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If the president says he's going to bomb Iran, the left says he's a war criminal. When he doesn't bomb Iran, the left says he's a coward and always chickens out. You can't help the Trump deranged. But we can learn from 1 Samuel 15 on the importance of following God's Word completely.
Welcome to Politics by Faith. This is where we take the news of the day and we bring it to the Bible. So you can walk away with peace and perspective. There's new headlines every day, but Ecclesiastes says there's nothing new under the sun. So thanks for being here to get the true story, the story of the day. Donald Trump chickens out.
It's very funny if the left says that, well, let's say Trump says he wants to drop a bomb, right? Oh, he's committing a war crime. And then Trump doesn't drop the bomb. Oh, he's a chicken, a coward. You cannot win with the Trump deranged, which is fine. The very short of the story, Trump talked, he spoke loudly and carries a big stick.
He talked a big game in a way that the people he was talking to, Muslim lunatics in Iran, would understand. They came to the negotiating table at the last minute because, again, the big stick part, he's used it. They know he will. So they negotiated and they agreed, Iran agreed to open the Strait of Hormuz. So Trump didn't attack. Great news.
Now we'll see if they open up the Strait. That's all we want at this point is open up the Strait of Hormuz. If they do that, then we're probably done in Iran. It kind of depends who rises from the ashes. And if the people there can rise up and run their country, we'll see what they're able to do. But this is possible that we're done in Iran at this point, if they open up the Now, if you lived online when this all happened, it was a dark and weird place, even more than usual.
People very anxious about what was going to happen by the Trump administration. very anxious or confused when it didn't happen. And then people saying we lost the war and Trump showed weakness and it was all very bizarre and weird. Now on the Iran one part, there are a lot of people. First of all, there are a lot of people on MSNBC. Apparently, I didn't even think that people really thought this never even crossed my mind.
When Trump said there will be a civilizational erasure, people on MSNBC were thinking that Trump was going to kill 90 million people. And Iran just bombed them all.
What?
He's been doing this for 11 years, guys. You still don't know his MO? You don't know how this works?
Geez.
Now, people even afterwards said that Trump lost and Iran is winning. Iran won. Iran came out ahead. They're the ones winning. So someone said, all right, let's flip it. Let's flip the script here for a second.
Imagine Iran killed Trump in the first five minutes of the war. established air superiority over the U .
S.
mainland, wiped out the entire U .
S.
Air Force, U . S. Navy, killed half the cabinet, flattened the U . S. military -industrial complex, then started building runways in Missouri to land Iranian troops without losing any casualties. Would you say that it was a U .
S. victory if America managed to keep the Panama Canal closed for a couple weeks? I don't think anyone would say that that was a U . S. victory, so how on earth could you say this is an Iranian victory? Now, before we get to the biblical story of the day, I have two frustrations that I would like to share.
Let me try to do this quick. So, number one, it's very frustrating that we are unable as a country to talk about what is good and right and proper without having to run it through the prism or framework that is the midterms. We've got the midterms coming up eight months from now. we have an election. So we can't talk about if it's good to do anything. It always has to be, well, how is it going to affect the midterms?
Okay, well, what are these midterms? Well, this is when the people vote. On what? Gas prices. That's it. Just gas prices.
That's the only thing people vote on, apparently, is gas prices. Okay, so what happens if gas prices are $3 .20 a gallon? They vote for Republicans.
All right.
What if gas is $3 .86? Oh, Democrats. Hold on. Democrats want gas to be $10 a gallon. That's what they want. And you're going to vote because gas is a little too high for your liking.
You're going to vote for the Democrats who want it even worse. If that makes sense. And then you're like, all right, fine. The election's about gas prices. Okay. Well, who sets the gas prices?
Oil futures markets, which is based off of what people think gas will cost later. Okay. That's not, I'm not going to analyze a thing, war in Iran, or deporting the U . S. or whatever the thing is. I'm not going to analyze that through the prism of the midterms, which is decided by voters who only care about gas prices, which are determined by future oils markets of predictions of what, like that's not happening. And Trump doesn't either.
Trump only cares about what is right and he's going to do it now. He doesn't worry about timing. Maybe he'll worry a little bit about the timing, he'll tend to drop bombs on Fridays, but that's only because he doesn't want people in the stock market to freak out unnecessarily. Give it two days, he'll know, and people will be fine about it on Monday. But big picture timing, Trump doesn't care, just does what is right. And I am frustrated that we, every time we're faced with something like this,
it through the midterm matrix. All right, second frustration. This perception or this opinion, I hear it a lot. Matt Walsh articulates it well. I love Matt Walsh, big fan. He said, Americans are suffering.
It's way too expensive out there to live for most families. Our cities are not safe. Our country's being transformed every day by foreign migration. Our elections are not secure. The SAVE Act was not passed and won't be passed. Okay, I agree with all those problems.
Then he says, it's time to end this war on Iran and focus on our country, our people, our future. Far too much of Trump's second term has been spent on foreign adventures. It has to end, turn the attention back home. Matt Walsh and I, same team, not a criticism of him at all. First of all, MAGA does not mean non -intervention. It does not mean isolationist.
It means what's in America's best interest, and that may sometimes involve foreign adventures. That's the first thing. Second, the economy, the country doesn't work. where something only happens if Trump is staring at it, and if Trump's not staring at it, then the thing does, everything else stops. The best example I can think about this, to make this clear, is let's say the Memphis Safe Task Force. Matt Walsh talked about our cities aren't safe.
Memphis Safe Task Force. It's not like because Trump is looking at Iran right now, at the moment, he's staring at it, that the Memphis Safe Task Force over here is just at a standstill. We can't do anything, we're stuck. Why not?
Why can't you guys do anything?
Well, Trump's not staring at us at the moment. We have to wait till Trump's staring. Well, can't you just do what you told you to do? No, we can't do anything. We can't. We have to stop here.
Oh, wait, he's looking at us now. Okay, back to work, everyone. And then for like a couple hours, Trump's looking at us. at that. And then he got to stop his work. He's back on Iran.
He tweeted about Iran. We're done. We can't do anything anymore. All these things still happen. Trump, Trump's the CEO. So he has, I don't know how many buildings he ever had, like 50 buildings.
Maybe he doesn't. It's not like when he's working on one building, all the other buildings are like, ah, we're closed. No, you can't stay here, can't golf here. Sorry, Trump's not staring at us at the moment. No, Trump says, you go fix the thing. You're in charge of that building.
You're in charge of that building. Go get it done. So there's just this frustration that people have about the Iran war, again, not looking at it objectively. And you could be against Iran or what Trump's doing in Iran. You could be against it. But I don't think it's a fair or wise argument to be against it because, well, we have other stuff at home to focus on.
Like, yeah, of course we do. Those things are still being done. A couple weeks ago, we talked to a guy who's running a mine for rare earth metals in Arkansas. He's still doing that. They're still mining for rare earths in Arkansas. It's not like he's like, ah, president's not paying attention to me at the very moment.
I guess I'll just sit at home and do nothing. Like things are still going on. Berta wrote me a note. She said, as for things not getting done, if Trump's not looking directly at them, I have a way to dumb it down. If you load your dishwasher and turn it on, you don't have to stand over for two hours while it runs. Oh, Berta, that's so good.
It's the same with the washing machine and dryer. If you hire someone to do a job repairing a car or your house, you can go about your business while the job gets done by someone else. Trump hires competent people and delegates jobs and they usually get it done. Well done, Berta. Perfect. Okay.
That really had nothing to do with this so much as I just wanted to get those. Alright, what's broken about the current moment? People are very anxious about war. That's what I want to talk about here. People are very anxious about war. I want to tell a story.
1 Samuel 15. So you've got the prophet Samuel and you've got the king of Israel Saul. We'll start in verse 3. God told Samuel to tell Saul, now go and strike Amalek and devote, like a town, a city, and devote to destruction all they have. Do not spare them, God says, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey. I want to share this because people get very uneasy about the scripture.
You often hear people who are not Christian criticize Christians for this story right here. Now I skipped over the first part. Let's go to first Samuel 15 verse two. Thus says the Lord of hosts. I have noted because you think, well, why, why, why, why, why kill everything and everyone in Amalek? What's up?
Well, God says, I have noted what Amalek did to Israel in opposing them on the way when they came up from Egypt. This was a total judgment against the Amalekites. because of something they did centuries prior. They were the first people to attack the Israelites when they left Egypt. Bible talks about this a couple of times. Exodus 17, 14.
Then the Lord said to Moses, write this as a memorial in a book and recite it in the ears of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. And Moses built an altar and called the name of it. The Lord is my banner saying a hand upon the throne of the Lord. The Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation. Jeez, what are the... What did they do again?
What did the Amalekites do to the Israelites, to God's people? Here's Deuteronomy 25. on the way when you were faint and weary and cut off your tail, like the back of the caravan, those who were lagging behind. And he did not fear God. Therefore, when the Lord your God has given you rest from all your enemies around you and the land of the Lord your God has given you for the inheritance to possess, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. You shall not forget.
" So here we are. The Israelites are, time has passed, and this is the time to do it. The Amalekites, to do what? Enact God's judgment. The Amalekites attacked the weakest of the Israelites, the youngest, for no reason. They just killed them.
God hates it when the strong take cruel advantage over the weak. So let's go back to 1 Samuel 15, verse four. So Saul summoned the people and numbered them, 200 ,000 men on foot, 10 ,000 men in Judah. Saul came to the city of Amalek and lay in wait in the valley. Then Saul said to the Kenites, go, depart, go down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them. For you showered kindness to all the people of Israel when they came out of Egypt.
So the Canaanites departed away from the Amalekites. So this is great. So the Canaanites, Saul says, Hey, we're not, we're not going to attack you. You go, go get out of the way. Because the Israelites, they don't want war for war's sake. And if I may, neither does Donald Trump.
He doesn't want war. And the Israelites didn't want war here. They're like, you people go, get out of the way. Verse seven, and Saul defeated the Amalekites. And he took Agag, the king of the Amalekites, alive, and devoted to destruction all the people with the edge of the sword, but saw in the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and the fattened calves, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them. All that was despised and worthless, they devoted to destruction.
" Uh -oh.
Saul did not obey God. He did not destroy the Amalekites. He spared the king. I don't know why exactly, but he didn't. The armies back then were paid by plunder, but God said, destroy everything. They didn't.
They destroyed the things they didn't want. They destroyed the useless things, the worthless things, but they kept the best of everything. They kept what they wanted. That's true for us too. We all have no problem obeying God's commands that are easy. But what about the commands that cost us something?
That's when most fail. God said, I regret making Saul king. And because Saul did not kill all the Amalekites, they kept popping up in the Bible. They kept having to fight him over and over again. 1 Samuel 30 in your Bible might be entitled, David destroys the Amalekites. He had to fight them all over.
And in 2 Samuel 1, this is the story of Saul's death. The man who pushed that sword in the final blow to kill King Saul was an Amalekite who Saul was supposed to take care of already, but he disobeyed God. So one point that people make here is that if you don't obey God completely, what you don't take care of will come back to haunt you. But I want to share this story here because people have a tough time with God calling on a people to wipe out an entire group of other people. It's God committing genocide. How could your good God do such a good thing?
It's very simple because they were a wicked people. So I would advise everyone who has a tough time with this scripture to take note of what God can do to a wicked people. I don't want to follow any God who could do... Okay, but he can. That's God's judgment. You're going to question his judgment.
I would advise you to not. Now on judgment, when Samuel did kill Agag, he said, as your sword has made women childless, so shall your mother be childless. God hates wanton killing. Now what actually is shocking is not God's wrath. That's not shocking at all. What's shocking is his love for us.
God said the wages of sin is death. There should be no surprises there. But the fact that we can be made alive in Jesus, that's the absolute miracle. But back to the questioning of, of God's judgment. I think of Job 38, I recommend you read it all often 38, 39, 40. And the gist of it is God saying, who are you to question me, Job?
Starts off, where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? And it just goes on beautifully to describe all these other things that prove that God is God. And it ends with, shall a fault finder contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer. Go ahead, your turn, Job. Humans have, you know, I say partial knowledge, not zero knowledge, basically.
The faintest amount. God has complete total knowledge and authority. Who are we to question him? The story of the Amalekites and his judgment. Now today, I know war is anxiety inducing, but we must trust that God has it under control. We must pray, but know that nothing thwarts God.
No evil will get in God's way. I'll end with Psalm 2. Why do the nations rage? So the kings all gather up. They're like, Oh, let's, let's do this against God saying, let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us. Okay.
What's God's response? I've set my king on Zion, my holy hill. If that God is, sounds like a mean God that you, uh, I recommend you worship him. YouTube . com slash at politics by faith. YouTube .
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