The World and Everything in It: November 18, 2024

PREROLL: Pastoral longevity is rare. I'm Caleb Welde, and in a few minutes, you'll meet a 19th century pastor who served his church for more than 50 years! Stay with us to hear the story.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

The Supreme Court hears a veteran’s disability case that hinges in part on medical opinions that clash and how wildly they differ.

GORSUCH: It’s basically were they crazy in --in choosing this one fact over the other fact? And they were not crazy. So there's no clear error.

NICK EICHER, HOST: That’s ahead on Legal Docket.

Also today, the Monday Moneybeat. Attention’s turning to the new president’s economic team, and economist David Bahnsen is standing by.

And later the WORLD History Book.

PIPER: He said, after preaching, “I would feel more like one dead than alive, and could sometimes scarcely walk across the room.”

REICHARD: It’s Monday, November 18th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

REICHARD: It’s time for news with Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Biden authorizes long-range Ukrainian strikes in Russia » President Biden has authorized Ukraine to use U.S.-supplied missiles to strike deeper inside Russia.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksyy addressed the news last night very succinctly.

ZELENSKYY: [Speaking in Ukranian]

In a video message, he said “The Missiles will speak for themselves."

The news comes after Russia unleashed its fiercest drone and missile attack in months on civilian infrastructure in northern Ukraine killing at least eight people.

Japan foreign minister in Kyiv » Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrei Sibiya spoke to reporters over the weekend … as Japan’s foreign minister paid a rare visit to Kyiv. Japan is concerned about North Korea’s growing military partnership with Russia.

SIBIYA (translated): According to Ukrainian intelligence, Pyongyang is seeking to exchange its participation for access to Russian technologies in missile, nuclear and other military programs.

North Korea has deployed as many as 12,000 troops to fight alongside Moscow’s forces.

President Biden also discussed those concerns with South Korean and Japanese leaders over the weekend at the APEC summit in Peru.

Biden with Xi » At that gathering, Biden also met — likely for the final time — with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Biden said that in their conversations over the past few years, they have not always agreed, but the talks were always very candid.

BIDEN: These conversations prevent miscalculations, and they ensure the competition between our two countries will not veer into conflict.

Xi Jinping said Beijing “is ready to work” with Donald Trump’s incoming administration.

Trump has talked about getting tougher on Beijing and imposing tariffs. But he has also signaled that he looks forward to resuming a cordial relationship with Xi Jinping.

Chris Wright nominated for Energy » And speaking of the incoming administration, Chris Wright is Trump’s nominee for energy secretary.

Wright is the CEO of Denver-based Liberty Energy and is a vocal advocate of oil and gas development.

Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear weighed in. He said he hopes the administration will see the value in electric vehicle manufacturing in his state and others.

BESHEAR: You look at all of these jobs and jobs of the future that have come to what the administration will probably view as red states. It’s important that these projects continue.

But he says he’ll reserve judgment on Wright’s nomination.

Debate on Gaetz » Chris Wright is not likely to be a very controversial pick among Republicans, but Trump’s nomination last week of Matt Gaetz for attorney general has sparked a firestorm on both sides of the aisle.

GOP Sen. Markwayne Mullin:

MULLIN: I have no doubt that President Trump believes that Matt Gaetz is the right person to do the right job. But at the same time, the background of Matt Gaetz does matter.

Mullin, who once served alongside Matt Gaetz in the House … has said that Gaetz frequently bragged about partying and women.

Gaetz was later the subject of a federal sex trafficking probe … centered on allegations involving a minor. The Justice Department never brought charges … However, the House Ethics Committee also opened an investigation.

Gaetz abruptly resigned from the House last week … just days before the Ethics Committee was expected to vote on releasing a report on its findings. And his resignation likely prevented the release of that report.

But House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries says the committee should still present its findings.

JEFFRIES: Of course it should be released. And that’s not just Democrats saying that.

He says Senate Republicans also want to see it ahead of confirmation hearings.

Gaetz also became a highly polarizing figure within the GOP when he triggered a House vote last year that led to the ouster of then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy without a plan to replace him. 

But current Speaker Mike Johnson defended Gaetz on Sunday:

JOHNSON: The reason that Matt Gaetz is such an exciting pick to so many people is because he will go in and reform the Department of Justice. It desperately needs it.

He called Gaetz one of the brightest minds in Washington.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: a case that hopes to settle competing veteran benefit claims is before the Supreme Court. Plus, the Monday Moneybeat with economist David Bahnsen.

This is The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s The World and Everything in It for this 18th day of November, 2024. We’re so glad you’ve joined us today. Good morning! I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. It’s time now for Legal Docket.

Two Supreme Court cases today.

The first involves the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The VA is the federal agency that among other things fields millions of disability claims each year from veterans.

VA fields the claims, evaluating them is the job of the Veterans Benefits Administration. Last year alone, the VBA completed nearly 2 million claims—an all-time high.

Recently, VA Secretary Denis McDonough praised the agency’s performance:

MCDONOUGH: It's better, world class care, and it's better health outcomes for veterans than in the private sector. It's not just more benefits, it's faster, more accessible benefits we're delivering by meeting vets where they are, rather than expecting them to come to us.

EICHER: It can’t be surprising that the VA secretary evaluates himself so highly. But the new boss in town doesn’t really think so.

President-elect Donald Trump recently criticized the VA.

In a video statement last week, he said he’d work to end homelessness among veterans and more besides:

TRUMP: On day one, I will sign an executive order to cut off Joe Biden's massive spigot of funding for shelter and transport of illegal aliens, and redirect a portion of those savings, a very large portion, I might add, to provide shelter and treatment for homeless American veterans. We're going to take care of our veterans.

Which leads us to our Supreme Court case.

Two service members sought medical care for Post Traumatic Stress they say they incurred while in the service. The two are Air Force veteran Joshua Bufkin and Army veteran Norman Thornton.

The two also say the VA has been inconsistent in claims approval, despite a long-standing rule that so-called close cases ought to favor the veteran.

REICHARD: At the Supreme Court, the veterans’ lawyer Melanie Bostwick argued this rule has a history going back a century. Congress was clear about giving the benefit of the doubt to veterans in claims that are borderline … creating a special veterans’ claims court 35 years ago. Bostwick said the lower courts got things wrong with these and other veterans:

BOSTWICK: Their decisions render Congress's statutory amendment entirely superfluous. They mean that a uniquely generous standard of proof is reviewed in a uniquely ungenerous way. And, if upheld, they will allow the agency's non-compliance with its statutory mandate to continue unchecked.

EICHER: She argued the approach taken by the VA defeats the whole purpose of the law. Veterans Court must make its own independent review of the evidence so it can determine those borderline issues.

REICHARD: But VA lawyer Sopan Joshi countered the agency follows a different time-honored standard for appeals, known in law as the “clear error of review.” Meaning, an appeals court only overturns a lower court’s fact finding if it is certain the lower court made a finding not supported by substantial, credible evidence in the record.

JOSHI: So, as between two interpretations, one that's sort of consistent, coherent, with a little bit of redundancy, and one that eliminates the redundancy at the cost of a statute at war with itself, I think you should pick the former over the latter.

EICHER: Justice Neil Gorsuch questioned the fairness of that.

To him … it’s a standard that essentially allows the VA to choose between two equally qualified experts, then prefer the one who favors denial of benefits.

GORSUCH: Your example of the two experts, let's say they're both super well qualified and they both do a really good job. And one says: Service-related. The other says: Not. The agency favors the one that's not because … he interviewed the claimant more recently in time or ran one more test. And --and that's not clearly erroneous because a clearly erroneous standard is very hard to meet.

BOSTWICK: Yes, Your Honor.

GORSUCH: Right? It's --it's basically: Were they crazy in --in choosing this one fact over the other fact? And they were not crazy. So there's no clear error. But, as a matter of law, you would say, as I understand your argument, that, hey, those are really pretty similar, and the Secretary's decision that it wasn't decisively in favor, I think is the language you used, or something like that, in favor of the government means that --that this standard has teeth and should be applied?

BOSTWICK: Yes, Your Honor.

REICHARD: The justices seemed torn on how to interpret the law.

Just last term, the court expanded VA benefits, giving veterans more flexibility in claiming educational benefits. It’s possible that signals the court’s more generous approach for medical benefits, too.

EICHER: Alright, case two, Wisconsin Bell v US. Here the law in question is the False Claims Act. It’s a federal law dating to Civil War times, designed to combat fraud against the government.

Here’s the background: Wisconsin Bell is a telecom company, it’s one of the many regional Bell systems established after the breakup of the phone company in the 1980s. Todd Heath is a former employee of Wisconsin Bell. He alleges the company overcharged the government, and so he sued under the False Claims Act.

Let’s stop a moment to explain how this works. The law combats fraud by incentivizing whistleblowers to come forward. So a private citizen can become what’s known as a “relator” meaning he is suing on behalf of the government, and if the case succeeds the relator gets a cut of any recovery the government’s able to win.

REICHARD: His lawsuit arises from a program that provides subsidies for schools and libraries to receive internet access. It’s called E-rate. Heath says the company knowingly charged too much and indirectly billed the government.

The company says if there were overcharges, it wasn’t intentional.

But its main argument is that any “claim” made by Wisconsin Bell isn’t the kind of claim the False Claims Act meant to capture … because the money didn’t flow directly from the government.
The company’s lawyer made clear that the E-rate program has a private administrator, so the funds aren’t government funds.

Company lawyer Allyson Ho argued the protections of the law only kick in when government money is directly at risk. When you hear her say “FCA,” she’s talking about the Fair Claims Act:

HO: Text, context, structure, and history all confirm that the government provides money for FCA purposes only if it supplies money from its own funds, putting the public fisc at risk. That never happened here. The government doesn't provide money by making one private party pay another private party, and the government doesn't provide money by collecting debts owed to a private party and in which the government has no financial stake.

EICHER: But Justice Elena Kagan tested that out with this hypothetical about who is responsible for delivering a service:

KAGAN: If I have a sick friend and I arrange for Uber to bring that sick friend chicken soup, I mean, in some ways, it's the deliveryman who provides the soup, but I provided the soup because I paid for it and I told the delivery man to go deliver it. And so, here, you might have two people that could in some sense be said to furnish or supply or provide the soup.

Lawyer Ho stammered around about that, and Justice Kagan continued:

KAGAN: Well, I think my friend would thank me for giving her the soup, not the funds, you know? I mean --I mean, I think my friend would understand that the Uber guy was a kind of conduit and it went through ---but --but I ordered the soup. And, here, the mandate is coming from the federal government in the same way.

REICHARD: Representing Heath the whistleblower, lawyer Tejinder Singh argued the government effectively controls E-rate funds. That makes it a government payment in substance.

SINGH: When Wisconsin Bell requests E-rate funds, the government provides the money. The administrator pays on the government's behalf using money the government collects and controls to advance a federal program that the government created. FCC mandates, which the administrator must follow, specify who must be paid and how much they must be paid. So, when the administrator paid Wisconsin Bell, that was the government providing money through its agent.

The point is not exactly how did the money move through a bureaucracy, was it routed efficiently or less efficiently. The point is who is really making the money move, and it is the government.

EICHER: Justice Neil Gorsuch had a less flavorful hypothetical than Justice Kagan’s chicken soup hypothetical, asking whether a court judgment could be considered as provided by the government:

GORSUCH: …a court order ordering a judgment, plaintiff, you get money from the defendant. Does the court provide that money or does the defendant provide that money and- if --if so, what makes that example different?

SINGH: Yeah. So I don't think we would say in ordinary usage that the court provides that money.

Because there, the defendant who has to pay the plaintiff isn’t a government agent.

GORSUCH: Putting aside the agency argument --

SINGH: I like the agency argument. (Laughter.)

GORSUCH: I know you do.

SINGH: Okay.

GORSUCH: Do you have anything beyond the agency argument?

SINGH: That is my, that is the clearest, most crystallized response…

REICHARD: Both sides provided strong arguments. The False Claims Act has led to billions of dollars in recoveries for the government, and it couldn’t have done it without the whistleblowers.

Decisions in both cases are expected by the end of June. And that’s this week’s Legal Docket!

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: The Monday Moneybeat.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Time now to talk business, markets, and the economy with financial analyst and adviser David Bahnsen. David heads up the wealth management firm The Bahnsen Group. He is here now. Good morning to you, David.

DAVID BAHNSEN: Good morning, Nick, good to be with you.

EICHER: Let’s begin with energy policy. We still have to wait to see about key economic policy posts … Treasury Secretary, Commerce, Labor, national economic council, those sorts of jobs … but we do have an Energy Secretary from industry … and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum at Interior … and the president-elect placing Burgum at the head of a new energy council … making good on what Trump sees as a real key driver of the economy and that’s as he likes to say “the liquid gold.” What do you take from what we know at this point.

BAHNSEN: Well, I think the Energy Council is very interesting because on one hand, I'm not generally a big fan of the executive branch creating new councils that don't really have congressional approval or budget or whatnot. But the fact that he's named a wonderful secretary of energy, and then the governor of North Dakota, Doug Burgum, running as secretary of interior. You know, they're serious people, and I think that they're very qualified to address some of the energy and energy infrastructure needs of the country.

Appointing a council that he's asked Gov. Burgum to run indicates to me he's looking for more integration across departments, that they want to actually put some teeth into what we're going to need for export terminals for liquefied natural gas.

You know, there's certain things have to be done by Congress. The Senate approves permitting on federal land for pipelines and for drilling. With this Republican majority Senate, they will approve those things. But as I mentioned before, we're not right now really struggling with a lack of production. You know, that's going fine.

But you need the Energy Council to maybe navigate how you set this up generationally, how you kind of foolproof it so that future administrations can't get in the way of energy independence.

This is something, this is a really important thing for, I think, for listeners to understand, something I become very convinced of from my talks with people in the administration: President Trump has to talk about a lot of things because a lot of issues matter to American people. But you know, he has, like any of us, the things that matter most to him. And most presidents have two or three things that are their big things, and then they have a whole lot of other things they have to deal with. Energy is in his top three.

And so I think him appointing Energy Council to really pursue cohesive and intelligent technique around the integration of energy policy is very encouraging to me.

EICHER: So I also noticed … and this seems deeply connected to energy … that the president-elect wants to clear away the priorities of the environmental left that may well jeopardize his goal of American energy independence.

BAHNSEN: Well, the fact that he named former New York Congressman Lee Zeldin, who ran for governor a couple years ago, as his new director of the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, this one of my favorite things that an executive, a chief executive, in the case of the president, can do. He did it with Betsy DeVos at education. He did it with David Malpass at the World Bank. Putting people in charge of agencies and organizations that they don't believe should exist is a wonderful way to diminish the administrative state and decentralized power out of Washington.

So Lee Zeldin at EPA is no environmental extremist. He's an anti environmental extremist and a very competent, intelligent individual. And so I think when you talk about some of the environmental policies, the EPA has the authority and the budget to wreak havoc on people, and you want good stewardship, and you want solid environmental protections, but you don't want them in a way that interferes with economic growth without a respect for tradeoffs. And that's where I think he's headed.

I don't really know how much in the weeds President Trump gets around those things. He's more of a high level guy here, as I think a lot of people know, but he's he at least in this category, he's bringing in some competent people, and I think that Zeldin was a great pick for EPA.

EICHER:Do you feel the news media reporting of a chaotic first round of filling in the cabinet posts is accurate? It seems more to me he’s moving with some real dispatch … much faster than 2016 … but do you think the chaos narrative has some credibility?

BAHNSEN: I do, and I don't think he views that as a negative. I think it's something that he leans into as part of his own style.

As far as the speed of which they're moving, keep in mind, no matter what anyone tells you, he did not believe he was going to win in 2016. They weren't prepared to win. And then he had named Gov. Chris Christie, formerly governor of New Jersey, as his transition chair, and Jared Kushner and Steve Bannon fired him two weeks into transition. So they had thousands of positions to fill and a clean slate, and they were really behind the eight ball. Plus, he was a first term president at that point, where now he is pulling a Grover Cleveland, there's a second term with four years in between, right? So they are ahead of the game with the vetting of certain people.

But then when you talk about chaos, there's just no question that a couple of the appointments this week he named, without talking to anyone else, that he was going to name him, and no one was expecting it. So those things are kind of chaotic. It's not generally what you expect.

You know right now, I realize it's Monday morning, but he named his communications director late day Friday: Steven Cheung, who had been in the communications through the campaign. That means he went the first almost two weeks without a communications director. So all these appointments were only getting out because somebody would tweet it and then Elon Musk would retweet it. You know what I mean? There wasn't a communication strategy up and running around some of this either. So I think chaos sometimes can sound overly negative. It's not my style, but it is chaotic, certainly, but it's also chaotic on purpose.

EICHER: So speaking of Elon Musk … the Department of Government Efficiency has been made official … as much as something like that can be made official!

BAHNSEN: The departments in the United States of America are made official by Congress. They're disbanded by Congress. They're given budgets by Congress, apportionment, appropriation of funds. So it was named small-o official, you know, small-d department by President Trump. It's sort of an advisory committee with no budget and no binding authority, but nevertheless, some very gifted people that are at the helm to try to go do some things.

EICHER: Yeah, so how seriously do you take the stated ambition of the DOGE cutting $2 trillion from the cost of government … that’s a third!

BAHNSEN: It's 100,000% ridiculous that they could cut $2 trillion. And they don't need to, okay? If they were to come up with a few $100 billion, then we should be praising them. That's why I'm very frustrated, because I think they can do some really good things, and I'm optimistic they will.

But I really believe you have to be in the business here with the public and with government of under-promising and over-delivering, not the opposite. You're not cutting 33%. Seventy percent of the United States budget is mandatory—entitlement payments. You cannot cut a third. And fraud, waste, corruption. If we knew what the number was, then we wouldn't have that high of a number. It may be 500 billion. I don't think it's going to be that high. But I think if it's $200 to $300 billion, that should be a big success story.

That should be a big victory if they can address some of that. So I definitely think they're going to find inefficiency, and I think they're going to find stories that will be embarrassing to people in government. And then Vivek Ramaswamy is a very gifted, articulate communicator. I think that he'll be able to really message out there, and then from there, Congress has to act, or agencies have to act.

But the $2 trillion number should get out of people's heads. There's just nowhere near $2 trillion to cut. And one of the things they said in their memo this week is we want to reduce the interest on the debt. Well, how do you reduce the interest on the debt? You reduce the debt. So it's kind of a circular reasoning here. You have to go find the things that you're going to cut, and they don't have any authority to cut spending. Congress has to cut the spending. So I'm excited that guys of their acumen are there, but I personally wish they'd gone the other way, instead of starting with a big number, start with a small number and then and then over-achieved it.

EICHER: David Bahnsen, founder, managing partner, and chief investment officer of The Bahnsen Group. If you’re not subscribing to David’s regular market writing, you can find out more at dividendcafe.com. It’s free, and you can receive it in your inbox.

Well, David, thanks! Have a great week!

BAHNSEN: Thanks so much, Nick. Good to be with you.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Monday, November 18th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Up next, the WORLD History Book. On this day in 1836, funeral preparations were underway for one of Cambridge, England’s most famous pastors. He served Holy Trinity Church for more than a half-century.

At times it was a tumultuous assignment. Staying wasn’t easy but his life of faithfulness echoes to this day.

WORLD correspondent Caleb Welde picks up the story the morning of the funeral.

CALEB WELDE: November 19th breaks dark and rainy in Cambridge. Fifteen hundred students in gowns … wait in the rain to walk in somber procession into King’s College Chapel. Ahead of the students, the college choir, the Scholars, and the Senior Fellows. The Provost … walks with Simeon’s relatives next to the coffin.

MUSIC: CHRIS FLEISCHER, PIPE ORGAN: G.F. HANDEL: DEAD MARCH (FROM SAUL)

GRUENDYKE: And they get to the door and it's just choked with people from his church, from Holy Trinity.

Randall Gruendyke is co-author of 12 Faithful Men: Portraits of Courageous Endurance in Pastoral Ministry. He’s also working on a full-length biography of Charles Simeon.

GRUENDYKE: If you've ever been in there, you know that upon walking through any one of the doors, you reflexively look up.

The world’s largest fan-vaulted ceiling meets towering medieval stained glass windows. King’s College has canceled almost all events on campus. The downtown market is closed in his honor … and churches across the city ring their bells in solidarity.

GRUENDYKE: So you think, Well, this guy must have had 54 years of glory!

Not … exactly. Simeon's ministry began very differently than how it ended.

Simeon was appointed pastor of Holy Trinity Church … at twenty-two—before he’d finished his undergrad program.

GRUENDYKE: He was not yet ordained as a priest. He was ordained as a deacon, but not a priest, and there was already a fellow working there at Holy Trinity by the name of John Hammond, who was about seven years Simeon’s elder.

Simeon had always admired the church. His dad knew the bishop in charge of that diocese.

GRUENDYKE: So he talked with his father, His father talked to the bishop, and the bishop appointed Charles Simeon and and the people were incredulous. I mean, incredulous is probably an understatement.

Back then, many churches rented their pews … the pews had little doors on either end.

GRUENDYKE: So everybody locked their pews. There was no place to sit. So he rented benches, and he put the benches in the aisle so people could sit. Well, church wardens came in and threw them out onto Market Street.

When you hear “church wardens”—think elders. Simeon tried to start a separate evening service. So … the wardens locked him out of the building.

GRUENDYKE: So it was just really difficult for him to operate. But he he operated in as respectful a manner as he could, and just bore with the people and it wasn't until 12 years later that he was finally embraced by the congregation.

It would eventually become known that John Hammond—the original favorite—was a Unitarian. But in the dozen years of internal conflict, Simeon faced resistance outside the church as well … as he ministered in Cambridge.

PIPER: There were physical threats against his life.
When students were converted, they were ostracized in the university. They were called Sims and accused of “Simeonism.”

One professor intentionally scheduled his Greek class Sunday evenings … so students couldn’t attend Simeon’s service. Words of encouragement were few and far between.

PIPER: He said, I remember the time that I was quite surprised that a fellow of my own college ventured to walk with me for a quarter of an hour on the grass plot before Clare Hall.

Simeon continued … at Holy Trinity and on campus. He began hosting “conversation parties” to answer practical questions … and mentor students in the Scriptures. He also got involved with several mission organizations and personally encouraged students to go.

India was a country with strict anti-missionary laws.

GRUENDYKE: But, they realized if they appointed fellas to work as chaplains for the British East India Company, they could come down.

One student sent out by Simeon was Henry Martin. Martin went on to translate the New Testament into Urdu—spoken in India and Pakistan…and Persian, after the initial Persian translation proved inadequate for native speakers. Persian is now called Farsi—the language of Iran.

GRUENDYKE: He took guys like that who had great potential for their own personal success, and he encouraged them to do work that actually imperiled their lives, and when they died, and they did, Henry Martin wasn’t the only one that was hard. It was difficult for Simeon, but it didn't dissuade him from continuing to recruit guys to go to India.

Then, in 1807, Simeon came down with a mysterious illness that left him chronically exhausted. Suddenly, he could barely get through a sermon.

PIPER: He said, after preaching, I would feel more like one dead than alive, and could sometimes scarcely walk across the room. Now this lasted 13 years.

Then, Simeon very noticeably received his strength back … one day on a trip to Scotland.

PIPER: It seemed to me that God was saying, “I have doubled, trebled and quadrupled your strength that you may execute your desire on a more extended plan.”

Simeon followed through on this commitment … to give to the last of his strength to God … for seventeen more years.

Simeon followed through. But how … did Simeon endure through all this? Biographer Randall Gruendyke says “the thing about Simeon was he believed what he preached.”

GRUENDYKE: And one of the things that caused him to exude this this sincerity, this deep seated belief, was the fact that he never got over his conversion.

He marveled at God’s grace…frequently acknowledging his own shortcomings. He knew he was especially prone to anger, vanity, and pride.

GRUENDYKE: because of his conversion, because he came face to face with his sin and its offense before the Lord, but then the even greater sacrifice of Christ on his behalf, he was, he was deeply moved by that.

When Simeon was seventy-one, a friend asked him explicitly how he’d endured.

PIPER: This was his response, My dear brother, we must not mind a little suffering for Christ's sake. When I am getting through a hedge, if my head and shoulders are safely through I can bear the pricking of my legs. Let us rejoice in the remembrance that our holy head has surmounted all his suffering and triumphed over death. Let us follow him patiently. We shall soon be partakers of his victory.

Simeon was seventy-seven when he fully tasted of Christ’s victory. His service ended in the chapel vault where he’s buried beneath the inscription C.S.,1836.

Holy Trinity Church inscribed these words towards the front of the sanctuary. “In memory of the Reverend Charles Simeon, Senior Fellow at King’s College, and fifty-four years vicar of this parish; who, whether … as the ground of his own hopes, or as a subject of all his ministrations, determined to know nothing but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.”

That’s this week’s WORLD History Book. I’m Caleb Welde.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: political pundits have been pouring over exit polling data and have discovered some surprises.

We’ll consider the voting patterns of the 20-somethings…

And, people have long doubted the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin … new evidence may change the minds of skeptics.

That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio. WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Apostle Paul wrote: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20.

Go now in grace and peace.

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