MikeSlater
Politics • Spirituality/Belief • Culture
Politics by Faith, The Bubbling Anger
Is It Righteous?
May 02, 2023

*The Politics by Faith podcast is available everywhere. We put it here ad-free and provide the transcript.*

Tucker Carlson said the debates in our country are between Good and Evil. But you can't say that today. In today's culture, everything is good. If you talk about evil then you're being mean. This leads to a lack of moral clarity and conviction. This has led to chaos.
Let's learn from Achilles to the Puritans about when anger is righteous and when it's corrosive.


Welcome to Politics by Faith, the long-form episode. We have the daily, shorter episodes, and then we have the twice-a-week, longer episodes here just for you, just for the podcast, and I'm grateful you're here. It's brought to you by Patriot Gold Group and Public Square. There is a lot to be angry about right now. A lot to be grateful for, of course, but anger is an overwhelming emotion. It's a very motivating emotion. It's a captivating emotion. This is why a lot of snake oil salesmen use anger to captivate us, to hook us, and then manipulate us. I'm thinking about the debt ceiling in DC. There's so much betrayal. Oh, it's just a mess. And the Democrats do this all like self-righteous. Oh, can you believe the Republicans would be willing to default on the debt of the United States of America? It's like, guys, you kidding me? You're the ones who keep spending all this money that puts us in this position every year.

0:01:18
There's been a lot of senseless murders lately. The guy in Texas, the neighbor who goes to the fence and says, hey man, can you stop shooting your gun? We have a baby over here trying to sleep. So then he walks over to their house and murders five of the people in the house, including an eight-year-old, shoots him in the head, and then he's on the loose. I'm talking right now, and they haven't even found him. This happened on Friday.

0:01:40
I'm recording this Monday night. And it's like, what? And then just to make you more angry, he's been deported four times. How can that be? Four times? This murderer has been deported four times to Mexico and he keeps coming back? He keeps... he's able to come back? I read early on, don't know if this one is true, but the last time he was deported maybe was 2006. So all that time he's able to come back many times and then just stay here for that long. Unbelievable. He came over a fifth time. That makes me angry. The military found another unidentified balloon flying over Hawaii. We're back to the balloons and they don't even know, they don't know what it is, they don't know who it belongs to, they don't know anything. And it's just, we are just being led by inept people. So I get angry that we have a system that has turned into this. It's just, it's just such a far cry from founding FOD. And I don't know, is it just me?

0:02:56
I'm the only one feeling this low grade malaise of anger. I don't know where you are. It's somewhere between anger simmering deep below to, oh no, it's boiling on the surface later. Either way, anywhere in between, it's not good. So let's talk about it. We've played a couple clips from Tucker Carlson's final speech that he gave as an employee of Fox News. He was speaking at the Heritage Foundation 50th anniversary dinner. And there's a couple great clips.

0:03:33
I don't think we've played this one, but this is an important one because some people are saying that this is maybe not the thing that got him fired, but the type of talk that got him fired. He's talking about good and evil. What you're watching is not a political movement. It's evil. So if you want to assess and I'll put it in and I'll stop with this, I'll put it in non political, I'll put it in non political or non rather non specific theological terms and just say, if you want to know what's evil and what's good, what are the characteristics of those? And by the way, you know, I think the Athenians would have agreed with this. This is not necessarily just a Christian notion. This is kind of a, I would say, widely agreed upon understanding of good and evil. What are its products? What do these two Well, I mean, good is characterized by order, calmness, tranquility, peace, whatever you want to call it, lack of conflict, cleanliness.

0:04:38
Cleanliness is next to godliness. It's true. It is. And evil is characterized by their opposites. violence, hate, disorder, division, disorganization, and filth. So if you are all in on the things that produce the latter basket of outcomes, what you're really advocating for is evil. That's just true. I'm not calling for a religious war. Far from it.

0:05:06
I'm merely calling for an acknowledgment of what we're watching. One side's like, no, no, I've got this idea, and we've got this idea, let's have a debate about our ideas. They don't want a debate. Those ideas won't produce outcomes that any rational person would want under any circumstances. Those are manifestations of some larger force acting upon us. It's just so obvious. It's completely obvious. And I think two things. One, we should say that and stop engaging in these totally fraudulent debates where we are using the terms that we used in 1991 when I started at Heritage as if maybe you know I could just win the debate if I marshaled more facts. I've tried that, doesn't work. And two, maybe maybe we should all take just like 10 minutes a day to say a prayer about it.

0:06:05
I'm serious, like why not? And I'm saying that to you not as some kind of evangelist, I'm literally saying that to you as an Episcopalian, the Samaritans of our time. I'm literally an Episcopalian, okay? And even I have concluded it might be worth taking just 10 minutes out of your busy schedule to say a prayer for the future, and I hope you will. People get turned off by that language of good and evil. It makes people very uncomfortable. Christians shouldn't. Christians should not get uncomfortable when talking about good and evil. We need to have more maturity and discernment and confidence when it comes to talking about this.

0:07:02
Ephesians 6, 10, Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm." Not wishy-washy, not, I don't want to, stand firm. having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace, in all circumstances, take up the shield of faith, in all circumstances, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one, oh I don't know, evil, good, makes me feel uncomfortable, and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication.

0:08:07
To that end, keep alert, with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me, and opening my mouth boldly, and this is true for you, to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I might declare it boldly, as I ought to speak. Yes, there are some people who may support a policy, let's just say transgender kids. They may support a policy that they haven't thought through and they may not know any better and they just want to be seen as nice and it hasn't really affected them personally so they don't really get it and they say they support it.

0:08:42
Is that an evil person? No, they're not evil. They're misguided, certainly. But then, some people are actively involved and pushing evil things. And that is more than just misguided. That is evil. We must admit—well, maybe first we must be aware that evil exists, and then we must be able to admit that evil exists and not be afraid to say it. Far from this modern idea that evil doesn't exist, evil is pervasive.

0:09:19
It's everywhere. It's inside all of us. It's personal. It's spiritual. And it carries on. Sultan Iskandar said that the problem with revolution is, his quote is, they destroy only the carriers of evil. So the person may die, but the evil lives on. So what's really going on with this? We're so far away from battling good and evil. We're in a culture today where we can't even admit that that even exists. That there even is evil. So who do you think will win? I remember as I just a quick flashback to the war on terror and there are people on the left who wouldn't say islamic extremists and uh... claim from the conservatives were you're not going to win if you can't even say what it is, like what are you fighting against, even the war on terror itself, like what do you mean terror, you can't fight a war against terror, what are you even talking about, define what we're talking about and the same thing with our country today, we can't even define evil, we can't even admit that it exists. My concern is in our modern world, which prioritizes being nice over everything else, tolerance isn't even enough. Tolerance has been replaced with affirmation of acceptance of everything all the time, no matter how deviant, how perverted, how sinful, how just dumb, how wrong or evil, you must actively affirm always. So the concern is that because you just have to be nice that this concept of evil is therefore mean. And if you speak in terms of good and evil you're called a bigot and an extremist and you're shut down. It's funny, if you say good and evil and you like you're talking about these terms, they say, oh, that's, you're being exclusionary and you're shutting down debate and you're like, no, you're shutting me down.

0:11:22
I'm trying to define some terms here. If you see things in terms of good and evil, your opinion doesn't count because apparently you think you're better than everyone else or you're too extreme. And you're like, no, I just have moral clarity on this issue and I have a conviction that this is wrong and I have some wisdom here of a better way. That's all. I'm like, oh, you're a bigot extremist. No, moral clarity, conviction, and wisdom is actually what I have. Moral evil has dominated human life. Genesis 8, 21, the intent of man's heart is evil from his youth.

0:12:06
There's three types of evil. You have your natural evil, that's disease, disaster, catastrophes, that all comes from the fall as well. Then you have moral evil, and that's, I mean, we see it all the time. We see it everywhere. It's every human person and every human relationship, therefore, because every human relationship is just collisions of immoral people and then you have supernatural evil this is demonic evil John 844 Jesus said to the Pharisees you are of your father the devil first John 519 the whole world lies in the power of the evil one I know we've talked about Judas a couple times in the last week but Luke 22 3 says, Then Satan entered Judas, one of the twelve, entered him. Fascinating detail right there.

0:12:59
So yes, there's evil in the world. I mean, that's what they, well, is there evil in the world? You're not even allowed to say there is. What are you talking about? Is there? Isn't there? It's everywhere, and it's inside all of us, and we have to hate it. We have to have a moral clarity against it. We must hate it and it's okay to be angry about it. And that's what I want to talk about today. Righteous anger. Let's lament first though. Let's lament. Let's lament all this brokenness. I want to talk about Homer and Achilles here in just a minute and see, there's four ways that Achilles' anger led to even worse destruction, and I wanna see which of these relate most to your life, but first I wanna tell you about Patriot Gold Group.

0:13:51
We have more banks being taken over by the federal government. It's like, this is fine. We have more failed banks. I guess First Republic Bank was seized by the feds and then sold to JPMorgan. Okay. Oh, it's all fine. And Biden says, no, the system is safe and sound. Do you believe him? You believe any of them?

0:14:15
I don't. See if gold is wise for you and your family. Consider it. I can tell you it's been around for a while. Patriot Gold Group is, well, it's where I bought gold. I think they're the best. I'm not going to mess around with anyone less than the best. Why would I not go to the best? So I went to the best, and I'm telling you who I went with, Patriot Gold Group. They have a no-fee-for-life IRA, where your IRA or 401k can be put in physical gold or silver, and you may be eligible for a no-fee-for-life IRA and qualifying rollovers, that's good.

0:14:56
Or you can just buy gold and just have it, and they mail it to you. A FedEx truck shows up and gives you gold. You're like, huh, this seems illegal, but that's certainly not. Well, not now. For now it isn't, I should say. FDR made it illegal to own gold physically. basically. 888-617-6122.

0:15:14
Get a free investor guide. Start there. Patriot Gold Group, consumer affairs top rated gold IRA dealer six years in a row. Told you they're the best. 1-888-617-6122. 888-617-6122. Tell them you know Mike Slater. PatriotGoldGroup.com. Homer's The Iliad is a great description of how rage and anger it's all-consuming. The opening word of The Iliad is wrath.

0:15:48
It's the first word in the whole thing. It's long, but Homer went with wrath as the very first word. So I've got four examples of the wrath of Achilles here, and I want to see which one of these four you can relate to the most. So you can look back on the anger, the times when you've been angry in your life, and then also if you're angry right now. So the very first one is, dear childhood friend died in battle. His name was Patroclus.

0:16:15
So here's from the Iliad. Achilles was now beside Patroclus, weeping bitterly. He laid his hands on his chest and held them there for a long time as if warming them out of fire. Patroclus, he cried, dearest friend, since I left you last, I have come to know the full extent of my anger. It has brought me nothing but pain and grief, and now it has cost you your life.

0:16:39
So anger can bring pain to others around you, those closest to you. Have you ever experienced that? Okay, we don't want that. So let's table that. We'll get back to it. Achilles was also angry at the Trojans for killing his fellow Greeks. Achilles was burning with anger. He stood on the high ramparts looking out over the plain and shouted to the gods of Olympus, Father Zeus, if you have ever granted me a prayer, grant me this. Let me take revenge on these Trojans for they have killed my friends and stripped them of There's anger again, and again not helping. So anger can hurt not only the people you love the most, those closest to you, friends or family, but any group you're a part of, any community you're a member of, and your country.

0:17:27
It derails the mission you're on in life, consumes you, and takes you to places you don't want to go. We'll get to that in a minute. A third example, his rage and battle. Thus spoke Achilles and led the way in the forefront of the battle. And the earth groaned beneath the tread of the warriors as they rushed to the fight. And the dust rose up like a thick cloud as the Trojans and their allies advanced to meet them. And in the midst of the conflict, Achilles raged like a lion that has been wounded by hunters and fights with double fury. Anger makes you go berserk, makes you lose your mind and do things you would never dream of doing, nor should you do. And the fourth example is the beginning of the entire thing. It's the opening line of the epic poem. Agamemnon took his war prize and Achilles that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans.

0:18:30
Many a brave soul did it send hurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs and vultures. So Achilles' wrath didn't help anything. Sent them all down a path. That's not a point you just can't get back from As either of those happen to you Just examples of where your anger Doesn't help I Lament that all of it inside of us Ecclesiastes 7 9 says be not quick in your spirit to become angry for anger lodges in the hearts of fools I Don't want to be a fool, but hold on Slater not all anger is bad, because Jesus got angry. So how do we make sense of this? All right, let's pivot to the biblical stuff here. So my conclusion here is that it's okay to get angry just for the right reasons and in the right way. And the Bible is clear about this. Well, the Bible is full of wrath. So God's wrath is just. That's the first point Romans 2 5 pauses, but because of your hard and impenitent heart Means a feel no shame you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath When God's righteous judgment will be revealed so it will be revealed and you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath There's more wrath coming." Proverbs 24 12 says, If you say, Behold, we did not know this, does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?

0:20:09
Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it? And will he not repay man according to his work? Yes, he will, is the answer to that. The main difference, one of the main differences, but I think the biggest difference between the Greek and Roman gods, we were talking about Zeus a second ago, right? And God is the, uh, like Roman, uh, that's what I'm looking for, uh, when they're fake. What's the fake gods? Mythology. The mythological gods, they were fickle and irritable and acted on whim and they were just people. They were just like acting like people, they just had like power. God never does that. God is not fickle. He does not act on a whim.

0:20:53
His wrath, in the words of J.I. Packer, is a right and necessary reaction to objective moral evil. It's a right and necessary reaction to objective moral evil. And second point, God's wrath is love. His wrath is just and it is loving. He must act justly to judge sin, otherwise He wouldn't be God, or good, or loving. And Jesus did the same. Jesus got angry too. People only refer to Him as the Prince of Peace, but He's also the King of Righteousness. Matthew 18, 6 Whoever receives one such child in My name receives Me.

0:21:36
But whoever causes one of these little ones who believes in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. That's a better outcome than what is going to happen to you. Dane Ortlund makes an important point. He says, Jesus says this not because he gleefully enjoys torturing the wicked, but because he loves little children. It's the love. People today, just in our politics, they focus on the wrath and how bad that is, but what they don't realize is that the wrath comes from love.

0:22:11
I'll just give you a simple example. So let's say someone murders someone, and people focus on how mean it is to sentence the murderer to life in prison, But what about the family of the people he murdered? So people's desire to not have a righteous anger at the murderer and not to seek justice is leading them to not act lovingly towards the victims. So you have to balance both of those. Matthew 23, 13, But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!

0:22:43
For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. For you neither enter yourselves, nor allow those who would enter to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves." That's not like, woe to you! This isn't nice. Oh, Jesus, you're being very judgy. Yeah.

0:23:23
How about the famous scene of Jesus flipping tables? Not nice! Come on, Jesus, control yourself. He was. He was perfectly under control. John 2, 14, In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons and the money changers sitting there and making a whip of cords. He drove them all out of the temple with a whip with the sheep and oxen and he poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables and told those who sold the pigeons, take these things away.

0:23:51
Do not make my father's house a house of trade. This visual of Jesus sitting there making a whip himself. Why did he do this? And why didn't he just do it nicer? Because he knew it mattered. He knew it mattered. The temple, the Lord's house, his Father's house, was a house of prayer. By the way, our churches today, many have forgotten their true purpose. It's not a social club. It's not a babysitting event.

0:24:20
It's not a place to be entertained. It's a place to praise God. And it's time that we clear out all the lies from the church and clear out all the corruption from our government, from DC, from the media, from everywhere. There needs to be a clearing out of the temple and a draining of the swamp. We need to demand more. Let me, because here's what happens. When you clear out and you demand more, you get clarity and conviction. A righteous anger that doesn't turn into sin, we'll get to that in a second, but a righteous anger properly acted upon leads to clarity and conviction. Here is Martin Lloyd-Jones, I was able to find his actual sermon, this is out of maybe 1930s or 40s or something like that, and listen to him talk about what happens during a proper restoration, a proper clearing out.

0:25:17
Go back and read your history. Read about the Protestant Reformation. What did it lead to? Well, amongst other things you know, it did lead to the Elizabethan period. Once you are right at the center, once the temple is cleansed and reformed and renewed, it percolates through the whole of life as a new tone. Where there is vision, the people succeed. Where there is no vision, the people perish. And this is the supreme need of the hour, to recapture the vision, to turn back to him and allow him to act and to speak to us, and to cleanse and to drive out. And then I say, you will get what you had following the Protestant Reformation.

0:26:09
You had exactly the same thing in the Puritan era. You can laugh at the Puritans if you like, my friends, but never forget this, that the Cromwellian period, the period of the Commonwealth, was one of the greatest periods in the whole history of this country. Everybody's agreed, even secular historians, that the basis of this country's greatness was laid down then, when there was a moral tone in the nation, when men and women put God first. Then, I say, the whole nation was elevated. Righteousness exalted the nation. And indeed, it is true to say in a large measure that what was truly great and glorious in the last century was the direct outcome of the evangelical awakening of the eighteenth century. There is no question about this. It can be established even historically.

0:27:02
Leckie, the historian, tells us that it was that and that alone that saved this country from something similar to what happened in the French Revolution. And other historians will tell you the same thing. The fount, the origin, the source, not only of greatness in a national sense, but the enlightenment of the people. I've been saying the same thing about, and this is why I've been focused so much lately on Puritans and the preaching from America's true founding, like the 1600s, early 1700s, because they laid the groundwork for our founding fathers. I've been very focused on our founding grandfathers and great-grandfathers and the people who laid the moral foundation that our founding fathers were born into, that gave them clarity and conviction.

0:27:52
They were angry at the right people for the right reasons. My point of all this is it's okay for humans to get angry. In fact, it's essential because here's the problem. The people who say, oh, you're talking about more good and evil, that's not right, you don't know, you can't judge. What that does is it turns them into people of indifference. And that's like awful, like that's terrible, indifference. Like, wake up, wake up and make a stand, take a stand on these, you know, not on everything necessarily, if you don't know all the facts or whatever, that's fine, but on the things that are obvious and that matter, take a stand. This is B.B. Warfield, he was a professor at the Princeton Cemetery, this is like late 1800s.

0:28:37
He says, it would be impossible, therefore, for a moral being to stand in the presence of perceived wrong, indifferent and unmoved. If you are a moral being, you should not stand, you should not be able to look at evil and be indifferent and unmoved. Precisely what we mean by a moral being is a being perceptive of the difference between right and wrong. If you're unable to determine or to see the right and wrong, you're not a moral being. And not only determining the difference between right and wrong, but reacting appropriately to right and wrong. The emotions of indignation and anger belong, therefore, to the very self-expression of a moral being as such and cannot be lacking to him in the presence of wrong." You have, clearly, a deceived world telling you that there's no such thing as evil.

0:29:34
You can't—how dare you even say such a thing? You're a bigot and trying to silence you, that is an effort to make you no longer a moral being. That is an effort to silence you and make you indifferent and meaningless and to doubt and to not have conviction and not have moral clarity. And then what are you? The Bible on the other hand is very clear. Psalm 4.4. David says, be angry and do not sin. The Hebrew word here for be angry is, it means to tremble, to be troubled, to shake, to quake, to be perturbed, to quiver with anger.

0:30:23
So care. Care. Like, have conviction. Care about what's happening in front of you. Care about it. Be angry. Be perturbed. Tremble. Shake at what you're seeing. Have the moral clarity to see that this is evil.

0:30:46
And while our country is saying, Oh, who are you to say blah blah blah, I'm a moral being. I am angry at this because this is bad, this is wrong, this is dangerous, this is evil. Be angry and do not sin. So his point here is it's okay to care a lot. You must, in fact. Just don't go so far as to sin. Ephesians 4, 26, be angry. This is in Greek so it's a different word, but be angry and do not sin.

0:31:12
Do not let the sun go down on your anger. So the Bible commands you to be angry. But what do we do with that anger? Well, a couple lines after that Psalm 4-4, he told you, be angry, but don't sin, offer right sacrifices and put our trust in the Lord. Put your trust in the Lord. That's the key. So, what's in my control? First you don't get discouraged. When everyone around you is lukewarm, when everyone around you is, oh don't be judgy, when everyone around you doesn't have conviction and doesn't care and isn't paying attention, don't let that distract you, don't let that discourage you. You are called as a moral being.

0:31:50
See a lot of people will say, well who are you to say? I am a moral being. I'm a moral American human being. That is who I am to say. Oh, who are you to say? I'm a moral being. So don't get discouraged by people who are not. That's the first thing. Are you angry today? Why? Is it righteous? Here's a good tip. Is it about you? If it's about you, it's probably not righteous. Could be, could be, could be, don't get me wrong, but that's a first hint of just something to be aware of.

0:32:38
A yellow flag, not a red flag, a yellow flag. Is it something bigger than you? Is that why you're angry? That's a better sign. Is this anger leading you to a sinful place? I'm reminded of the story of Catherine of Siena, 1400s. She died when she was 33. She had a stroke at 33. Her final words, she said, Dear children, let not my death sadden you? Rather, rejoice to think that I am leaving a place of many sufferings, to go to rest in the quiet sea, the eternal God, and to be united forever with my most sweet and loving bridegroom. I leave darkness to pass into the true and everlasting light.

0:33:32
I have sinned, O Lord, be merciful to me." She had a stroke at 33. She wasn't angry. I say that because anger isn't the only emotion, but it may be a good place to start. Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5, 21, hold fast to what is good. Hold fast to what is good. So let's not be discouraged by those who say, who are you to say? Let's have a righteous anger in the right way. And then hold and all at the same time while holding fast to what is good. How's that? Let's be angry about the things that truly matter. Final thing to meditate on.

0:34:33
I just found this hymn. Thy kingdom come, O God. Thy rule, O Christ, begin. Break with thine iron rod the tyrannies of sin. Oh, that's violent. Yeah. Break with thine iron rod the tyrannies of sin. Our first sponsor of this podcast is Public Square. Was Public Square. It is Public Square.

0:35:09
They're amazing. It's an app. You can download it in the app store for free and it connects you with people who own businesses that share your values. So the Bud Light is just like a perfect example. I love that people are not spending the money on Bud Light. Great, perfect, but where do you go? Or whatever, but it's not just alcohol. It's every business, every single business has these major players that hate you.

0:35:32
Like they just despise everything about you. They hate every value you have and they're getting bolder and bolder in speaking against you. So enough already. Public square, download it, start small like I did, just hit near me restaurants, and instead of going to some big chain that hates you, go to a local restaurant that shares your values. They have coffee and tea, so just something easy, and then grow from there.

0:35:58
And pretty soon, you're only buying things from people who share your values. And it's great because money's a tool. And how you spend it matters, not only on what you spend it on, but who you spend it with, who you're giving it to in return for great products, of course, great products and services, and they're all on the app. Download it, it's free.

0:36:20
Public Square in the App Store, publicsq.com, and if you scroll down, you can see the five values that every business owner has to sign on to in order to be featured in this app. It's nationwide, public, square, free download in the App Store.

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https://archive.org/details/FOXNEWSW_20220122_110000_FOX_and_Friends_Saturday/start/5640/end/5700

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Morning Motivation, April 21, 2023

I found a way to easily transcribe the podcasts, so I will post them here first before they go out to iTunes and the rest.

Good morning. Welcome to The Morning Motivation, brought to you by Public Square and Patriot Gold Group. I'm grateful you're here. I was reading a sermon by the great Puritan preacher John Owen in the mid-1600s. I'm so fascinated by this time period, 1600s, early 1700s. We focus a lot on our founding fathers. I think that the Tea Party movement and just conservatism in general has focused a lot on the founding fathers, and that's amazing, but I'm very fascinated by our founding grandfathers or great-grandfathers, the people who created the culture that our founding fathers were raised in.

0:00:44
Isn't that a fascinating era? We got like 1776, like that's great, I love it, I want to know more, I don't know nearly enough. But what about the 1720s? What was going on there? Or the late 1600s? What was going on in America at that time? And you know, we've all heard of the Puritans, but you ...

Morning Motivation, April 21, 2023
Inflation and ANGER

I am angry and frustrated. With our Rulers. For getting us in this terrible economy. It doesn't have to be this way.

How could they never learn from past mistakes! This is ANCIENT history, stop printing money...yet, after COVID, we never printed more. Amazing.

Please leave a 5-star review on Itunes. We have a ton of momentum, this is about to break through! Thank you!

Also, I haven't done any lives anywhere becauase we're hosting a daily TV show "Road to Misterms" on thefirsttv.com, and it's taken all of my extra time. And my wife is giving birth any day now, so...it's been a lot around here. But after the midterms, time will free up.

Inflation and ANGER
Politics by Faith: Parkland and the Death Penalty

I've gone back and forth on the death penalty many times over the years. I've recently come down on the other side.

Should the Parkland murderer have gotten the death penalty or life in prison?

Please leave a review on iTunes! We need to get to 1k :-)
www.thefirsttv.com/mikeslater

Btw, we're getting the momentum we need, more downloads every day, THANK YOU!

Politics by Faith: Parkland and the Death Penalty

This is spot on Mike! We have become dehumanized! You can not read a persons real needs on a screen nor text! A job or passion offers human interaction and I pray these stay at home on our tax dollars find that truth. We have lost our way… People need hugs and love and someone to listen. If we do not have that face to face interaction we will become nothing more than those who can not deal with lives issues.
Our politicians need to stop thinking about themselves and their agenda and think of the country as a whole. My suggestion today is go out and make someone’s life a little better than it is and not with money! And if it is only leave a space better than you found it -imagine if everyone left every place better than they found it. If you did one thing to make another human beings life better and told them you loved them. If we did this every day- what a great world we would have again! Time to get back to this countries MOTTO… if you do not know the counties motto it is ...

Good morning @MikeSlater and all my fellow Slater Crusaders! I've been following Mike for years and after having MANY one way conversations with the radio or podcast, have finally joined the community here on locals.com. I can't wait for the chance to share thoughts and ideas with you all. Thank you Mike for creating this place. I hope we can help inform each other about our world and support growing our relationship and faith in Jesus.

Hi @Mike Slater! Are you coming back to locals? Haven’t seen any posts in some time.

September 12, 2025
Charlie Kirk, How Will You Be Different?
Politics By Faith, September 12, 2025

Charlie Kirk said he wants to be remembered as a man who had "courage for my faith". I have two suggestions on how we can be remembered in the same way.

Welcome to Politics by Faith. Thank you for being here. What a difficult week it's been. I want to say a few words inspired by Charlie Kirk. I believe there are five main lies from the father of lies, Satan, that they probably started on college campuses. We know they fester on college campuses and have exploded out of college campuses. 

Five main lies. First, who are you to say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, my truth. We'll start with these three. God made the good, the beautiful, and the true. That's what we stand for. The good, the beautiful, and the true. 

Satan came in and speaks to the opposite of this. What is good? There's no good. Who are you to say what's good? Who are you to say what's bad? Who are you to say? 

No such thing as beauty. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And there's no such thing as truth. Only my truth. Fourth great lie is evolution. There's two reasons it's so wicked. 

The beginning and the end. Evolution demands the denial of a creator. It's the first thing. But then if you carry on with evolution, you keep going down that road. It leads to nihilism because if we're just here randomly, then nothing matters. How could it? 

Nothing could matter. The evolutionists deny creator at the beginning, but then if you keep going down it, there's no point to anything because just was a big bang out of nowhere for some, something came out of nothing. And then an amoeba formed and an amoeba turned into a frog and a frog somehow turned into a monkey and a monkey turned into a frog. And there's just like things in our brain, like chemicals in our brain that make us feel certain emotions at different times, but that's it. It's all random. So nothing can matter. 

Nothing is good. Nothing's beautiful. Nothing's true. It's all random. That's nihilism. Nothing matters. 

Five lies from Satan. Very dark. Now, Charlie Kirk would go into the belly of the beast and speak the truth on all of these things. He'd say, there is a creator and Jesus is Lord. There is such thing as truth. Like a man can't turn into a woman, a woman can't turn into a man. 

There is goodness. You should live a proper life. There is beauty. I think he spoke mostly of beauty as being married and having kids. Like, oh, it's so joyful and wonderful and beautiful. And you should find purpose in your life, all the way from a meaningful job to serving others, providing for your family, and of course, living a Christian life. 

So he went into this dark place and was a light for the truth and for the gospel. And when you're a light and you go into a dark place, People don't like that. John 3 19 says people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. That's the root of the darkness that's in our country. It's, it's believing those five lies that are prevalent. Most people believe them. 

Here's what I want to share that I haven't yet shared on Sirius XM. Charlie Kirk spoke with confidence. I've been reading this sermon from Jonathan Edwards, Jonathan Edwards, the father of the Great Awakening in America. It's from 1739. It's called, The Importance and Advantage of a Thorough Knowledge of Divine Truth. 

Why does it matter to know God's Word? Why does the truth matter? Like he wasn't even, today we have to say there is a truth. At least he was, like the people he was talking to knew there was a truth and he's just arguing why it matters. Why is it important? Why is it important to know the truth and to keep learning? 

I pray that out of Charlie's death, because he was asked how he wants to be most remembered. And he said as a as a Christian, Christian man, I pray that out of this people go to church. My challenge has been on the radio. If you don't yet go to church every Sunday for one year, one year, sit in the pew, listen to God's word. Don't complain about the people around you. Don't complain about them being weird. 

Don't complain about people looking funny. Don't nitpick every single thing that you would do differently that you don't like. Sit there for one year and talk to someone every single day. Every Sunday you're there. Talk to a different person. That's it. 

and see how your life is different. Now, for all of us who go already, the challenge is to grow in your faith deeper, much, much deeper, to no longer be satisfied with the basics, to no longer be satisfied with milk, but strong meat. Hebrews 5 .4 says, but solid food is for the mature. Now, why does this matter? Why do we want to be mature? Why do we want solid food? 

For those who have their powers of discernment, trained by constant practice to do what? To distinguish good from evil. We need to be able to distinguish good from evil. from evil. So Jonathan Edwards. that every Christian should make a business of endeavoring to grow in the knowledge and divinity. 

His first point he makes is if you don't pick up your Bible, then it's the same as having a Bible that's written in Chinese. Doesn't do you any good either. Anyway, got to pick it up. He said, if you don't read your Bible, he says, without knowledge and divinity, none would differ from the most ignorant and barbarous heathens. The heathen remains in gross heathenish darkness because they're not instructed and have not obtained the knowledge of the truths of divinity. So it says, don't be like a heathen. 

You are no better than them if you don't read God's word. He said, Christians ought to, uh, excuse me, ought not to content themselves with such degrees of knowledge and divinity that they've already obtained. It should not satisfy them that they know as much as is absolutely necessary to salvation, but should seek to make progress. Knowing the bare minimum is good. Let's want more. Read the Bible. 

Jonathan Edwards says, read the Bible. Revelation 1 .3 says, blessed is he who reads the Bible. and those who hear the words of this prophecy. Blessed are you who reads. Are we grateful for our life? If after watching the assassination of Charlie Kirk, does it make you grateful for life? 

I was away. The wife and I were away on a little trip for about three days or so. I got home yesterday. We're so excited to see the kids. Plane landed, there was some traffic, and I missed the first half of Jack's soccer practice. I'm Jack, the coach of his team. 

The assistant coach held down for it for the first half hour and I got there in the middle and I was walking to the field and I didn't know how Jack would respond. He's eight years old, almost nine, and he's got his teammates there, his friends, right? And he saw me and he just booked it and ran to me and jumped in my arms. And I was like, oh, this is amazing. I don't know how many of these I have left. I don't know how many I have left. 

You don't get a warning. Your eight year old's not like, hey, I'm only gonna do this four more times. You don't know. And I'm hugging him and it's wonderful. And I had a thought, of course, of Charlie. And maybe you've seen the video of his four -year -old daughter when he was on Fox and Friends running across the set. 

Daddy! 

And jumping in his arms. Are you grateful for life? Jonathan Edwards said, When God hath opened a very large treasure before us for the supply of our wants, and we thank him that he hath given us so much, if at the same time we be willing to remain destitute of the greatest part of it because we're too lazy to gather it, this will not show the sincerity of our thankfulness. Heavenly Father, we are so grateful for everything you've done for us. So grateful for the life that you've given me. I'm just too busy to read that. Oh, the Bible? 

Your Word? 

I got it. I got it. I got the gist. Jonathan Edwards says, It becomes one who is called to be a soldier and to go to warfare, to endeavor to excel in the art of war. It becomes one who is called to be a mariner and to spend his life in sailing the ocean, to endeavor to excel in the art of navigation. It becomes one who professes to be a physician and devotes himself to that work, to endeavor to excel in the knowledge of those things which pertain to the art of physics. 

So it becomes all such as profess to be Christians and to devote themselves to the practice of Christianity and to endeavor to excel in the knowledge of divinity. That is one thing that I'm getting, that I'm learning, that I've dedicated myself to because of what happened this week. I'll end on this. There's the book I have here. I've been quoting it a lot from 1835, I believe, called Scripture, Emblems and Allegories. And there's a section on fearful and fearless. 

And it ends with this. It says the righteous man is afraid of nothing but sin. So I say this. The first part I was talking about was about having the knowledge, the wisdom and knowing what is true. And my last point here is having the courage to go forth with it. The righteous man is afraid of nothing but sin. 

He goes forward in the path of duty, though dangers grow thick around him. He enters the burning, fiery furnace and grapples with its curling flames. He descends into the den of lions. The king of beasts crouches at his feet. In the storm at midnight, tossed upon the raging billows, he is calm in the presence of the God he serves and to whom he belongs. In earthquakes shock, when temples are falling, earth opening, and ruin reigns around, he stands fearless amid the desolation, exclaiming, therefore, we will not fear, though the earth be removed out of its place. 

Descending the dark veil of death itself, he says exultingly, though I through the valley and shadow of death, I will fear no evil. And when the last enemy stands full in his presence, he sings triumphantly. Lend, lend your wings. I mount, I fly. O grave, where is thy victory? 

O death, where is thy sting? There are a lot of lessons to be learned from the life of Charlie Kirk. And what we do next, I don't know. Pray this can spark a revival. That's my prayer. I know the president is giving him the Medal of Honor. 

our Presidential Medal of Freedom, excuse me, Presidential Medal of Freedom. And I pray that that is such an incredible moment that it sparks something amazing in this country. I don't know. I know the paths will open and we need to be ready and on the lookout. In the meantime, let's grow in our knowledge of God and our love of God. And let's have more confidence in spreading the word. 

MikeSlater . Locals . com, transcript commercial free on the website, MikeSlater .

 

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September 09, 2025
Demonic Murder In Charlotte, Part I
Politics By Faith, September 9, 2025

How does someone get to the point where they would stab an innocent woman in the neck? Years of degeneracy leave an empty soul ripe for the picking.

Welcome to Politics by Faith. Thank you for being here. We have talked a lot on my SiriusXM show about horrific murder in Charlotte. It's one of the worst things I've ever seen. I saw, maybe by now you've seen the video where it stops right when he's above her about to come down and stab her in the neck. I've now seen the rest of the video and it's even worse than I imagined. 

It's different than I imagined what happens after he comes down on her neck, but it's worse. Let me address that tomorrow, if I may. I want to make this point first here on this show. This is a, his name's Frank McCormick. He used to teach 11 years public school in the ghetto in Chicago. He wrote this post. He said, I know this type of kid, speaking of the murder, the type that would smack the kid sitting in front of him, telling the teacher, I don't give a blank when corrected and ruin an entire year's worth of learning for the entire class. 

His special education teacher would describe him as actually very smart with a lot of potential, despite him failing every class and scoring a nine on the ACT. There would be countless meetings with him and his mom and social workers, psychologists, and the principal would speak in soft voices and nod and smile when the kid told him he wants to be a doctor. They'd design all sorts of ridiculous accommodations that give him ample room to behave however he wanted and terrorize his teachers and peers with minimal consequences. Teachers would spend the entire class trying to rein in his behavior, and when they called security to remove him, they'd have to evacuate the entire class first. He'd rarely receive any consequences. The principal would reprimand the teachers for not building a relationship with him. 

and accused them of singling him out because he was black. As a result, they'd give up and his behavior would escalate. If he was really bad, he'd get a timeout in a split second. room where he'd sit on his phone and tell the supervisor to shut the blank up if they said anything. Maybe he'd have to partake in a peace circle if he became violent. He'd eventually get socially promoted to his senior year, and there would be a massive effort to get his credits recovered, mostly by pressuring teachers to give him alternative assignments and a 50 % for the work he didn't do. 

He'd walk down the graduation stage and everyone would cheer, and he'd probably do something embarrassing, like give the finger to the audience. As a young adult, he'd walk the city. behaving exactly as he did in school, because he'd been socialized to learn that there are zero consequences for his behavior. Depending on the city, he'd probably get similar treatment from the cops and the public afraid of creating a public scene that would lead to riots in the city. And then one day he'd snap and do something like this. And only then would everyone act surprised, as if this wasn't largely in part due to how our public schools negatively socialize and enable the behavior of animals that should be locked up or institutionalized as teenagers. 

Last week, we did a segment on the church shooter, the transgender church shooter. And the argument we made is that this young man, his entire childhood has been about affirm, affirm, affirm, affirm. Oh, I'm trans. He can do no wrong. He's trans. You have to affirm, constantly affirm. 

And because the left was so dedicated to this whole transgender narrative, any sign, other sign, I mean, that's one, that's a sign, but any other sign of any major, major mental problems, could never be addressed because then they were worried, like, oh, well, then that means that transgender people have a mental illness. And we can't ever say that because that's not true. That's not the right thing. So we have to affirm everything all the time. And black people in America have a very similar thing. It's called the big tree of low expectations. 

You've heard that. But it's different than affirm, affirm, affirm. It's more like accommodate, accommodate, accommodate. And the wages of sin is down. Our goal is life, but we see the death and there's, it's all around us. There was a story, or not a story. 

There was a 21 year old congressional intern who was shot and killed a mile from the white house. And they captured two of the three people who did it. Two 17 year olds and an 18 year old. 

Allegedly. 

And these mug shots of these three teenagers are, they're so, these young ones are so dead in the eyes. Their souls have been completely seared and severed from their bodies. themselves and from God. Wonderful, lovely woman called in at the end of the show on Monday and she talked about demons and how when you take a child with no dad, no discipline ever, no accountability to anything at all at any time in his life, no masculine presence at any time, toxic inputs from the world constantly, rap music and everything. They are prime picking for the devil, just easy pickings for a demon to get right in there. And what's going to stop them? 

That phone call reminded me of Matthew 12, 42, where it's a story of an evil spirit left a person, and then the spirit said, I will return to my house from which I came. And the Bible says, when it, the spirit came or comes, it finds the house swept and tidy. Then it goes, that sounds good, right? Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more wicked than itself. They go in and settle there. And the last state of that person is worse than the first. 

A couple of things about that. scripture that I wanted to go a little deeper in. First, the evil spirit says, I will return to my house. I will return to my house. Amazing. This is about a person who got rid of some bad things in their life, right? 

Clean, cleaned up their life, got their act together a bit and is now living with better habits and better routines, but without Jesus, without something that can truly save. So the evil spirit comes back seven times, seven fold. If I may, this is what we need to do ourselves and with our kids in the world. Reject everything that the world is feeding us. You must get rid of everything that this fallen, broken, demon -controlled world is feeding your children and you, and then replace it with what is good, beautiful, and true, and replace it with the Bible and with God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I want to go a little deeper with a little more context in this. 

So Jesus told this story. Because a Pharisee said, Teacher, we want to see a sign from you. And Jesus answered and said to them, an evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. Jesus has shown enough signs. There were enough proofs. Nothing Jesus could do at this point would get these people so hard -hearted to believe that he was the son of God. 

And the point of the demon story is that if you reject Jesus, you'll be worse off than before. But it does tell us something about demon possession. Matthew Poole, Bible commentary in the 1600s, he said, the devil cannot be at rest. where he hath no mischief to do to men. Meaning the Bible is not going to, the demon is not going to come to you. If there's no mischief, he can, he can act upon you. 

Don't give the devil a foothold. The demon can only inhabit someone if he finds it empty. Even if it's all nice and put together and in good looking order, if it's empty, meaning devoid of the Holy Spirit, the devil will make your soul his home. Spurgeon said the devil has no objection to his house being swept and garnished. For a moralist, like a good person, may be as truly his slave as the man of debauched habits. So long as the heart is not occupied by his great foe, God, and he can use the man for his own purposes, the adversary of souls will let him reform as much as he pleases. 

" So good. When Satan has a demon has control over your soul, he'll even let you keep your life neat and tidy. Anything to keep you away from God. Remember the greatest lie from the devil, as people say, is getting people to believe that he doesn't exist. And the Bible says he masquerades as an angel of light. Sometimes the demon will cause someone to stab a woman in the neck. 

And sometimes a demon will act like the guy who wrote me an email today, telling me to tone down the Bible thumping on the radio. Keep it to the podcast. Demons work in all sorts of different ways. But the point, however it acts, is to keep you away from God. We quoted the screw tape letters the other day by C . 

S. 

Lewis. This part stood out to me as well. So you have Screwtape a demon telling his nephew, a young demon, that it... gets easier over time to keep him away from the enemy, in this case, God, from their perspective. And he says, all you need to do is distract him with little things here and there. And this is how that chapter ends, this letter. 

You will say that these are very small sins, right? So, so Screwtape is saying, hey, just, just like little, little things, just do little things to distract him away from God. He said, you'll say that these are very small things and doubtless, like all young tempters, You're anxious to be able to report spectacular wickedness, stabbing someone in the neck. But do remember, the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the enemy, God. It does not matter how small the sins are, provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the light and out into the nothing. Murder is no better than cards, if cards can do the trick. 

Indeed, the safest road to hell is the gradual one. The gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts. I share this because I'm studying Romans 2. I'm going to be teaching a class at church this Sunday on Romans 2. And this is part of what I want to talk about is Romans 2. It's easy to read and be like, oh man, yeah, those sinners, they're the worst. 

It's easy to look at this guy and the train and be like, oh my gosh, evil. And it is, don't get me wrong. But Romans 2 is about us. It's easy to look at someone with, you know, sins so deep that they'll murder someone, stab a woman in the neck. But demons can work in everyone in more subtle ways, where maybe murder isn't the preferred method of keeping them away from God, but it works just the same. This is just the beginning of us talking about this story. 

This is a massively important, I hope, turning point in America. 

We'll do more tomorrow.  MikeSlater . Locals . com. Transcript commercial free on this website, MikeSlater .

 

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September 05, 2025
Dearborn Arabic Police Badge
Politics By Faith, September 5, 2025

I don't blame enemies domestic for taking over. I blame us for letting them.

By faith, thanks for being here. Dearborn, Dearborn Heights, their police department released a new redesigned badge in Arabic. It's in Arabic. The other day we talked about a football player, it's either Eastern or Western Michigan, who, his name on the back of his jersey is in Arabic. Now, on the surface, this is a problem. This is the most surface reason why this is a problem, is I don't know what his name is. I don't know who just made the tackle. 

I don't read scribbles. So on the most practical level, that's the problem with that. but obviously there's much deeper issues. Alas, here, Dearborn Heights, the police badge is in Arabic. I've learned that the woman who did this, her name is Emily Murdoch. She's an officer on the police force. 

A 35 -year -old white liberal woman, of course, decided to write Arabic on the police badge. Now, Dearborn is named after, have you ever wondered this? I have not. I've never wondered this, ever. And there's something interesting about that I'll share in a moment. But Dearborn is named after a Revolutionary War hero, Colonel Henry Dearborn. 

He was a doctor, became a minuteman, worked his way up the ranks, served alongside General Washington during the Revolutionary War. He also served in the War of 1812. He was also Thomas Jefferson's secretary of war. By the way, Trump wants to rename the Department of Defense to the Department of War, bring it back to what it was, the Department of War. So Pete Hexeth wouldn't be the secretary of defense, it'd be the secretary of war, like it used to be. So Henry Dearborn was the Secretary of War. 

Thomas Jefferson. He was the Secretary of War during the First Barbary War against the Muslims in North Africa. This is where we get the Marine Corps hymn, From the Halls of Montezuma to the Shores of Tripoli. So he fought a war against the Muslims in Africa. There's a city named after him, which is now entirely controlled by Muslims. Are you with me on that? 

You don't think that is that something or not? I think that's something. Now, a guy called in from Michigan. He said, Slater, you're overreacting. By the third generation of these Muslim immigrants, the Muslim girls are just like American girls. I asked him, I said, also, he goes, Oh, I mean, they're wearing skimpy clothes. 

They're wearing makeup. They're listening to rap music. They're just like American girls. He was being dead serious. Like, it's like, I don't worry about it. So it's, it's, you know, no big deal. 

Like they're, they wear their burqa around and then they, but you know, they bring a change of clothes to school and they change into the skimpy clothes and then they put the burqa back on. Yeah. They're just like America. And I'm thinking, huh, that's not a great Testament. 

To American girls? 

Is it? Ah, Slater, don't worry. The third generation Muslim girls, they dress like streetwalkers just like our girls. Do you see the metaphor here? Are you tracking with me? This is why I don't blame the invaders, really. 

It's our fault. We don't know who we are. We lost sight of it entirely. We don't know where we come from. I never even thought to wonder where Dearborn, Michigan got its name. Didn't even question it. 

But the people of Dearborn, the founders of Dearborn, I should say, out of all the things they could have named their town, they got together, had a committee meeting. I'm assuming it's, hey guys, what do we call this place? I'm sure they had a couple of names. They threw out there and they're like, you know what? Let's go with, go with Henry Dearborn. 

And they're like, oh yeah, like definitely. That's great. Henry Dearborn, of course. Colonel Dearborn, that'd be great. Of course we'll name this town after an incredible American hero who I never heard of. Do you see the injustice? 

I'm so angry. I'm angry at two things. I'm angry at the adults in my life when I was growing up who did not have the courage to say, this music that you're listening to is terrible and bad, and then present me with music that is good. And I don't mean like, oh, here's the classic rock. I mean, stop listening to that crap rap music. Here, listen to real music. 

Here's real actual music that you should listen to. And here's why it's good. I listen to the song, I'll hear the songs that I listened to growing up. I was like, this is such absolute wicked from Satan trash, absolute garbage. And I know all the words to the songs. I'm angry at the culture makers who said, this rap music is cool. 

Nelly is, Nelly is cool. Here everyone at this middle -class white high school, everyone here needs to listen to 50 Cent and dance like this. It's like, where was any adult? And I'm also disappointed in all the adults growing up. my life who never said, here is our history. Here's what it is to be an American. 

We just floated through. You can't do that. So I don't blame the invaders. We don't know who we are. We lost sight of it. We don't know where we came from. 

We lost so much. We forgot so much about who we are. And the invaders, they just picked it up. They didn't take it. We dropped it. 

They didn't rip it from our hands. 

They just picked it up. And now they have it. It would be something if that caller today called in and said, Slater, You got it all wrong. By the third generation, these Muslim girls, they are Christians and they name their kids George Washington. They know our history and can tell you everything about the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. And they are all Proverbs 31 women through and through fully embracing of the goodness that is American culture and American life. 

That was like, wow, okay. As opposed to, oh, Slater, they're just like American girls. They all wear yoga pants and sleep around. god jeez that's so different but that's on us we didn't give them anything to assimilate to that was good yeah if we did live our heritage probably never would have come here in the first place i was reading with the kids last night the story of amaziah king of judah 25 years old when he became king at this point we've had jehu jehoahaz and joah jehoash in israel and Jehoash in Judah. Jehu, Jehoahaz, Jehoash, and Jehoash in Judah. 

And we were all reading about it with Jack, John, and James, a lot of Js. So you got the King of Judah, Amaziah, and he got all of his military men together. He counted all of his military. How many guys we got? 

300 ,000 men ready for war. 

Pretty good. 300 ,000. He's like, you know what? We should get more of them. So he hired 100 ,000 men from Israel. for a hundred talents of silver, pretty penny. 

But a prophet came to the King and said, Oh King, do not let the army of Israel go with you for the Lord is not with Israel. God shall make you fall before the enemy. God has the power to help and to overthrow. Remember that line right there. God has the power to help and to overthrow. The word help here is the word meaning assist or to rescue, but has this connotation of coming in in a timely, like just at the right moment. 

God has the power to help and to overthrow. If only we believe this to be true today. Now, what's interesting here is hiring a hundred thousand troops for his military made practical sense. The King said, I want to win a battle. I'm going to hire some mercenaries to help out. It made earthly sense. 

It made political sense. It made practical sense, but it made no spiritual sense because it is all about God. He has the power to help and to overthrow. Nothing else matters. Nothing else matters. Nothing else matters. 

I'm doing this on purpose. It's not like a glitch in your head. Nothing else matters. I can't express enough how many times, nothing else matters. Sometimes you need to hear that thing a lot of times before it finally clicks. Nothing else matters. 

God will win a battle with one person. Samson killed over a thousand Philistines with a donkey's jawbone. One, one guy. And God will make you lose a battle with 400 ,000 soldiers. Nothing else matters. So the prophet says you shouldn't do this. 

And the king says, well, what about the 100 talents of silver that have already paid? And the man of God answered, the Lord is able to give you much more than this. Do we believe that to be true? So I asked the kids as we were reading this yesterday, I said, so what do you think the king did? And they all guessed that he disobeyed God, because that's what these kings always do. But he actually did obey God, sort of. 

He told all the Israelites to go home and he paid them, still paid them, go home. But they were angry. They were angry because they wanted to kill. They wanted to plunder. They wanted more money than even 100 talents of silver. So they went on, they killed a bunch of people anyway. 

But then the king, so he obeyed God there, sort of, but he then disobeyed God. He went, he killed the Edomites and he took their idols. He took their idols. He took them, he defeated them and then took them and he bowed down before their idols. And the Bible says, therefore, the anger of the Lord was aroused against Amaziah. 

And he sent him a prophet who said to him, why have you sought the gods of the people, which could not rescue their own people from your hand? 

Like, what are you doing? That's not right. practical sense. You just defeated them and you're going to take their idols? Clearly their idols are no good. I know that God is determined to destroy you because you've done this and have not heeded my advice. 

What an idiot, but we're no better. Obviously it didn't go well for the king. He tried to flee his kingdom, but people brought him back, killed him. This is all 2 Chronicles 25 if you'd like to read it for yourself. It's the same thing over and over again. Just obey God and don't worship idols. 

Let's do positive. Obey God. Worship him. Obey God. Worship him. All right, I got to pay off something I said I'd do yesterday. 

So this book I have, oh gosh, it's so beautiful. This book, Fragile. 1859. It's called Scripture, Emblems, and Allegories. Let me go to the main page here. It has a different title, a longer title. 

Religious Emblems, being a series of emblematic engravings with written explanations, miscellaneous observations, and religious reflections. designed to illustrate divine truth in accordance with the cardinal principles of Christianity by William Holmes, minister of the gospel and John W. Barber, author of The Elements of General History, et cetera. 

Improved edition 1859. 

It's so good. 

I'm just going to read. 

I'm going to read it. So you can stop the podcast now if you don't want story time. I got to read this because I want to do something with this. I want to take I got to be so fragile with this book. I want to take pictures of this and put it on the Internet and do like a series of this. So here we have a picture of a Christian soldier. 

Here's what it says, the Christian hero here has made his stand. obedient to his captain's great command, in panoply divine, equipped to complete. No danger dreads, no foe he fears to meet. Gosh, I just wish Christians lived like this. Truth wove the girdle that his loins adorn. This bears him scatheless through the battle storms. 

A sense of pardon guards each vital part and forms the breastplate that defends his heart. For brazen grieves, obedience he takes. Through thorny paths, his onward progress makes. Hope of salvation is his helmet fair. Though oft perplexed, it saves him from despair. Hope of salvation, though oft perplexed, saves him from despair. 

He wields, and not in vain, a trusty sword. A right good blade it is, Jehovah's word. The spirit's weapon, it will each knot untie, each foe disarm, and make Apollyon fly. Apollyon's in Revelation. O 'er all the rest, he grasps faith's mighty shield. and onward rushes to the battlefield. 

Let me read now the analysis. As soon as one enlists himself as a soldier of Jesus Christ, that moment, the world becomes his enemy. It happens to him as it fell out to the Gibeonites. When they made peace with Joshua, the neighboring nations were highly offended and said to one another, come, let us unite our forces that we may smite Gibeon. For it hath made peace with Joshua, and with the children of Israel. " The Gibeonites, that's a crazy story. 

They're the people who knew Joshua was coming and they pretended to be these travelers from a distant land and they tricked Joshua into coming. alliance. It didn't go well for them after that, but not that bad because then all the neighboring kingdoms went to go attack the Gibeonites and Joshua protected them. This is the scene in Joshua 10 where there's hail and God also stopped the sun. But there are other foes more mighty and fearful against whom he has to contend. This is you. 

Satan, after 6000 years of practice in the art of destroying souls, is a powerful opponent. He goeth about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood merely, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of the world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore, on this account, take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. There's two kinds of armor, offensive and defensive, one to attack the foe, the other to protect ourselves. It is remarkable that but one weapon is mentioned by the apostle as belonging to the offensive kind, and that is the sword. 

All the rest are defensive. Among the Grecian warriors, there were at least nine different weapons with which they assailed their enemies. Yet the apostle thinks that for the Christian, one is enough. The captain of our salvation has provided us with all that is necessary for the Christian warfare. Is our head exposed to the assaults of the devil? He has furnished us with a helmet to guard it. 

This is called in another place the hope of salvation. This good hope prepares the soldier for the warfare, upholds him in it, and brings him off a conqueror. Is the heart liable to be pierced? There's a breastplate provided to protect it. It is the breastplate of righteousness. This is a conscientiousness, not only of his own sincerity, but also of his favorable acceptance with God. 

He feels that he is honest in his profession of attachment to the Savior and that Christ his captain, acknowledges him for a true soldier. The feet being exposed to injuries, a pair of brass boots are given to protect him. It would not have answered any good purpose to protect the head, oftentimes, unless the feet likewise were provided for. If the feet were wounded, the soldier could not stand to fight the foe. Neither could he pursue him if conquered. 

The greaves simply prompt obedience to the captain's commands. With this, rough places become as plain and the crooked as straight. 

Greaves are like shin guards. 

Let's see here. The girdle is given to keep the rest of the armor in its place and to strengthen the loins. Truth accomplishes this for the Christian soldier. By this, he discovers who are his enemies, their mode of attack, and the best way to resist them. A shield also is provided. It's called the shield of faith, by which is able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one. 

Finally, a sword is put into his hands. With this, he is to inflict deadly wounds on all his foes. It's called the sword of the spirit because the word of God was inspired by the Holy Spirit. Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way, but by taking heed, thereto according to thy word. By the clear instruction, by the powerful motives, and by the glorious encouragement of the word of God, the Christian soldier puts all his foes to flight. 

That was just the first picture I opened up to in this book. 

We didn't fight. 

Evil one will take over. 

But if we do fight, who could ever beat us? 

No one. 

Ever. Mike Slater dot Locals dot com. 

Transcript commercial free. And the website Mike Slater dot Locals dot com.

 

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