SurvivalBlog Readers’ & Editors’ Snippets

This weekly Snippets column is a collection of short items: responses to posted articles, practical self-sufficiency items, how-tos, lessons learned, tips and tricks, and news items — both from readers and from SurvivalBlog’s editors. Note that we may select some long e-mails for posting as separate letters.

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This news from Ohio should come as no surprise: Gun Crimes Fall after Constitutional Carry Laws Adopted, Study Shows.

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A new video from SurvivalBlog’s Editor-At-Large, Mike Williamson: Bjorn Bladeworks Machete.

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Some more wise commentary from Patrice Lewis: 17 things frugal people never buy.

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I have good news for any blog readers who are annoyed by YouTube’s anti-ad blocking software. There is now a free tool called uBlock Origin, available for both Firefox and Chrome browsers.  It is very quick and easy to install. No more YouTube commercials — hooray!  But, if you choose to use this tool then please toggle the ads back on, at SurvivalBlog. (Just click the big “switch” button.) Advertising helps keep SurvivalBlog afloat. Thanks. – JWR

Continue reading“SurvivalBlog Readers’ & Editors’ Snippets”

The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

” 168. The old question will be asked in this matter of prerogative, “But who shall be judge when this power is made a right use of?”  I answer: Between an executive power in being with such a prerogative and a legislative that depends upon his will for their convening there can be no judge on earth. As there can be none between the legislative and the people should either the executive or the legislative, when they have got the power in their hands, design, or go about to enslave or destroy them, the people have no other remedy in this, as in all other cases where they have no judge on earth, but to appeal to Heaven; for the rulers in such attempts, exercising a power the people never put into their hands, who can never be supposed to consent that anybody should rule over them for their harm do that which they have not a right to do. And where the body of the people, or any single man, are deprived of their right, or are under the exercise of a power without right, having no appeal on earth they have a liberty to appeal to Heaven whenever they judge the cause of sufficient moment. And therefore though the people can not be judge, so as to have, by the constitution of that society any superior power to determine and give effective sentence in the case, yet they have reserved that ultimate determination to themselves which belongs to all mankind, where there lies no appeal on earth, by a law antecedent and paramount to all positive laws of men whether they have just cause to make their appeal to Heaven. And this judgment they cannot part with, it; being out of a man’s power so to submit himself to another as to give him a liberty to destroy him God and Nature never allowing a man so to abandon himself as to neglect his own preservation. And since he cannot take away his own life, neither can he give another power to take it.” – John Locke, from Two Treatises on Civil Government. — (This passage by Locke is thought to be the  inspiration for George Washington’s An Apeal To Heaven naval flag design.)

Preparedness Notes for Tuesday — January 9, 2024

On January 9, 1839, Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre of France proclaimed his invention of the daguerreotype, the first commercially successful form of photography.

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January 9, 1943 was the birthday of gunsmith Paris Theodore, developer of the ASP modifications to the S&W M39 pistol.

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On this day in 1776, writer Thomas Paine published his pamphlet “Common Sense,” setting forth his arguments in favor of American independence. Although little used today, pamphlets were an important medium for spreading ideas in the 16th through 19th centuries.

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SurvivalBlog Writing Contest

Today we present another entry for Round 110 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include:

First Prize:

  1. The photovoltaic power specialists at Quantum Harvest LLC  are providing a store-wide 10% off coupon. Depending on the model chosen, this could be worth more than $2000.
  2. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any of their one, two, or three-day course (a $1,095 value),
  3. Two cases of Mountain House freeze-dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $350 value),
  4. American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses.
  5. Two sets of The Civil Defense Manual, (in two volumes) — a $193 value — kindly donated by the author, Jack Lawson.

Second Prize:

  1. A SIRT STIC AR-15/M4 Laser Training Package, courtesy of Next Level Training, that has a combined retail value of $679
  2. Two 1,000-foot spools of full mil-spec U.S.-made 750 paracord (in-stock colors only) from www.TOUGHGRID.com (a $240 value).
  3. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC.
  4. Montana Survival Seed is providing a $225 gift code for any items on its website, including organic non-GMO seeds, fossils, 1812-1964 US silver, jewelry, botany books, and Montana beeswax.
  5. A transferable $150 FRN purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun. There is no paperwork required for delivery of pre-1899 guns into most states, making them the last bastion of firearms purchasing privacy!

Third Prize:

  1. A Berkey Light water filter, courtesy of Directive 21 (a $305 value),
  2. A $300 gift certificate from Good2Goco.com, good for any of their products: Home freeze dryers, pressure canners, Country Living grain mills, Emergency Essentials foods, and much more.
  3. Three sets each of made-in-USA regular and wide-mouth reusable canning lids. (This is a total of 300 lids and 600 gaskets.) This prize is courtesy of Harvest Guard (a $270 value)
  4. A transferable $150 FRN purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun.

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More than $870,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running this contest. We recently polled blog readers, asking for suggested article topics. Refer to that poll if you haven’t yet chosen an article topic. Round 110 ends on January 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how-to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.

How to Process Chickens and Rabbits – Part 1, by Elli O.

This article won’t change your life. It won’t win any prizes. But it will give you the ability to take a small, live animal and humanely dispatch it then process it for personal consumption. So rather than read this less-than-riveting article, I would suggest you print it and file it away for when the time comes to use it.

A little background on my experience with both chickens and rabbits: I started raising layer chickens about 10 years ago and really enjoy the fresh eggs as well as the convenience of retrieving food for our family. After having layers for several years, I decided to try my hand at meat chickens. After all, how hard can it be to raise those little fluff balls for eight weeks and then butcher them? It shouldn’t be any different than raising the fluff ball layers, right? Wrong. Not hard but definitely different!

As far as rabbits, I have been raising New Zealand rabbits for about five years. The original thought was that when TEOTWAWKI happens, the rabbits would be the primary food source for our two dogs. The rabbits would prevent our family food supply from going to our beloved pets. Since then, I have enjoyed the ease of raising rabbits along with the quick turn-around of raising the next generation of food. Yes, rabbits can and do multiply quickly.Continue reading“How to Process Chickens and Rabbits – Part 1, by Elli O.”

SurvivalBlog’s News From The American Redoubt

This weekly column features news stories and event announcements from around the American Redoubt region. (Idaho, Montana, eastern Oregon, eastern Washington, and Wyoming.) Much of the region is also more commonly known as The Inland Northwest. We also mention companies of interest to preppers and survivalists that are located in the American Redoubt region. Today, we look at another tarbrush smear against Redoubters in general and JWR in particular. (See the Region-Wide section.)

Region-Wide

Bradley Onishi (an outspoken “former Christian Nationalist” and “ex-evangelical minister”) published a book early in 2023 titled Preparing for War: The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism–and What Comes Next. 

JWR’s Comments: Needless to say, I do not recommend his book, since it is surely incredibly slanted. There is a full chapter in the book about The American Redoubt movement. Onishi’s X-Twitter page is replete with zingers such as: “The White in “White Evangelical” has always been the most important part. It drives the ship. The car says Christian on the side, but the engine runs on racism, xenophobia, and nationalism.”  Notably, Onishi is also the co-host of a podcast called Straight White American Jesus.

I’ve previously warned SurvivalBlog readers about Onishi.  He runs with an interesting crowd. Onishi was a guest speaker at the National Atheist Convention.

In an interview with WNYC’s nationally syndicated The Takeaway, Onishi mischaracterized me. Onishi said in the interview:

“The American Redoubt is a movement that began about a decade ago, that really signifies Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana Eastern Washington and Eastern Oregon. In 2011, the writer and survivalist James Wesley Rawles dubbed that region the American Redoubt because redoubt means refuge or stronghold. He said this is the last part of the country where we can gather and we can create a Christian separatist society and prepare for the collapse of the United States as we know it, the coming civil war, and the opportunity to rebuild the nation in our own image.”

For the record, I have never made a call to “rebuild the nation in our own image”.  Onishi, like so many other liberal Redoubt Haters, conveniently leaves out the fact that I’m an outspoken anti-racist and that from the very beginning, I created the American Redoubt movement to seek conservative Christians and Jews to relocate to the region. These glaring omissions are nothing short of character assassination. Onishi also took another swipe of his tar brush when he said in the same interview:

“If we take Idaho it is something like 93% white and so when Rawles calls for a Christian separatist movement, he’s doing so in the context where 9 out of 10 people in the region where he is talking about are white.”

“Context”??? Here, Bradley Onishi is using an equivocating weasel word that borders on slander. He seems to be calling me a racist without doing so directly. For the record:  I was attracted to Idaho because of its low population density, not for its racial demographics!

An aside: Onishi’s publisher, Broadleaf Books, prides itself as follows: “We are committed to publishing authors who bring thoughtful perspective to explorations in religion, spirituality, social justice, culture, and personal growth with credibility and authenticity.” Broadleaf Books is “an imprint of the adult nonfiction imprint of 1517 Media, the publishing house of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). The oh-so-fringey and declining ECLA denomination has plenty of detractors and has inspired more than a million people to quit its ranks. It is perhaps the fastest-shrinking denomination in America. The ELCA is radically liberal, and even pays for abortions for any reason for those in their insurance plan, funded by church offering dollars! It has been reported: “The ELCA ordains practicing homosexuals and now also transgender pastors.” They are so far left-wing, in fact, that they’ve been chided by some liberal Lutheran church leaders. Here is a quote from an article about the ECLA “The once 5 million member denomination is now 3.7 million and growing smaller every month.”Continue reading“SurvivalBlog’s News From The American Redoubt”

Preparedness Notes for Monday — January 8, 2024

On January 8, 1815, U.S. General Andrew Jackson defeated Great Britain in the Battle of New Orleans, the final engagement in the War of 1812.

On this day in 1997, the principality of Monaco began a yearlong celebration in honour of the 700th anniversary of the rule of the Grimaldi family, who seized power in 1297 and gained firm possession of Monaco in 1419.

On January 8, 1997 Mexican criminal Joaquín Guzmán (“El Chapo”), head of the Sinaloa drug cartel, was captured in Los Mochis after escaping prison some six months earlier; he was later extradited to the United States, where he was convicted of various crimes.

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I’ve had several readers ask about the availability of the new edition of the waterproof SurvivalBlog Archive USB stick. The new 2005-2023 sticks are now in production. They should be completed, in hand, and orderable by January 20th. Watch for an ad in the blog’s right-hand bar, in about a week. This year the archive and bonus books had to be on a more capacious 32GB stick. Altogether, the contents will be just over 22 Gigabytes. This will leave room for archiving any of your own crucial files, e-books, and photos/document scans on your stick. Each year the SurvivalBlog Archive USB sticks sell out by March or April, so be sure to mark your calendar to place your order well before then. Thanks! – JWR

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Today’s feature article is a review authored by SurvivalBlog Field Gear Editor Tom Christianson.

SecureIt HG-02 Pistol Case, by Thomas Christianson

The SecureIt HG-02 Pistol Case offers secure handgun storage which can be mounted in a variety of locations throughout the home to provide quick and reliable access. Available for $129 at the time of this writing, it presents a good value for the money.

Background

I have been searching for an American-made two-handgun lockbox for a while now. So when I ran across the SecureIt HG-02 Pistol Case, I was quite interested. I requested a sample from SecureIt for testing and evaluation, and they were kind enough to provide one. Before long, FedEx delivered a package to my doorstep.

First Impressions

The HG-02 was shipped in its product box with no additional packaging. The box was not sealed, and could be opened just by lifting a cardboard flap. The HG-02 was nestled securely in the box, with foam caps on both ends. By coincidence, the HG-02 has almost the exact same outside dimensions as the case for the Taurus TH9 that I was testing at the time. So when I returned the TH9 to Taurus, I was able to re-purpose the HG-02 product box in order to ship the TH9 in its case.

But back to the HG-02. After I removed it from the product box, I used the provided key to open the case. Inside I found a bag containing instructions and mounting screws. The simple instructions were printed on one side of a standard 8.5 x 11 inch sheet of paper.Continue reading“SecureIt HG-02 Pistol Case, by Thomas Christianson”

Recipe of the Week: Potato and Egg Scramble

The following recipe for Potato and Egg Scramble is from SurvivalBlog reader G.G..  He notes:  “This recipe is hard to mess up, so you can cook it in a pan on your stovetop, or over an open campfire that is dying down. It serves four adults.”

Ingredients
  • 2 Diced Medium Potatoes, chunked or chopped
  • 1 Medium-sized onion, chopped
  • 2 Chopped Fresh Peppers.  (Any color pepper of your choice.)
  • 8 Eggs, stirred
  • 2 Tablespoons of Butter
  • Salt
Directions

  1. Cut just 1Tablespoon of butter. Drop that into your cast iron pan and put it over your fire. Spread it around, to coat the pan.

  2. Add the potatoes, peppers, and onions. Cook them about 20 minutes, stirring once in a while. Cook until the potatoes are tender. By then, the onions will be browned and the peppers will be cooked to a more mellow flavor.

  3. Crack and stir your eggs, in a separate bowl.

  4. Add the second tablespoon of butter.  Once the butter has melted, briefly stir in the eggs. But do not stir the scramble any further. Cover your pan. (Use aluminum foil if you don’t have a lid.) Allow the scramble to cook about 4-to-5 minutes until the eggs are sufficiently cooked through.
  5. Salt it, to taste, and serve.
SERVING

Serve this scramle hot from the pan!

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Do you have a well-tested recipe that would be of interest to SurvivalBlog readers? In this weekly recipe column, we place emphasis on recipes that use long-term storage foods, recipes for wild game, dutch oven recipes, slow cooker recipes, and any recipes that use home garden produce. If you have any favorite recipes, then please send them via e-mail. Thanks!

Economics & Investing For Preppers

Here are the latest news items and commentary on current economics news, market trends, stocks, investing opportunities, and the precious metals markets. In this column, JWR also covers hedges, derivatives, and various obscura. This column emphasizes JWR’s “tangibles heavy” investing strategy and contrarian perspective. Today, we look at the prospects for the silver market in 2024 and 2025. (See the Precious Metals section.)

Precious Metals:

Silver Price Forecast: Top Trends That Will Affect Silver in 2024.

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At Seeking Alpha: Silver Production Shortage: Mexico’s Supply Has Dropped Off A Cliff.

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USGS: “Worldwide silver supplies will be depleted by 2025”.

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Silver Price Forecast for 2024 – XAG/USD Could Go to $28 Next Year.

Economy & Finance:

Bidenomics, in action: U.S. Manufacturing Contracts For 14th Straight Month.

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The US national debt surpassed $34 trillion on Tuesday, January 2nd. The long-term obligations are of course much larger. Re-paying that debt is now nigh-on impossible. And if interest rates spike, then just paying the interest on the debt will become impossible — leading to an inevitable default. This may sound a lot like the first chapter of my novel Patriots. I tried to warn people about this, back in the early 1990s…

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From The Sun: A stranger helped me tap my card at ATM when the card reader didn’t work – a day later only $5 was left in my account.

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Linked over at the Whatfinger.com news aggregation site: Apple lost $100 billion in market value in one day – more than combined worth of Ford and GM – and ‘lackluster’ sales of one gadget are to blame.

Continue reading“Economics & Investing For Preppers”

Preparedness Notes for Sunday — January 7, 2024

Today is the birthday of Cresson Kearny (born 1914, died December 18, 2003.) He was the primary author of the now standard reference text: Nuclear War Survival Skills. (The public domain 1987 edition is one of the many bonus books included in the SurvivalBlog Archive USB stick.)

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January 7th is also the birthday of Bent Faurschou-Hviid, known as The Flame (born 1921, died October 18, 1944). The Flame was a red-haired Danish resistance fighter in the Holger Danske Group during World War II. His exploits were dramatized in the movie Flame and Citron.

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SurvivalBlog Writing Contest

Today we present another entry for Round 110 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include:

First Prize:

  1. The photovoltaic power specialists at Quantum Harvest LLC  are providing a store-wide 10% off coupon. Depending on the model chosen, this could be worth more than $2000.
  2. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any of their one, two, or three-day course (a $1,095 value),
  3. Two cases of Mountain House freeze-dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $350 value),
  4. American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses.
  5. Two sets of The Civil Defense Manual, (in two volumes) — a $193 value — kindly donated by the author, Jack Lawson.

Second Prize:

  1. A SIRT STIC AR-15/M4 Laser Training Package, courtesy of Next Level Training, that has a combined retail value of $679
  2. Two 1,000-foot spools of full mil-spec U.S.-made 750 paracord (in-stock colors only) from www.TOUGHGRID.com (a $240 value).
  3. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC.
  4. Montana Survival Seed is providing a $225 gift code for any items on its website, including organic non-GMO seeds, fossils, 1812-1964 US silver, jewelry, botany books, and Montana beeswax.
  5. A transferable $150 FRN purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun. There is no paperwork required for delivery of pre-1899 guns into most states, making them the last bastion of firearms purchasing privacy!

Third Prize:

  1. A Berkey Light water filter, courtesy of Directive 21 (a $305 value),
  2. A $300 gift certificate from Good2Goco.com, good for any of their products: Home freeze dryers, pressure canners, Country Living grain mills, Emergency Essentials foods, and much more.
  3. Three sets each of made-in-USA regular and wide-mouth reusable canning lids. (This is a total of 300 lids and 600 gaskets.) This prize is courtesy of Harvest Guard (a $270 value)
  4. A transferable $150 FRN purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun.

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More than $870,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running this contest. We recently polled blog readers, asking for suggested article topics. Refer to that poll if you haven’t yet chosen an article topic. Round 110 ends on January 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how-to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.

The Juggling Act: Is 2024 A Pivotal Year For The Globalists, by Brandon Smith

Editor’s Introductory Note: With permission, this piece was authored by political and economics commentator Brandon Smith.  It was first published on his excellent Alt-Market.us site. Both his free website and his subscription The Wild Bunch Dispatch e-newsletter are highly recommended.

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If you want to know if a society is on the verge of great and tumultuous change you need to ask two very important questions – Are the people angry? And, are the people hungry?

In the US (and in many parts of Europe) the people are indeed very angry, for different reasons depending on their political affiliations. On the other hand, they aren’t hungry, at least not to the extent that they are desperate. This could very well change in 2024 given the confluence of events that are swirling as we enter the new year.

I continue to see 2024 as a nexus point of our era for a number of reasons. The globalist timeline for their “Great Reset” mentions 2030 as the prime year for total centralization. This is the year they plan to put their carbon controls in place, remove most oil and gas energy, bring in their digital currency framework, finalize their 15 Minute City programs, establish the IMF and BIS as the overseers of the global CBDC structure, launch their cashless society and integrate ESG related goals into every aspect of the economy.

2030 is only six years away, and that’s a lot to accomplish in such short amount of time. The globalists are going to have to either admit failure and change their timeline, or, create a substantial crisis in the near term to facilitate the Reset. But before I get too far into the potential ugliness waiting in the next year, lets talk about two of the biggest positive developments for 2024…Continue reading“The Juggling Act: Is 2024 A Pivotal Year For The Globalists, by Brandon Smith”

JWR’s Meme Of The Week:

The latest meme created by JWR:

Meme Text:

Important Dating Tip For The 2020s:

If “She” Has an Adam’s Apple, Then There May Be Other Extra Appendages

News Links:

UCSF Surgeons Develop Effective Scarless Adam’s Apple Surgery.

Notes From JWR: Do you have a meme idea? Just e-mail me the concept, and I’ll try to assemble it. And if it is posted then I’ll give you credit. Thanks!

Permission to repost memes that I’ve created is granted, provided that credit to SurvivalBlog.com is included.

 

The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.

And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write; These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth;

I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name.

Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee.

Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.

Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown.

Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.

He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.

And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God;

I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.

So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.

Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:

I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.

As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.

Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.

To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.

He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.” – Revelation 3:6-22 (KJV)