Tag: Dennis Prager

In Memoriam 2025

2025 has been a roller coaster.  As Bob Dylan would say, the times they are a-changin’.  Many great things have happened.  After four years of weakness, America is strong again.  The bad guys fear us.  We are no longer allowing Iran to develop nuclear weapons.  We once again support our greatest ally, Israel.  Inflation is down.  Gas prices are down.  Illegal border crossings are not only down, but are basically non-existent.  Crime is down and our streets are safer.  In general, things seem to be heading in the right direction.

Unfortunately, 2025 has been a year in which we lost some very great men.  These were some of the most influential people in my life.  Their loss will be felt widely, and there is a void in moral thinking that will be nearly impossible to fill.

Hulk Hogan (July 24) – The Hulkster deserves an honorable mention on this list because his influence on us was mostly through entertainment and his wrestling career.  While you may not think of Hulk Hogan as a leader in Christian thought or a great moral teacher, he did, in fact, turn his life back to Jesus in his final years.  He made this list because he articulated one of the most important and simplest messages that all of us should understand. 

On August 23, 2023, Hogan went on The Joe Rogan Experience and said that he attended and was baptized at Indian Rocks Baptist Church in Florida.  When Joe Rogan warned him against naming his church because swarms of people might show up to “go to church with the Hulkster,” Hogan said, “No.  I want more people there.”

He recognized his true purpose for being on this earth.  It happens to be the same purpose that all of us have.  As the Apostle Paul told the Ephesians in Acts 20:24, “But none of these things move me; nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.”  Ultimately, the only meaning for our lives is to spread the good news of Jesus.

Dr. James Dobson (August 21) – Dr. Dobson helped my parents raise me.  His best-selling 1970 book Dare to Disciplinewas a must-read for Christian parents in the 1970s and ‘80s.  I vividly remember watching videos of Dr. Dobson lectures on parenting and childhood in church as a kid.  What he said made sense, and he earned my respect even then. 

My dad would often tell me that “Dr. Dobson says this” when teaching me lessons about growing up.  On the advice of Dr. Dobson, he even took me on a “Preparing for Adolescence Weekend,” where we got to go stay in a hotel and do fun father-son activities while he also taught me from Dr. Dobson’s book, Preparing for Adolescence, about what to expect in those formative years of my life.  I still have the copy of the book that he gave me that weekend.

Dr. Dobson formed the juggernaut Christian organization Focus on the Family in 1977.  It became a massive multimedia empire that helped bring family values to the forefront again.  As Focus on the Family grew, it gained influence in American politics and social issues.  Now, if you search the internet for Dr. Dobson, you will find many attacks on him by people who reject the Bible.  This shows how effective he was at spreading solid, biblical values to families across our country.  He will be missed, but if more families rediscover his wisdom, our nation will be better off. 

Pastor John MacArthur (July 14) – He was the greatest biblical scholar of my lifetime, with a body of work that includes nearly 400 books.  The MacArthur Study Bible is one of the most well-regarded study Bibles around and has commentary on the entire Old and New Testaments.  It is also the Bible that I personally use and recommend.

I became familiar with John MacArthur because of a girl.  I really liked her, and she was a Christian, but she started getting into charismatic Christianity, which concerned me.  I wanted to learn more about it, so I found the book, Charismatic Chaos, by Pastor MacArthur.  I eventually lost touch with the girl, but never with John MacArthur. 

When the government tried to illegally and immorally shut down churches in 2020, he instead obeyed the Bible’s instruction from Hebrews 10:25 to “not forsake the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some,” and reopened the doors of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California for services.  I had the pleasure of hearing Pastor MacArthur preach in person.

John MacArthur was also the President of The Master’s University and the founder of The Master’s Seminary, so many other pastors and missionaries learned the Bible under his leadership and tutelage.  While his loss will leave gaps that his insights and knowledge might have bridged, much of his wisdom is fortunately still available through his writing and through his media ministry, Grace to You.  There you can find all of his sermon recordings dating back to February 9, 1969.

Charlie Kirk (September 10) – Charlie was the most effective Christian evangelist in the last decade, and he was not even a pastor.  He broke onto the scene as a political commentator and strategist at only 18 years old, when he started Turning Point USA in 2012.  He was brilliant.  He was ambitious.  When I first heard about him, he was an up-and-comer in the conservative movement.  Then, in 2020, while attending Calvary Chapel Chino Hills against tyrannical government orders, Charlie came as a guest to speak with Pastor Jack Hibbs.  I was instantly impressed.  He was not only knowledgeable about politics and our culture, but he knew God’s word.  He looked at politics the same way I do.  He realized that political wins are important, but that they would be futile and short-lived if they were not built on a strong understanding and belief in God. 

Charlie was not just a thought leader.  He was not a modern general who plans the battle and sends out orders.  He was like an old general who rode his horse to the front lines and led the charge.  Through a successful podcast and radio show he shared his message.  Through Turning Point Action, he built a massive political organization that mobilized and won elections for candidates who love freedom. 

As we all know, he also got down into the trenches of the most godless, morally bankrupt, dangerous places in our country:  college campuses.  He stood up to the intellectual brainwashing of our youth by openly speaking about both political issues and the Bible.  He was articulate.  He was courageous.  Most importantly, he was effective.  Unfortunately, this moral clarity and effectiveness led many to hate him.  As Jesus says in John 15:18, “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you.”  On September 10th, a young man, fueled by the vitriol of the left, gunned down Charlie while Charlie was speaking at one of those college events.

This will be the toughest hole to fill because he was in the prime of his life and had lots more to accomplish.  His death also left a power struggle in the conservative movement that is very dangerous.  Some bad actors are trying to push us away from biblical values and into anti-Israel positions.  Charlie would be appalled.  We need to honor him by filling that void with voices who follow the values he preached.  We also need to keep the revival going that began with his martyrdom.  Churches are seeing a swell in attendance.  This is directly related to Charlie. 

Fortunately, all of us are able to revisit Charlie’s college debate videos online.  Even I have been surprised at how many of those videos were about Jesus.  We all need to keep that in mind as we try to continue what Charlie Kirk started.

This has been a rough year for some of my most trusted voices.  These losses are on top of missing the wisdom of the great Dennis Prager, who is no longer on the radio after his spinal injury at the end of last year.  Hopefully, he will regain enough strength to share that wisdom widely again. 

We have reason for optimism about 2026 and beyond, but I wanted to acknowledge some of the great men that we lost this year and pray for people to rise up in their places.  Happy New Year!

Know Your Audience

As a blogger, one of the main questions you have to ask yourself is, “Who am I writing to?”  Is your ideal audience people who agree with you or people who disagree with you that you are trying to persuade? 

The reason it is important to know your audience is because you will take a different tone depending on who you have in mind.  Part of what made me think about this was listening to other voices in the conservative movement.  Some do not seem persuasive to me at all.  Mark Levin, for example, is a brilliant guy, but he comes off as a grumpy old man who thrashes anyone who disagrees with him. 

Others who I admire seem more persuasive.  Rush Limbaugh did not come off as a grumpy guy.  He did not come off as mean.  He loved parody and satire to make his points.  He would “illustrate absurdity by being absurd.”  He would mock the left.  What made him great was that he came off as a happy-go-lucky guy, with a genial personality and a good sense of humor.  Dennis Prager is also very kind and fun-loving.  He treats everyone with respect, whether they agree with him or not.  He even wrote an entire book on happiness. 

Without hesitation, I will tell you that my main goal is to persuade people.  I want to influence people and make a difference.  I want to explain conservatism in a way that makes sense to people and turns them into conservatives.  Most importantly, I want to point people towards the Bible.  Maybe, just maybe, it will lead someone to turn to God.  Ultimately, that is our purpose for being alive.

What does this mean?  I mentioned that Rush Limbaugh used to mock the left.  Can I joke about people who I am trying to persuade?  Can I mock them?  Can I call them out for believing stupid things?  I don’t want to come off as a complete jerk to reasonable people.  That last sentence holds the key word:  reasonable.

If you look at the likes on my posts and articles, you would think most of the people who read my thoughts agree with me.  If you read the comments, you would think that most of the people disagree with me, or even viciously hate me.  While I want to persuade people, there are people who I am not writing to.  There are people who are completely unreasonable and unreachable.  Their minds are closed.  Don’t get me wrong, I hope they read my articles and think about them.  Maybe that seed will eventually grow.  However, I do not care to argue with them.  It is a waste of time and energy.  Most of them are dug in to their emotional positions and will just harden their hearts to any other viewpoint.  If I do argue, it is for the other people to hear the arguments, not because I think the crazed leftist will budge.  They are fair game to be poked fun at or used as examples of foolishness. 

The people I am writing to are the people who are genuinely open to understanding.  That does not necessarily mean people in the middle.  It might, but some of the most closed-minded people I know are staunchly “independent.”  They are so concerned with seeming open-minded that they will not take a side.  The people I am writing to are people who are actually curious.  Instead of arguing or trying to ask gotcha questions, they ask good, honest questions.  They say things like, “Hmm.  I never really thought of it that way.  That makes a lot of sense.”  If they want to argue, they probably are not ready to hear.

When it comes to the people who already agree with me, my gut reaction was that it does not do any good to “preach to the choir,” but the more I thought about it, the wider my focus became.  There are two main reasons to write to people who are already on my side.  First, I want you to know that you are not alone.  If you turn on a T.V., read from mainstream media sources, or attend college, you hear 95% secular leftist viewpoints.  You might start thinking you are the only sane person left on earth.  Even worse, you may start to doubt your sanity.  I imagine it is a feeling that the Old Testament prophets had when they spoke up for God and the people ignored them.  It is a lonely feeling.  I have felt it myself, especially living in California.  It always helps to hear that other people are with you.  Second, I want to help give you reasons for your beliefs and positions that you might not have been able to put into words yourself.  This might give you ammunition to explain biblical, conservative values to your friends and family.  There have been many times when I have listened to people like the great Dennis Prager and thought, “He is putting into words exactly what I think, but better than I could have!”

Ultimately, I hope everyone reads what I write, but it will only resonate with reasonable people.  Some of you will just get irrationally angry at me.  Please feel free to leave crazy comments.  Those are fun.

My Rapture Will

“The world is getting really bad.  I think the rapture will happen within the next 12 years.”  I was dating a girl who made that prediction to me, and that was about 10 years ago.  For those of you who are not familiar, the rapture is the term used to describe when the Lord takes believers out of the world before the seven-year tribulation period prophesied about in the Bible. 

At the time she said that I was pretty skeptical for two reasons.  First, the Bible is clear “that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night” (1 Thessalonians 5:2) and “…that day and hour no one knows.” (Mark 13:32)  That guarantees that the only time we can rule out for the rapture is any specific time when somebody says it will happen.  In her defense, though, she was not predicting a specific day and hour.  She was just guessing a general time frame. 

The other reason was that I looked back at the other times in history where God gave up on us turning it around and realized that He is very patient.  Think about it.  The first time he brought large-scale judgment down on people was the flood.  He waited until Noah and his family were the only ones left worth saving in the entire world.  That is patience!  The other example is when God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.  In that instance, He told Abraham that He was going to destroy those cities and Abraham negotiated with him.  Abraham asked if God would destroy the city if there were 50 good people there.  God said no.  Then he lowered it to 45.  God said no.  Abraham kept haggling all the way down to 10 good people and God said He would spare the cities for the sake of 10.  In the end, as we know, God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because 10 could not be found, and Lot and his daughters were the only ones who survived.  Again, God is patient!

All this being said, I am starting to think that she might not be as far off as I assumed at the time.  It is hard to deny that end-time prophesies are starting to line up so well that it’s hard to believe that anybody can doubt the Bible anymore.  There are even groups who are trying to push for the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem, which we know will be there during the tribulation.  With dominos falling like they are it would not surprise me if her 12-year guess was close.  Then again, it could be 100 years away still.  The only certainty is that it’s closer now than ever before, and we should be prepared.

This is what gave me the idea for a rapture will.  I’ve thought about writing a normal will before but put it off because I’m still young, healthy, and extremely attractive. I also think it is a big decision who to leave my money to.  I’m single and have no kids so at this point I do not have a responsibility to take care of anybody.  I used to think about who would have the most fun with it.  As shallow as that sounds, it still matters to me.  I would not want it to be wasted on somebody who follows the lockdown rules and sits inside hiding.  I want it to be enjoyed.  On the other hand, I wouldn’t want to leave it all to someone who would blow through it all on frivolous stuff like caviar and spider monkeys.  One spider monkey, fine, but definitely not plural.  Ultimately, what I really want is to leave my money to people who will use it for the most important purpose there is, to bring people to God so that they end up in Heaven.  This makes the obvious heirs to my inheritance have one necessary quality.  They must be good Christians. 

This works when deciding on my normal will, but a big problem arises when it comes to a rapture will.  All of the other good Christians will have been whooshed away with me.  I can’t leave it to my parents because they will also be gone.  Any Christian friends will have also disappeared.  It would be pointless to leave it to my church because any true believers there will be with me.  Unfortunately, I do have family members who may not believe and will still be around, but I do not want to give my money to someone who will not use it to spread the truth about what is going on and how to be saved.  It sounds like I may as well just burn the money, doesn’t it?  Wrong!  I figured out a way to at least make an educated guess as to who to leave my inheritance to. 

To do this we have to look at what we do know about the seven-year tribulation period after the rapture.  We know that although Christians will have been removed from the world and the antichrist will be ruling, many people will realize that they missed the boat and will turn to God.  Further, Revelation 7:1-8 tells us that 144,000 people will be sealed as servants of God during that time; 12,000 from each of the twelve tribes of Israel.  So, we know for a fact that 144,000 Jews will realize that Jesus is the Messiah and will become witnesses who bring others to Him during this time. 

Now that we have this information to go on, I can narrow down who to set as my beneficiary.  Since it has to be somebody who will be left behind, and I want the biggest probability that my inheritance is used to further the Kingdom of God, I will leave my money to a Jewish person who is both smart and preferably someone who has influence.  My mind instantly went to my favorite radio personality and founder of Prager University, Dennis Prager, and another great mind and founder of The Daily Wire, Ben Shapiro. 

I have to admit, this was supposed to be the end of the article.  Then I noticed Revelation 14:4, which says of the 144,000, “These are the ones who were not defiled by women, for they are virgins.”  That throws off my plan since both Prager and Shapiro have children.  They will not be part of the “sealed” group mentioned in Revelation.  Fortunately, this does not mean they will not be saved.  Revelation 14:9-17 tells us that a “great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues,” will be saved during the tribulation. 

Knowing all of this, here is what I have decided for my rapture will.  If at any time I go missing, and so do many other Christians including my parents, my sister Amber, and some Christian public figures like Pastor Jack Hibbs, Vice President Mike Pence, and Tim Tebow, then my money should be split evenly between Dennis Prager and Ben Shapiro.  Since I have no way of knowing who are virgins, I have to take a chance that Prager and Shapiro will be part of the “great multitude” of converts.  I know that they are both wise men who study the Torah (the Old Testament to Christians) and I think that makes them a better bet than most.  However, if you see Ben Shapiro at the rebuilt temple in Jerusalem with a spider monkey on each shoulder, you know I made an incorrect choice.