263 Epiphany 7: Opening Game – Creation, Fall, Redemption
“The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in mercy.” ~ Psalm 103
Opening Game: Creation, Fall, Redemption
The board is set. Order is established. The King reigns.
Chess is more than a parable. Every move matters. Every piece is real. Nothing is equal. Nothing is faked.
They call them “conspiracy theories” to make you stop thinking. They mock the idea of secret elites pulling the strings, as if the world’s most powerful people aren’t working in their own interests, as if corruption isn’t the natural state of unchecked authority. But the truth isn’t some impossibly complex scheme, executed with perfect precision by an all-knowing cabal. No, it’s far more dangerous than that.
The great Leviathan of modern power—a tangled web of politicians, oligarchs, and corporate masters—isn’t the product of a single mastermind playing 4D chess. It’s something worse: a runaway system fueled by greed, incompetence, and spiritual blindness, operating without a plan yet somehow always crushing the people beneath it.
This isn’t a script written by a secret council in a dark room. It’s a cascading failure of ambition, corruption, and cowardice—a system where the rich protect their wealth, the powerful expand their influence, and the useful idiots carry water for both.
And the worst part? It works.
Not because it’s some genius design, but because everyone in it is acting in their own selfish interest—from the bureaucrat covering for his agency, to the media executive silencing the wrong narratives, to the elected official following orders instead of leading. They don’t need perfect coordination. They just need the same perverse incentives, the same twisted notions, the same greedy, godless will to promote illiteracy in deception as the preferred governance of control.
This is why elections never change anything. This is freedoms shrinks no matter who wins. This is why they get richer, and we pay more.
It’s not because one man controls it all. It’s because no one controls it—except the spirit of the age, the god of this world, the prince of power in the air.
And unless you see it for what it is—not a conspiracy, but a kingdom in rebellion against its rightful King—you’ll keep playing by their rules.
Yes, there is a real 4D chess game. The game belongs to Jesus Christ.
The Order Before the War
Chess begins in perfect symmetry. The King stands firm. The Queen at His side. The Bishops carry wisdom, the Knights move with courage, the Rooks are the towers of truth, and the Pawns, the faithful, advance steadily. But there is also a rebellion.
The board is broken. The battle ensues. Conflict. Pain. Loss. And the need for cold, true logic.
Every earthly power, whether they know it or not, plays against the King, a counterfeit kingdom of control, pollution, and corruption. But we do not merely wrestle against flesh and blood. The rulers of this age are not pawns in the heavens.
We are being manipulated. We are being attacked. There is an unseen Chess game for your soul under foot. Not in back rooms. Not in secret cabals.
In your heart. For your mind.
The enemy’s entire strategy collapses the instant you remember that the King never leaves the board. The world will play its counterfeit games—politicians, billionaires, and puppet masters and pawns alike all believing they hold the real power.
Checkmate, you say? Not for long.
“When the blind lead the blind, they both will fall into a pit.”
The endgame is inevitable. But we’re not there yet. We’re just getting this jig rolling.
The enemy is playing recklessly. The world is louder, more chaotic, more uncertain than ever before. “Who knows?”
But faith need never panic. We need never fear. The enemy’s accusations are just bait.
You’re a bigger fish than that now.
Till angel cry and trumpet sound,
R.J.M.F
Section shortcuts: Life, Politics, Finance, Technology, Culture, Health, Philosophy, Science, War, World
On the Radar
IVF Order
Pro-life leaders have urged President Trump to reconsider his promises about in vitro fertilization. The President last week signed an executive order that requires “easing unnecessary statutory or regulatory burdens to make IVF treatment drastically more affordable.” Pro-life advocates have acknowledged the Trump administration’s goal of helping to create families but insisted that this is not the way to do so. Jennifer Lahl of the Center for Bioethics and Culture Network told Issues Etc that apart from the moral and ethical arguments that can be made against IVF, there are many other liabilities that the Trump cabinet is overlooking. If the administration wants to cut waste and fraud as well as making Americans healthy, Lahl says they should look no further than the fertility industry which delivers much less than it promises and has uncertain health outcomes in the longterm. Lahl says if the President is serious about life, he should invest in restorative reproductive medicine. Author and commentator Ryan T. Anderson posted that “for one birth, doctors might create ten to twenty embryos, transfer several of the “most promising,” freeze the rest, and if more than one implants, abort the others. So the typical IVF cycle results in multiple dead and frozen embryos.”
A thought: The call to protect human life can be muffled by the murky nature of complex technologies. But God cares for the littlest ones and made them fearfully and wonderfully, as the Psalmist reminds us. It is up to those of us with power to speak to advocate for them.
DOGE Continued (Updated)
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has released its first report claiming that it has found $55 billion that could be cut out of government spending. It also says it found $4.7 trillion in unassigned payments out the US Treasury. Thousands of staff across a number of government workplaces have been dismissed, with many joining Democrats and news media to raise objections to the process. DOGE supporters argue that mass layoffs are part of life and that Democrat administrations have also pushed for large-scale cuts in government staffing in the past. One Democrat lawmaker complained, “there is nothing 'efficient' about indiscriminately firing thousands upon thousands of workers.” DOGE has been accused of moving too fast and making a number of mistakes. Some nuclear industry workers had to be reinstated to their key roles. National park workers also claim that they cannot operate properly or train seasonal workers with so few staff. A number of Trump-appointed department heads instructed their staff not to respond to an email from Elon Musk, which stated that non-responders would be fired. DOGE also claimed 150 year olds were receiving benefits but reports say the auditors don’t understand the system. Due to a quirk in the 60 year-old code COBOL, no date of death has been added to close the accounts even though no benefits are reportedly being paid to them.
In related news, Project Veritas says undercover video testimony reveals that Department of Education employees were using the encrypted messaging app, Signal to organize sanctuary programs for illegal immigrants. That may be related to reports that X has started blocking links to Signal profiles. Journalists have encouraged fired government workers to reach out to them via Signal.
The Blitz
Health
Medicine and Food
Acquired immune deficiency? A preprint study from Yale’s school of medicine has found that some recipients of the mRNA covid vaccines had a reduction in their T-cell immunity. The research found that in some cases, the spike protein introduced with the vaccine continued to proliferate long after the shot was administered. (PJ Media) | Former White House covid advisor Deborah Birx said last week that mRNA vaccines were never designed to prevent infection, should have been targeted at high-risk groups and aren’t like childhood vaccinations. (Not the Bee)
The US Department of Agriculture has temporarily authorized a vaccine for avian flu in chickens. (WNG)
Metropolis
Politics and the State
Kash Patel has vowed to restore trust in the Federal Bureau of Investigation after being narrowly confirmed to lead it. President Trump has appointed podcaster and former law enforcement officer, Dan Bongino as the FBI’s deputy director. (Washington Examiner, BBC)
Treasure
Money, Markets and Jobs
The US Senate is set to advance a budget plan which would focus on defense and border spending. The Republicans in the House and Senate are divided about how to proceed on tax cuts and potential cuts to Medicare. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo) said, “I have no clarity,” urging his fellow lawmakers to get serious about hashing out the details and making a decision. (Semafor)
Could cow-herding robots help help fix the rural labor shortage? (Ambrook Research)
Life
Birth, Death and Marriage
An Ohio judge has quashed a law which required abortion facilities to bury or cremate the remains of aborted babies. (WNG)
All 80 people aboard a Delta flight which crashed landed then flipped over at Toronto Pearson airport have survived. Delta has offers $30k to each of the passengers. (NBC)
Reality Bytes
Digital Technology
Apple has rejected the UK government's request to create a backdoor into British users' cloud-stored data, arguing that such a security override would weaken protections for all users worldwide. Instead, to comply with UK law, Apple removed advanced encryption for UK user data, ultimately reducing security for its customers in the region. (Reclaim the Net)
Microsoft announced that it has invented a quantum computer chip, set to drive a computer more powerful than any other. The company also said it had created a novel state of matter to enable this to happen, one that is “not liquid, solid, gas, or plasma, but a topological superconductor”. (Forbes)
Researchers are getting a bot to “drunk dial” YouTube to glean information about the platform’s content statistics, since official numbers are“fragmentary and often somewhat misleading”. (BBC)
Heritage
Arts, History and Sport
Amazon has gained creative control over the James Bond franchise after the family of the iconic spy’s creator relinquished it. Despite Amazon’s acquisition of MGM and its film archive in 2022, the Broccoli family initially retained some influence over the character and the movies but has now ceded that authority. (ABC)
Last week in history:
1962 NASA astronaut John Glenn is the first man to orbit the earth. (Britannica)
1985 Ireland allows the sale of contraceptives. (History)
Hearts and Minds
Philosophy, Hacks and Human Connection
Experts say young people are “telephobic”, fearful of answering calls from an unknown number and unable to navigate a phone call. (CNBC)
A blunt exhortation for hikers to pick up their garbage has some surprising life advice: “The modern condition consists of a constant self-infantilization, of any number of “non-adulting” activities..now, with as little effort as possible…Be an adult. Own your garbage.”(Ridgeline)
Knowledge
Science and Data
Bird fossils found in China present a puzzle for evolutionists. "They demonstrate that the origin of birds is much earlier than current[ly] thought." But feathers generally present trouble for evolutionists! (NBC, ICR)
Ukraine Endgame?
President Trump and Ukraine’s President Zelensky exchanged insults last week, in an apparent souring of the relationship between Washington and Kiev. President Trump “dismissed the Ukrainian leader as a ‘modestly successful comedian’ who essentially tricked the US into spending hundreds of billions for a war that ‘couldn…
War and Rumors of War
Conflict and Weaponry
The Trump administration has designated Mexican drug cartels as terrorist groups. (PBS) | The CIA has covertly flown drones over Mexico to discover locations of cartel laboratories. The program began under the Biden administration has been expanded by the current one. (CNN)
Hamas has rejected criticism of its “parading” of Israeli hostages. The final release of hostages under this phase of the cease fire deal saw six living Israelis and four bodies returned. The bodies of two infant brothers were released in locked coffins with Israeli experts saying they had been killed by “bare hands”. Hamas also released what they claimed to be the remains of their mother, but forensic evidence revealed the body was not hers. (Not the Bee, Sky News, Epoch Times) | Three empty commuter buses have exploded in Israel, last Thursday night. It is suspected that the attack might have been botched on account of bomb timers being set incorrectly. (CNN, Times of Israel)
Australia and New Zealand are keeping an eye on Chinese navy vessels which have engaged in live fire drills in the straits off Sydney. (9 News) (Sky)
Stories From Far Away
World News
🇨🇬 Seventy Christians have been beheaded by members of the Allied Democratic Force in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Rwandan-backed M23 rebels have also entered the nation’s capital after taking control of the nation’s largest city. (WNG, Not the Bee, The Guardian)
🇰🇷 South Korea has banned new downloads of the Chinese-owned DeepSeek AI app, while security concerns are investigated. (BBC)
🇦🇷 Argentina’s president, Javier Milei is facing legal action after briefly promoting a cryptocurrency which quickly failed. (AP)
Quickhits For The Eyebuds
⌚ Why “Swiss made” doesn’t mean what you think it means
🥶 Oh the ideas that come to you when it’s 20 below
🕺🏻 We’re not sure what it is, but probably could use more of it
🍕 Ringo Starr says he’s never eaten pizza
⏳ A photographer with the patience of Job
🎨 Nostalgia for some: a browser version of KidPix
Good Word: Starfall 2029
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Let us pray. O God, the strength of all who put their trust in You, mercifully grant that by Your power we may be defended against all adversity; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
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