversion of God’s Word and purpose, that at times organized Christianity has actually taken on anti-Semitic attitudes and policies. No wonder countless Jews have rejected the claim that Jesus is the Messiah, the Savior of both Christians and Jews and all who will accept Him.

So what’s my point this Thanksgiving season?

As I write this, there have been days of senseless violence in and around Israel. The militant Muslim group Hamas has been literally raining missiles into Israel, indiscriminately injuring and killing innocent Jews in their own country. And because, after receiving almost 1,000 missiles all over southern Israel and even up into Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, when the Israeli military took action to attack the missile-launching places in Gaza to stop the crazy, senseless violence and protect their own civilian populace – Hamas, Egypt and much of our own media and administration are blaming Israel for the conflict!

What are we supposed to do about it, we people who do understand that America’s destiny is irrevocably linked to that of Israel, just as Christians and Jews are spiritually, biblically linked?

We need to get out God’s Handbook and find out what His plan is, what He expects of us – that’s what! As a matter of national and personal policy, we need to be reminded:

God chose Noah, out of the whole world, to build the Ark. He chose Shem, not his brothers, Ham and Japheth, to be the ancestor of all Semites, Arabs and Jews. He then chose Abraham from a wealthy Semitic family and made him a nomad, bringing him to Canaan and promising it to his descendants – for all time – and vowing, “I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you. And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:3).

He then narrowed the promise to Abraham’s son Isaac, and then to Isaac’s son, Jacob. And He changed Jacob’s name to Israel, renewing the promise, “The land which I Gave Abraham and Isaac I give to you; and to your Descendants after you I give this land” (Genesis 35:12).

Now, you can argue with God if you want to, but I sure advise against it. Israel today is called Israel, because that’s the name of the man God gave it to!

He also made promises to Ishmael, Abraham’s son by his wife’s handmaiden, but the land He gave him is specifically “east of Egypt in the direction of Asshur (Assyria)” (Genesis 25:18) and told his mother, “He shall be a wild man; His hand shall be against every man, and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of his brethren” (Genesis 16:12). Does that not describe the history and current circumstances of the Arab descendants of Abraham, through Ishmael, throughout the whole Middle East? In contrast and constant conflict with Abraham’s Jewish descendants? Is the Bible true or not?

I’m so thankful for the existence of Israel, the countless blessings the Jews have shared with every nation on earth (even the ones who want to destroy them) and for the demonstration they are – by their very existence – proof God fulfills His promises and achieves His purposes.

Because of that, I want you to know about an exceptional opportunity presented to me by some philanthropic Israeli businessmen. They want to raise significant funds for several excellent charities that do things like provide therapy for traumatized Arab and Jewish children, plant trees in barren places and house and feed older Jews who’ve made their way to their homeland from other countries where they’re not wanted.

Millions of us have planted trees in Israel, but now we can each own a square foot of the Holy Land, in perpetuity, with a certificate of ownership (a title deed) to display on desk or wall. The land is between Nazareth and the Sea of Galilee, the region where Jesus grew up, very beautiful and historic, and each square foot has a GPS location you can spot on Google Earth any time you want!

When the businessmen approached me, I’d just read in Jeremiah 32 about his being instructed by God to buy a piece of land, get the title deed and have it attested … even though he was about to go into Babylonian captivity with the Jewish people and would never return. It was symbolic, a gesture of faith that God would keep His promise and bring His people back after 70 years to re-inhabit the land He’d given them.

I believe – I know – God keeps His promises, to each of us, and to Israel. So I’ve bought little parcels of land for each member of my family, knowing I’ll be blessing Israel and be blessed in return. If you’re interested, check out the website, TheHolyLandDream.com, and join me in thanking Israel for being Israel.

– Proverbs 9:10-12

Well, America went to the polls. At least 120 million or so of us did.

Over 56 million voted one way, for one direction, for one set of principles – and some 58 million voted for an entirely different set. And so the larger group takes all of us, the whole of America, in their chosen direction.

Without going into all the specifics, the lesser number voted for fiscal responsibility, limited government, respect for the Constitution and law itself, proven experience in management and success in financial matters, and adherence to time-honored, biblical values. For strong military defense, commitment to Israel and traditional families. Dull stuff like that.

The larger number (though just enough to gain dominance) enthusiastically voted for Big Brother socialist government, “redistributing the wealth,” anti-biblical values, geometric growth in national debt, a weak vacillating defense and a sapped, hamstrung military, relativistic disdain for the law and the Constitution itself, and more Marxists and socialists appointed to positions of power – including our Supreme Court – in the months ahead.

And the group most responsible for this decisive turn in our national destiny is the sizable group of eligible voters who stayed home, thereby voting for the inevitable outcome – by their absence, their laziness, their ignorance and irresponsibility

Post-election research will show, as it always does, that perhaps 50 percent of Christians and Bible-believing Jews – who could always win any election if they voted on common principle – failed to exercise their blood-bought privilege and duty to go the nearest poll and vote for righteousness. Theirs is the greatest guilt, in my view, and they will pay a price.

What “price,” you ask?

Was Nov. 6 another harbinger? Don’t miss Joseph Farah’s new documentary based on the best-selling book “The Harbinger” — “The Isaiah 9:10 Judgment: Is There An Ancient Mystery That Foretells America’s Future”

From our beginning, birthed from a group of colonies by people who had little or no experience in operations of government, America was “one nation under God.” We flourished as an independent, self-reliant republic under an unprecedented Constitution that proclaimed equality and rights to life, liberty and the pursuit, not the government guarantee, of happiness.

For over 200 years, we were the most successful, admired and envied nation in world history. Unashamedly, we declared ourselves to be a Christian nation, granting security and protection to all faiths, creeds and ethnicities. Our laws demanded obedience to the laws of God – because they had proven to be the best ever conceived for creating and maintaining a healthy, productive and fair society.

We were a church- and synagogue-going nation. We quoted the Bible precepts freely and expected all citizens to voluntarily practice them. And because this worked so well and we grew so prosperous, we assumed that this way of life would just keep perpetuating itself, generation to generation. We literally took it for granted, even as more and more citizens began looking for “loopholes” and ways to cheat, to get around moral prohibitions and keep the society while breaking the moral rules that sustained it.

Politicians, trying to present themselves as “moderates,” increasingly caved in to man’s baser nature in order to keep themselves in office. The current president proclaimed himself not in favor of abortion, but by executive order funded pro-abortion advocates lavishly; as a married man himself, proclaimed his belief in marriage as a covenant between one man and one woman – and then “evolved” in his thinking to endorse same-sex “marriage.” He swore to defend the Constitution and defend our borders, then acted unconstitutionally and defended 14 million illegals, granting many full rights of citizenship.

So again, what’s the “price” we all will pay?

Let me give you an apt, explicit, biblical example. What we’ve experienced, and what we’re about to experience, isn’t new. It’s entirely predictable, and it’s just. In fact, I take you to the book of Judges, in the Bible, chapter 2.

“After that generation died, another generation grew up who did not acknowledge the Lord or remember the mighty things He had done for Israel.

“The Israelites did evil in the Lord’s sight and served the images of Baal. They abandoned the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt, worshipping the gods of the people around them.

“This made the Lord angry, so He handed them over to raiders who stole their possessions. He turned them over to their enemies all around, and they were no longer able to resist them.”

Do you see the lesson? Do you draw the parallel between God’s chosen people Israel and God’s modern-day most blessed people, America? The ancestors of both were blessed, protected and provided for – as they committed themselves to walk in His way, professing their faith in Him and looking to Him for guidance. They had every good thing, including capable leaders.

But throughout the book of Judges, God’s people rode a seesaw, now being blessed and then rebelling, turning from Him and being abandoned to the consequences of their unfaithfulness. Over and over again.

Finally, the wayward people decided they were tired of judges who demanded they each shoulder their own responsibilities – and they desired a king, who they imagined would take care of them, protect and guide them. Not God, but an earthly king.

Samuel the prophet was now old, and his sons took over as judges, but they were corrupt, greedy, accepting bribes and perverting justice. Sound like many of our elected “leaders”? So the elders of Israel confronted Samuel: “Give us a king to judge us … like all the other nations have.”

Get that? “Like all the other nations …” – i.e., we’re no longer exceptional, let us be like all the other nations. Sound familiar?

Old Samuel knew this desire was wrong and would lead the people even farther from God, into servitude, injustice and moral darkness. So he went to the Lord for guidance. But what did He say? “Do everything they say to you,” the Lord replied, “for it is Me they are rejecting, not you. They don’t want me to be their king any longer.”

From then on, for hundreds of years, the people suffered under foolish kings, many worse than the one before, still wanting their own way and forsaking the way of God who had made them great in their beginning. They ended in abject slavery, in Babylon captivity.

Don’t think that can happen to our America? Friend, our people have rejected the very same God and His way, and clamored after a king who has promised to provide, protect and lead them into a Promised Land where “everybody has everything.” So that same God must take His hand off those who have rejected Him and allow them to reap the consequences.

It’s not going to be fun.

First, to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Most people, perhaps like you and me, know in general what a “Ponzi scheme” is, that it’s some kind of scam in which somebody fools a lot of people into thinking they’re going to become rich, but instead lose their shirts. And that’s true, in general.

But you need to know more fully what a Ponzi scheme is.

Here’s the best definition I’ve come across: a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to its investors from their own money – or the money paid by subsequent investors, rather than from profit earned by the individual or organization running the operation.

The Ponzi scheme usually entices new investors by offering higher returns than other investments, in the form of short-term returns that are either abnormally high or unusually consistent. Perpetuation of the high returns requires an ever-increasing flow of new investors to keep the scheme going.

The system is destined to collapse, inevitably – because the earnings, if any, are less than the payments to investors. Usually, the scheme is interrupted by legal authorities before the certain collapse – because as more investors become involved, the likelihood of the scheme coming to the attention of authorities increases.

Do you see it? The moment more people are standing in line to get the “easy money” from their investments, with their hands out in expectation – with fewer new dupes lining up to pour more money into the proposition – the whole thing is doomed.

But it was doomed from the beginning. It was built on a fraudulent fantasy.

In the 1920s, Charles Ponzi actually promised new investors a 50 percent return in 45 days, and a likely 100 percent return in 90 days! And as long as gullible new investors kept pouring money into Ponzi’s pockets, he kept doling out new payments to the earlier investors, and they brought in more new suckers. Eventually, heady with his own success, he was promising 400 percent returns and more, assuming the new suckers would keep coming in ever greater numbers.

Incredible? Of course. It was incredible, and it crashed, bankrupting Ponzi and most of his suckers, and sending him to prison.

Then, just a few years ago, along came Bernie Madoff.

Like Charles Ponzi, Bernard Madoff actually had a generally respectable financial career before his grand fraud took shape. He was the non-executive chairman of the Nasdaq stock market and founder of his own firm, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, from its startup in 1960 … until his arrest Dec. 11, 2008.

But somewhere along the line, he realized he could sell wealthy individuals and major philanthropic foundations on his mysterious ability to make them wonderful profits, if they would just give piles of money to him and trust him to manage it. And they did! Intelligent people, experienced managers and chairmen of important charities turned billions of dollars over to Bernie Madoff, and sat back unquestioningly, waiting for 100 percent profits, or better.

For a few years, as the monies under his management grew to an estimated $65 billion, Bernie kept almost half his investors happy by feeding partial returns back to them, keeping later investors waiting. He wasn’t investing their money in anything except huge bank accounts out of which he doled some returns to the most impatient clients. And for a few years, he was the toast of the financial community, living lavishly, buying estates and yachts and giving generously to many worthy causes.

But the day of reckoning came. Finally – and inevitably – the huge demands for returns outstripped the incoming new investments. The whole fantastic scheme imploded, the law descended on hapless Bernie, and he was sentenced to 150 YEARS IN JAIL! He’ll be there till he dies.

What’s the point of all this? My friends, my poor deluded fellow Americans, the current occupant of the White House makes these charlatans, two of the biggest swindlers in human history, look like small-time side-show barkers or street hustlers.

A charmer he can be, for sure, and a very capable reader of written scripts on teleprompters. He’s evidently becoming a practiced golfer and has a good three-point basketball shot. He and his wife and two daughters look very nice on stages and are excellent symbols of the increasing colorblindness and lack of prejudice in these United States.

But Mr. Obama came to the presidency with absolutely no experience in the qualities demanded of the office. He never ran a business of any kind, and has no grasp of finance, let alone our giant, complex economy. Personally, I doubt he could successfully run a 7/11 or Starbucks. That takes a sense of budget, cost accounting and stocking what customers want and will buy. No businessman can decide what the customer must buy and what he must pay for it. That’s what our founders called “taxation without representation.”

That concept brought on our American Revolution. We wouldn’t stand for it then. And we’ve got to reject it now.

Look objectively at what’s happened. This White House team has taken over two of our Big Three automakers, big banks and our whole health-care system, saddling you and me and our descendants with bankruptcy, squandering trillions of paper dollars that are just that – paper – with no substance to give them value. Billions have been spent on hopeless energy boondoggles like Solyndra, created by a big Obama donor.

And for the last four years, while flying all over the country in Air Force One attending, at last count, over 120 major fundraisers for his re-election campaign, he has snake-charmed the Congress into piling over $6 trillion of unpayable debt on American taxpayers, now and into the foreseeable future. Added to the previous debt, that’s over $50,000 of liability for every man, woman and child in the country. If re-elected, he intends to significantly add to that burden!

Move over, Ponzi and Madoff – Mr. Obama has made you look like amateurs.

The candidates have been selected, the platforms have been detailed and the basic themes have been spelled out. Barack Obama has described himself as “a citizen of the world,” and Mitt Romney says he’s an American who wants to “help you and your family.” That’s pretty much the choice.

I was at the Republican convention in Tampa, moving down radio row, being interviewed by radio and talk-show hosts from all over the country. And I found myself groping for analogies to explain my feelings about the predicament the country is in and how we might work our way out of it. In a campaign like this one, with so many complex issues to think through and try to solve, it can help to put things in very simple terms.

Jesus did that, you know. He purposely wrapped deeply profound things in simple parables, little stories or images that even children could grasp and understand. In fact, lots of children did understand his stories, while the meanings seemed to elude the older, more scholarly religious leaders. A curious phenomenon.

So, on the subject of entitlements, Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, and how either candidate can save those cherished programs and keep promises made to seniors – without bankrupting the country – I offered this image:

“You can’t keep giving cookies to children when the cookie jar is empty. And you can’t put any cookies back in the jar unless somebody makes the cookies. That means you have to have a healthy economy, with people working, earning and making more cookies!”

On the constant bashing of Mitt Romney’s wealth and success in business, as if that were borderline criminal, and the president’s persistent demand that the “top 1 percent pay more taxes,” I offered this:

“The president has become quite wealthy and joined the top 1 percent in just the last four years, since he became president. Amazing, isn’t it? It took Mitt Romney 25 years of hard work, risk and tremendous skill. As one of his rewards, he and the rest of the 1 percent, now including Obama himself, get to pay 40 percent of all taxes already! Reminds me of the old ‘pot calling the kettle black’ analogy.”

I heard one talk-show host proclaiming that he just couldn’t support Romney because he was rich and successful, and therefor couldn’t identify with the ordinary working Joe. Plus he didn’t have an outgoing, garrulous personality that he could like. So I countered with: “Let’s assume tonight you experience sharp, crunching chest pains. You know you need a heart specialist. Will you call a ‘nice guy’ with an enjoyable personality … or would you rather see a real specialist, regardless of his likability, one whose patients usually go on living?”

That’s the choice we have. I had another analogy, a parable, for the choice we made four years ago:

You’re seated comfortably in a brand new Boeing 777 Stratoliner for its maiden flight. As it begins to taxi out to the runway, a friendly voice announces, “This is your captain speaking. Welcome aboard the first flight in this magnificent aircraft. Sit back and relax, you’re in good hands. I’m Captain Barack Hussein Obama, and I promise you I’m going to fundamentally transform the whole experience of flight for you! I’ve never flown this particular craft before. To be honest, I’ve never actually flown any plane before … but I can figure out how all these buttons and switches and gauges work as we go. Don’t worry about a thing, I’m the captain, and I’m in charge.

“Now, let’s see … how do you start this thing?”

In this parable, I see virtually every passenger clawing at the windows and rushing the exit doors, screaming to be let off! And that pictures just one aircraft – the reality it represents is the largest economy, the strongest nation and military, the most complex and successful government on the planet, handed over to a charming man who had absolutely no experience managing any of those things, or anything like them!

On immigration, a very complex, sensitive issue, I’ve shared this parable before, but a short version bears repeating in my effort to make the choices clear.

Mr. and Mrs. Middle America wake up one morning to find 16 strangers sitting in the kitchen, waiting for breakfast. They came in through a basement window, and one of them who can speak in broken English explains they came from very poor circumstances and just want to share in the obviously better life of the America family. They offer to do odd jobs in the yard, wash the car, even do some housework – and all they ask is permanent residence, schooling for the nine kids, three square meals a day, medical care when needed, driver’s licenses, credit cards and citizenship IDs.

The stunned America family, compassionate toward the interlopers but knowing they simply cannot afford to do what they ask, call the police – as any of us would. To their further chagrin, they’re told the police have been ordered to just look the other way and not enforce the laws about breaking and entering, home invasion, burglary or private property. When Mr. America demands to know who gave such orders to the police, he finds it’s our own U.S. Justice Department, on even higher orders from the president!

When the outraged homeowner demands an explanation from the president, asking, “Whatever happened to the law and your constitutional duty to preserve and defend our laws?” he gets this response: “Look, I’m the president and you’re not. I can use my executive privilege pretty much how I choose, and I’m doing it. I’m facing a tight re-election, and I’ve got to placate my base voting blocs, like homosexual and abortion activists, all the unions and minorities and peace and pot and green folks. I’m going for every vote I can get, and I’m keeping my security forces close to protect my administration in case the citizens decide to barricade the White House!

“Leave me alone. I’ve got to look out for myself. What if I were to lose this election?”

Exactly. Let’s think about that. And get to the polls.

Simple enough, isn’t it?

That story apocryphal or not, George Washington became the example, the standard of leadership, integrity and moral courage. For over 200 years, parents told their kids: “If you’re honest and work hard and determine to be your very best, you might someday be president – like George Washington.”

Abraham Lincoln was”Honest Abe,” the Great Emancipator, the president who abolished slavery. He ended the Civil War and kept our nation together.

Our kids used to recite his Gettysburg Address from memory.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected four times, led America out of a depression and through World War II – and inspired us with statements like “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”

Harry Truman was the scrappy “common man” who became president when Roosevelt died in office, who made the tough decisions including dropping the atomic bomb to end the war, and who kept the plaque on his desk in the Oval Office, “The buck stops here.” And with him, it did. He took responsibility and discharged it courageously.

Dwight Eisenhower was a general, head of Allied forces in Europe, president of Columbia University and the United States … and along with Congress added the two words “Under God” to our Pledge of Allegiance.

Ronald Reagan re-awakened pride in America, challenged the “Evil Empire” and brought about the collapse of the Soviet Union. He was “the Great Communicator,” who personally exemplified the character and strength of our people.

These men, and many others, rose to the immense challenge of the presidency. As they lived through the pressures and temptations common to mortal man, they kept the will of the people paramount and the highest aspirations of mankind uppermost in their decisions. They were each true role models for the young people watching and emulating them.

The kind of person you’d want your kids to be, president or not.

In this election year, it’s only right that we examine the current president to measure him against the role models of our historic past. What kind of example has he been to our young?

Barack Hussein Obama is our first black president, a fact that was exciting and historic; it says a great deal about the growth of multicultural acceptance in America. He promised to “unite America” and to provide the most “transparent” administration in our history.

But unable or unwilling to truly negotiate and work with Republicans in Congress, he chose to politically segregate the country into potential voting groups and to quite obviously court each group separately with executive decisions, excessive grants, lavish promises and personal identification with each one.

In so doing, he has become a patchwork president.

As he identified with each voting bloc, he said, in effect or literally, “I am your president.”

Newsweek proclaimed him “the first gay president.” In his first executive order in the White House he authorized $250 million to Planned Parenthood worldwide, becoming “the abortion president.”

His thoughts on the subject of marriage “evolved,” from a conviction that marriage was a covenant between one man and one woman to complete acceptance and endorsement of same-sex marriage. As commander in chief, he personally pressured the military to abolish the established “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy and accept open homosexual relationships among the troops. Imagine Eisenhower’s or even Jefferson’s reaction to that.

He has admitted that he smoked pot “heavily” in his younger days, and a recent “leak” from the White House revealed his plan to legalize pot in his next term, obviously aimed at young voters. For millions of our young, Obama is “the pot president.”

In granting virtual amnesty to children of illegal-alien parents, specifically those in the U.S. age 16 to 24, he becomes our “illegal-alien president.” And though he swore to uphold the Constitution and defend our borders, he not only has made only token efforts to do that, but he has opposed several states’ efforts to do it themselves and ordered his “Justice” Department to avoid acting against any known illegals who aren’t already wanted for other criminality. This, of course, to court the large Hispanic vote and makes him our “anti-security president.”

Though he promised “unprecedented transparency,” he has famously spent millions to keep his own early school, travel and passport records forever hidden from the citizens who elected him. Even the supposed “birth certificate” he presented has been proven by experts to be a photoshopped fraud, which in court would be ruled a crime worthy of impeachment. He just exercised “executive privilege” ordering his attorney general, Eric Holder, not to obey the congressional demand for thousands of documents related to the Fast and Furious plot, which gave hundreds of weapons to Mexican drug dealers and resulted in the death of a young U.S. Border Patrol agent. In many other ways, instead of being “transparent” he has become “the secretive president.”

There are actually too many tags and associations, with which history will always label this man, to be detailed here (most know them already), but here is a partial image. Picture him approaching in his jaunty, confident gait, with “membership buttons” and labels displayed on his lapels and across his chest:

“The gay president,” “the abortion president,” “the same-sex marriage president,” “the homosexual-military president,” “the pot president,” “the illegal-alien president,” “the anti-security president,” “the secretive president,” “the $16 trillion dollar debt president,” “the Obamacare takeover president,” “the ACORN corruption president,” “the anti-Israel pro-Arab president,” “the anti-Catholic president,” “the Ground Zero mosque president,” “the White House Ramadan president,” “the U.N. gun-control president,” “the pro-Hamas president” and the recently revealed “damn flag president” (nodding agreement with Michelle’s murmured but lip-read statement).

My question: Comparing Barack Obama to all the above-mentioned presidents and what they stood for and asking ourselves if we can encourage our kids and grandkids to “be like him when you grow up” – should we Americans give him another four years to “fundamentally transform” the United States of America and the presidency itself?

The hands are in constant motion, lifting, swapping and placing the walnut shells in ever-shifting positions, occasionally giving a glimpse of the pea that will be found under one of the shells.

The sleight-of-hand trickster is glib and talkative, alternately assuring and then questioning the observer about which shell hides the elusive pea. At some point, the observer stops the motion and the chatter and points to the shell he is sure hides the pea.

And invariably, he’s wrong.

The shell game practitioner is practiced and skilled at the game, knowing how to distract with chatter and motion, and to effectively hide with his back and forth hand actions the actual changing location of the little pea. At times there may actually be no pea on the surface, having been palmed by the trickster temporarily, lest the observer accidentally choose the right shell.

Does any of this seem familiar, in light of the recent Supreme Court decision to uphold Obamacare – not as voter-approved law, but as a massive new tax? While the countless repeated assurances from this president that he would “raise no new taxes on 90 percent of Americans – no income tax, no payroll tax, no estate tax, no tax, no tax, no tax …” still ring in our ears?

Do we not remember the man, with all his persuasive skill and confident assurances, saying over and over “this mandate is not a tax; in fact, it will reduce taxes,” on TV and in his constant staged appearances across the country?

Voila! The tax pea was found where it was least suspected, under the black robe of Justice Roberts! Who’d have imagined? And now it’ll pop up on the tax bills or expenses of all Americans, as the cost of living and the shared trillions of debt pile up on us!

We should have known this would happen, because the shell game has been played on us repeatedly in the last four years. I’m including the last year of Mr. Obama’s campaign, when he hid his true feelings under one verbal shell and later revealed the opposite feelings under another after he was elected. The sly fella fooled us again and again!

On abortion, he said he was not in favor of it, but that if one of his daughters made a mistake, “she shouldn’t be punished with a baby.” That sent shock waves through the pro-life half of America – but at least candidate Obama said he didn’t “favor” abortion. But he fooled us; his first executive order when he assumed the presidency was to give $250 million dollars of our taxpayer funds to Planned Parenthood International, the foremost provider of abortions in the world!

We sure didn’t see that coming. We’d have sworn his convictions were under that first shell! The pre-election one.

And marriage, another shell game masterpiece. When Rick Warren asked him on national television about marriage, the cunning Master stated blithely his conviction that marriage, in his view (under his campaign shell), was meant “for one man and one woman.” So we knew where that pea was, right?

Boy, were we played for chumps again. Just recently, as election 2012 comes nearer, the trickster announced his thinking had “evolved,” and he lifted another shell to reveal his view that two men and two women had just as much right to get married as one man and one woman. A complete reversal of what we thought was firmly under his marriage shell. But that trick was calculated to attract a lot of votes for his re-election, so who could blame him? Never underestimate a slickster.

Looking back over the last three and a half years, it’s amazing how many times and in how many ways we’ve fallen for the same illusions. Mr. Obama, during his candidacy, stated forcefully that he considered President George W. Bush’s running up the national debt as “unpatriotic”! The debt pea was firmly under that shell – we thought. But we were fooled again, of course. President Obama has proceeded to run our annual deficit up to close to $2 trillion, and has presented plans that will add $15 trillion to our already $16 trillion debt! How does he do it?

And energy – boy, has that been a crazy trick! First he said his demands for “clean energy” would cause the prices of coal and gas to “skyrocket,” on purpose! That was so poor gas-addicted Americans would be forced to use less oil and gas. Clever, huh? But when polls showed high gas prices were hurting his approval ratings, he lifted another pea to show that under another shell of his administration, oil production had increased significantly. What he failed to point out was that the increase was the result of drilling begun under George Bush and that he, Obama, was still obstructing America’s oil production every way he could. The whole thing was so confusing that the public gave up trying to find that pea!

But the Master Game of all has been his pledge of a “transparency” pea! He was so convincing about that one that when he produced an obviously fraudulent “birth certificate,” he completely fooled most of Congress and all the media! A lot of average citizens were on to him, though, and kept asking “what’s under those early passport and school and travel records shells? Show us those, mister. What are you hiding under there?”

Even he, skilled as he was at his slippery magic, knew that showing those peas would ruin everything, and that his game would be over. So he hired lawyers to keep all those hidden away forever. And lately, when “leaks” emanated from the White House inner circle and were reported in the New York Times that not only jeopardized military secrets, personnel and procedures, but seemed purposed to enhance the president’s image as a strong leader, he professed to be “offended” by the innuendos, managing not to expressly deny a White House origin of the leaks.

But then, as members of Congress were catching on to his game and insisting he turn over his shells and reveal the “Fast and Furious” pea that cost the lives of hundreds of Mexicans and two U.S. agents – the sly trickster realized he was running out of tricks. He exerted “executive privilege” and told Congress the game was over – for a while.

After all, he has a re-election to think about.

And in bold letters, the picture and cover story bore the title, “The First Gay President.”

Yes, the president of the United States, the presumed leader of the free world … gay.

Of course, the incredulous reader would discover that the president didn’t pronounce himself a homosexual; that title was conferred on him by the magazine and the cover-story writer, Andrew Sullivan, who is proudly homosexual. But the intent of Newsweek and Sullivan, in no way disclaimed by Obama, was to identify the American president totally with, and 100 percent supportive of, the homosexual community and its determination to be “normalized” in American culture.

This was in contradiction to Obama’s earlier statements in which he declared his belief in marriage as a covenant between one man and one woman. That was when he was campaigning for the presidency. But now he is campaigning for re-election, suffering in the polls because of the economy and many other factors, and Sullivan surmised that championing “gay marriage” would “fire up” the youth vote. So our president declared his “thinking had evolved” and that his new view underscored his commitment to “equality.”

Sullivan said further, “Obama advanced his key strategy to winning in the fall: to make this a choice election. If it is a ‘choice’ election (a choice about the institution of marriage), he wins. If it is a referendum on the last four years of economic crisis, he could lose.” And as Sullivan added, “the choice could not have been starker.”

Precisely.

It is the president, not the Congress, not the electorate, not the tea party, or any “special interest” group who has drawn a line in the sand. He is motivated by purely partisan political ambition. He, and he alone, has given the American people the starkest and clearest choice ever in American politics this November.

It’s not about homosexuality alone, or marriage, or his “evolving” thought. The real dividing line – the line drawn in the sand – is who, and what, will govern the American people. Will it be the people ourselves, by majority rule as foreseen by our Founding Fathers – or will it be a temporary leader, unelected judges and willful, heavily funded lobbying groups?

Even more precisely, will we continue to be “One nation Under God” – or a drastically divided society under humanism, secularism and “evolving” thought?

Consider, on just this issue of the definition of marriage, in every state where the people have voted, expressing their will, the verdict has always been to uphold marriage as between a man and a woman. The issue is not antipathy toward homosexuals; it is not about the morality involved; it is whether or not this sacred God-ordained covenant will continue to be defined, as it always has been since the human race came into being, as the union of a man and a woman.

Interestingly, not one of the proponents of same-sex marriage – not a single one, ever – is other than the product of a man and a woman. That was the plan, from the beginning, and there will be no other way to propagate the human race.

When this issue was being debated in Washington, just before Congress voted on the Marriage Amendment, a dear black minister made this observation: “Water is H20. That’s two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen. You may decide to combine two parts oxygen and one part hydrogen – but then you get hydrogen peroxide, not water. Water is made only one way, and messing with that creates something very different.”

Mr. Obama has drawn his line right down the middle of the black church, presuming he could bring them along into his evolutionary thought. He’s wrong. All the big black church groups, though they love Obama, cannot endorse abortion or homosexuality … because they know their Bible. So he has put them in the position of choosing him, or God. That’s a losing proposition.

Bishop Clarence McClendon, in South Central L.A., pastor of a large, vital, multiracial church, was compelled to preach on this painful choice right after the Newsweek cover appeared:

“Truth does not change because of cultural change (if this is the perspective of a practicing Christian, then he needs to stop practicing).

“This is not a civil rights issue … this is an issue of ‘equalization,’ of making homosexuality ‘normal’ in the culture. We respect your right to do it, but we will not call it normal, when the Word of God calls it an abomination. Marriage makes it normal in the culture, and homosexual marriage is not normal.

“We can, and do, love every human being, but we are not to compromise our beliefs or the standard of God’s Word.”

The bishop went on to say, “Sin is sin, no matter who does it. The sin of a believer or an unbeliever is still sin. There are no levels of sin, and we make no distinctions. The Bible says ‘All have sinned and fallen short’ [Romans 3:23].”

This brave minister echoes the words of John Wesley, founder of the Methodist Church: “Vice does not lose its character by becoming fashionable.” And “What one generation tolerates, the next generation will embrace.” That’s “evolution” of thought. Wesley also said, “My ground is the Bible. Yea, I am a Bible-bigot. I follow it in all things, both great and small.”

I fear our cries for “tolerance” are leading us away from God’s will – and blessing.

And that’s where Barack Obama, the “first gay president,” has brought us. We citizens now must choose, and the choices are crystal clear, between:

• 50 million abortions since 1973,
  Obama’s $250 million to Planned Parenthood’s abortions;or
• pro-life legislation,
  adoption programs,
  protection of the unborn.
• Obama’s projected $15 trillion added to U.S. debt;or
• Republican determination to reduce unpayable debt.
• porous borders, amnesty for millions of illegal aliens;or
• secure borders as mandated by the Constitution.
• taxpayer- and church-supported contraception as “health care”;or
• religious independence, real separation of church and state.
• abandonment of sanctity of marriage as man/woman union;or
• protection and preservation of America’s Bible “choice.”

Friend, Jesus in John 8 was confronted by an angry mob wanting to stone to death a young woman caught in the act of adultery. While they railed at him, He knelt and wrote something in the sand. And He said, “Go ahead, but let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” And he again wrote – or drew a line – in the sand. The accusers slipped away one by one, and Jesus stood up and asked the woman, “Where are your accusers? Did no one accuse you?”

“No, Lord,” she said.

And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”

He didn’t say, “Well, I guess it’s all right then.” He had the divine authority to forgive, to show mercy – but He warned her not to cross over the line again.

Long before Jesus, old Joshua challenged the people of Israel:

“Serve the Lord alone. But if you refuse to serve the Lord, then choose today whom you will serve. As for me and my house – we will serve the Lord.”

That’s the issue before us, the line Obama has drawn in the sand. Will we, as a people blessed and nurtured by God, seek His will and obey it? Or will we succumb to humanistic, “evolving” philosophy, to our decline and death?

This is our stark choice in the coming election. Read Matthew 7:13,14 and Romans 1:18-32 for confirmation.