{"id":21449,"date":"2025-07-13T22:11:17","date_gmt":"2025-07-14T05:11:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/?p=21449"},"modified":"2025-07-13T22:11:17","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T05:11:17","slug":"jesus-said-a-kingdom-divided-cannot-stand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/2025\/07\/jesus-said-a-kingdom-divided-cannot-stand\/","title":{"rendered":"Jesus Said, &#8220;A Kingdom Divided Cannot Stand&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><figure id=\"attachment_21085\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-21085\" style=\"width: 623px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/347\/2025\/04\/Map-USandCanada.jpg\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-21085\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/347\/2025\/04\/Map-USandCanada-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"623\" height=\"623\"><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-21085\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">United States and Canada<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><h2>The United States of America Is Not United<\/h2>\n<p>The United States of America is betraying its name of being \u201cunited.\u201d Despite the social upheaval and opposition to the Vietnam War during the 1960s, I think our political landscape is more divided than I\u2019ve seen in my lifetime. We better get our act together or America is going down. And as I\u2019ve posted before, President Trump\u2019s \u201cAmerica First,\u201d demonstrated by his enormous tariffs he is slapping on almost every country in the world, including our allies, is just the opposite of what our country needs. That is a recipe for bringing America down, thus the opposite of Make America Great Again.<\/p>\n<h2>Trump\u2019s Tariffs Are Dividing America<\/h2>\n<p>Trump had announced his tariffs back on April 9th, calling it Independence Day. It was anything but that. It threw businesses into turmoil and the stock markets into chaos. Then he backed off and declared a \u201c90-day pause.\u201d Oh, that\u2019s great! As if he had never thought the whole thing through. He apparently was reacting to criticism about it mostly from corporation CEOs and thus Wall Street. Pretty soon, he was being called the TACO man, meaning Trump Always Chickens Out.<\/p>\n<p>Trump\u2019s 90 day tariff pause ended last Tuesday, on July 8th. Earlier, he had declared a whopping 145% tariff on products made in China and shipped to the U.S. as exports for sale here. And this week, he announced a 30% tariff on products exported from Europe and Canada to the U.S. for sale.<\/p>\n<p>Trump had campaigned for his second presidency term with tariffs being a strong part of his political platform. His MAGA crowd accepted it and put him back in the White House. But then when Trump slapped down his tariffs on 56 countries, MAGA was astonished, saying they had no idea Trump\u2019s tariffs would be so severe. They were expecting about 10%. This has now caused the MAGA support to crack somewhat.<\/p>\n<h2>The Epstein Files Are Dividing MAGA<\/h2>\n<p>But now a lot more of MAGA is upset about the supposed Epstein Files. Jeffrey Epstein was a New York financier and child sex offender who spent time in prison. He had many friends. He ran some kind of brothel on his island that he owned to serve his high-flying investors who included celebrities. One time he was recorded as saying that Donald Trump was his best friend. Trump did fly on Epstein\u2019s airplane multiple times.<\/p>\n<p>Epstein was convicted of child prostitution in Florida in 2008 and and spent 13 months in prison. He was arrested again in 2019 for sex trafficking of minor in Florida and New York and was in a New York City detention center, awaiting sentencing. He was found dead from hanging in his jail cell, and it was ruled a suicide. Plus, it later became known that the video of his cell the night he died had one minute missing from it.<\/p>\n<p>I do not believe Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide, and so a lot of other Americans. I don\u2019t think he had the psychological profile of a person who would commit suicide. Yet surprisingly to me, this is rarely or never mentioned by the news media.<\/p>\n<h2>Did Trump Lie in Saying He\u2019d Release The Files?<\/h2>\n<p>In Trump\u2019s last campaign for the presidency, he vowed publicly, and I think repeatedly, that if elected president he would release the Epstein files. But hey, as I have also said multiple times on my blog, and it\u2019s in my Trump book, Donald Trump is the biggest liar I have ever seen in my lifetime.<\/p>\n<p>So, to me, if you believed what Trump said, that he would release the Epstein files, you were a fool! Some people had claimed Trump is mentioned in these Epstein files. If so, I think he likely would not release them. Regardless, there were many important men named in those files who did not want Trump to release them. I think some may have pressured Trump to not release the files. But how about this\u2014did any of these important men pressure Trump to have Epstein murdered?<\/p>\n<p>This week, the FBI said there is nothing worthwhile in the Epstein files to release. Yet Trump\u2019s Attorney General Pam Bondi had said back in February\u2014right after Trump took residency in the White House again\u2014that the Epstein files included a \u201cclient list\u201d and that \u201cit is sitting on my desk right now for review.\u201d It was never made known publicly. This week, she backtracked about it, probably because Trump told her to, but also since MAGA has risen up, calling for Trump to say to her, as if he was back on The Apprentice, \u201cYou\u2019re fired!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So, not only has America become so polarized politically in the past decade or more, exacerbated I think by our two-party system, Trump\u2019s MAGA crowd is now dividing every minute about the tariffs, but especially Trump\u2019s refusal to release the Epstein files. He was asked by a reporter about it Tuesday in a Cabinet meeting, which are now televised. He said, \u201cAre you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy\u2019s been talked about for years. Are people still talking about this guy? This creep?\u201d He further slammed the reporter for asking what was a very legitimate question that America wants asked and answered. It\u2019s obvious to me that Trump is hiding something due to this answer.<\/p>\n<h2>What Jesus Said about a Divided Kingdom<\/h2>\n<p>This reminds me of something Jesus said about kingdoms, which includes nations. The Pharisees accused Jesus, \u201cIt is only by the Beelzebub,\u201d another name for Satan, \u201cthe prince of demons, that this fellow drives out the demons\u201d (Matthew 12.24 NIV). Jesus retorted, \u201cEvery kingdom divided against itself will be ruined. \u2026 If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand?\u201d (vv. 25-26).<\/p>\n<p>Again, the United States of America better get its act together or this increasing political division we are experiencing will, according to Jesus, result the nation\u2019s ruin.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The United States of America Is Not United The United States of America is betraying its name of being \u201cunited.\u201d Despite the social upheaval and opposition to the Vietnam War during the 1960s, I think our political landscape is more divided than I\u2019ve seen in my lifetime. We better get our act together or America [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1477,"featured_media":21085,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[83,8,494,2660,84],"tags":[734,8618,8615,8612],"class_list":["post-21449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christian-living","category-current-events","category-jesus","category-politics","category-unconditional-love","tag-donald-trump","tag-epstein-files","tag-jeffrey-epstein","tag-trumps-tariffs"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Jesus Said, &quot;A Kingdom Divided Cannot Stand&quot;<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The United States of America Is Not United The United States of America is betraying its name of being &quot;united.&quot; Despite the social upheaval and\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/2025\/07\/jesus-said-a-kingdom-divided-cannot-stand\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jesus Said, &quot;A Kingdom Divided Cannot Stand&quot;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The United States of America Is Not United The United States of America is betraying its name of being &quot;united.&quot; 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