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.

Zohran Mamdani and Masquerading Light
Politics By Faith, june 30, 2025

Be careful of people and ideas who look like The Light, but it's all an act.

Welcome to Politics by Faith. Thank you for being here. One big beautiful bill. That is the main news of the day. I want to take a bit of that and also highlight something a bit different before I forget it.

We'll bring it all together.

Zoran Memdani may be the next mayor of New York City. This is the 33-year year old Muslim communist from Uganda. The latest mini controversy is that his team made a video of him talking about something where he's eating some rice dish with his hands. Like an animal.

Like they do in a foreign, perhaps third world country.

And it's all performative. like they do in a foreign, perhaps third world country.

And it's all performative. He's got the microphone on a shirt. Like he could have waited to eat and answer the question without, but he did on purpose. And also he knows how to use a fork and knife. There's other campaign pictures of him eating a burrito with a fork and knife, which is a food item

that you're supposed to eat with your hands. So he's doing them both backwards. But the point is, eating with the hands, it's all performative gesture. It's a game, it's an act to appeal to certain people to get attention as well.

And they knew what they were doing. They're like, here, eat this with your hands. They knew. Someone on Twitter said, His mother is a world famous Academy Award nominated Bollywood director worth tens of millions of dollars. His father is a chaired professor at Columbia. He is a perpetual theater kid who's pretending to be third world.

The great Rob Henderson said, rich kid eats rice with his hands. More performative modesty aimed at manipulating you into thinking he's just a regular guy like Castro and his fatigues or Mao and his peasant tunic always the same playbook with rich kid socialists It's also funny. It's a funny place that we're at in politics where we used to mock politicians because they were eating pizza the wrong way or are they they would look awkward when eating a hot dog at the State Fair and

Now we have politicians running for office who are eating rice with their hands. All right, but here's my main point here. I want to steal this from Cernovich. He said, in our inverted society, and indeed everything's backwards,

the demons look soft and non-threatening, and the angels look scary, which is biblical. Mamdani is on the cover of the New Yorker and he looks great. It's a nice photo shoot and smiling and it's all, it's all nice. Communism, but with a nice happy smile on it, soft and non-threatening. The demons look soft and non-threatening.

The angels look scary, which is biblical. And he's right. Satan is not what our pop culture portrays him to look like. I think it's actually an act of the devil to have him portrayed the way he is with red horns and a pitchfork and all that. But the Bible says that Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Second Corinthians 11, 14. He's also the father of lies, John 8, 44. So of course he's going to approach us as something good and beautiful

and safe and easy and full of light. Now, to be clear, the Bible doesn't say that Satan is an angel of light, only that he masquerades as one. So that is how we will see Satan and his deeds as light. Light is good in the Bible. John 8, 44 says,

"'Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling." God created the light, 2nd Corinthians 6, 4, for God who said, let light shine out of darkness has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. It was Moses, wasn't

it? Who after he spoke with God on Mount Sinai, he came back down and his face was shining. Just light pouring off of his face. So light is good. So of course Satan is going to appear as the angel of light. Of course Satan is gonna say, come to me! I am the light! Which is why we have to be very careful. We have to stay close to God, stay close to his word. Psalm 119 says, your word God is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. So how do you stay close to God and know that it's his light? You read the Bible. Your word, the Bible, is a lamp to our feet, lights our path.

Now on the flip side, which is also pretty interesting, God's angels are so terrifying that people fall to their knees. And every time the angel has to say, fear not. Now you've maybe seen this before on the internet. Some artists made biblically accurate angels Now, you may have seen this before on the internet.

Some artists made biblically accurate angels. You can search for that at your own caution here. These are artist composites of Ezekiel. Ezekiel 1, his vision of God and his throne. And Ezekiel goes into detail here. Let's see here. Each had four faces and each had four wings. Their hands of a man were under the wings on their four sides. Each had four faces and wings.

Their wings touched one another. Let's see. There's more craziness here. Each of the four had the face of a lion on the right side. Each of the four had the face of an ox on the left side. Each of the four had the face of an eagle. A little further down on Ezekiel. Here it is. This is about wheels. Here we go. The appearance of their workings was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel. When they moved, they went towards any one of four directions. They did not turn aside when they went. As for the rims, they

were so high. They were awesome. And the rims were full of eyes all around the four of them. So it's a circle full of eyes. When the living creatures went, the wheels went beside them. Goodness me. So, if you saw one of those, you wouldn't be like, oh, yay, look an angel. You would fall on your face and the angel would have to say, don't be afraid. Now, I don't know if that's what all angels look like. There's certain angels, I'm not an angel expert here, but the point is the inversion,

where Satan and demonic influences in this world come as light, and people are attracted to that, just like people are attracted to socialism, because it always looks good. I don't think it sounds good even. A lot of people say that, they'll be like,

oh, maybe communism sounds good, but it never works. I don't even think it sounds good. But some people still think that it is a light. Now, if I have to tie in the one big beautiful bill, which we'll do more on tomorrow, surely, it's just the deceitfulness of all of it.

The accounting, how they measure this, calculate that, move this around, change a word here or there. We'll do more on the radio show tomorrow of the Inflation Reduction Act, the green new scam stuff that's in it and taken out of it and then put back in it

and then a couple words changed here and there. So again, we'll do more of this tomorrow, but the house had in there that you will remove your solar subsidy if, unless something is in construction by a certain date. So this new wind or energy or solar project

has to be in construction by next year. But in construction only means 5% of the project. That's it. And that's in construction. So people are just gonna throw 5% into a project and then, oh, we're in, we're good.

And then they get four more years of subsidies. And the Senate did change it to, no, no, it's gotta be placed in service, which means it has to be done by the end of the year 2028. So a couple slight word changes here changes the whole game.

And the Senate's going back and forth on that whole thing. So we'll give you an update on what the Senate does with that tomorrow. But there's so much deceit in politics and that is one of the reasons why it's so chaotic and of course one of the reasons why there's so much anxiety around it as well. So much lying, so much deceit, so much ignorance, trying to control an entire country of 330 million Americans. Our founding fathers knew better. But free and

easy and entitlements and all this stuff, all these, this, this fake light seems so appealing and we've fallen for it for so long. Now people can't even imagine another way. We'll see how the one big beautiful bill does tonight. But my point is here, stay close to God so that we know when it is actually Satan masquerading as the angel of light and be aware of ideas and policies and philosophies that masquerade as truth as well. and be aware of ideas and policies and philosophies that masquerade as truth as well.

Mike Slater dot locals dot com. That's the website where we put the transcript up

 

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Yo Daddy's Home
Politics By Faith, June 27, 2025

The head of NATO, sort of, in the middle of an analogy, called President Trump "Daddy". Every other president would have tried to spin it away, but Trump leaned in to it. 

Welcome to Politics by Faith. Thank you for being here. I want to talk about something that happened at the NATO conference the other day. So start at the beginning here. Trump was getting on Marine One at the White House and he was asked about Iran and Israel. This was right after the ceasefire was announced and they were still launching a couple more missiles at each other. And Trump's like, I'm angry at everyone, but they've been fighting And he was asked about Iran and Israel. This was right after the ceasefire was announced and they were still launching a couple more missiles at each other.

And Trump's like, I'm angry at everyone, but they've been fighting for thousands of years. They're so screwed up. They're so messed up. It's all they know. And he said, they don't know what the blank they're doing.

And he turned and he got on the helicopter. He gets on the helicopter, helicopter goes over to the Netherlands for the big NATO conference and he's sitting next to the head of NATO and a reporter asks him, hey man, you dropped the F-bomb the other day, you know, tell me about that. Here's what Trump said. I mean, we may do papers on it,

Marco. Maybe we're going to do papers. I don't even know if you need them. They're not going to be fighting each other. They've had it. They've had a big fight, like two kids in a school yard. You know, they fight like hell. You can't stop them. Let them fight for about two, three minutes. Then it's easier to stop them.

And then daddy has to sometimes use strong language.

You have to use strong language.

Every once in a while, you have to use a certain word.

I think that-

Okay, so people took that, some people in the media spun that as the head of NATO called Trump daddy. Now, he clearly didn't. He wasn't like, hey, Trump daddy. Trump was using an analogy of parenting with two kids and then he working with the analogy said, oh, well, you know, then daddy comes home.

All right, here we have, I kind of call them daddy, okay? So then Trump was asked about that later.

It's from Sky News. Mark Ritter, the NATO chief, who is your friend, he called you daddy earlier. Do you regard your NATO allies as kind of children?

No, he likes me. I think he likes me. If he doesn't, I'll let you know. I'll come back and I'll hit him hard. Okay. Do you he likes me. If he doesn't, I'll let you know. I'll come back and I'll hit him hard. Okay. He did. He did it very affectionate. He daddy, you're my daddy. Do

you have a God? You're okay. So Marco Rubio is in the background just busting up. Okay. So then the head of NATO was asked about calling him daddy.

Thank you. Deborah Haynes from Sky News. Same woman, same woman. She's obsessed with this. She's absolutely obsessed. Deborah Haynes from Sky News. Hello. The language that you have used when talking to Donald Trump has been notable because of its flattery. Today you called him daddy. You sent a text message.

Now, again, to be clear, he didn't. But you heard what happened.

To him that was gushing with praise. Is this the way that you feel you have to act when doing business with the US president through flattery and praise? Isn't it a bit demeaning and doesn't it make you look weak?

Ooh.

Okay. Let me pull up the text that she is referring to. So Trump the other day, screenshot it, a text that he, the head of NATO, said, Trump says, Mr. President, dear Donald, congratulations. And thank you for your decisive action in Iran. That was truly extraordinary and something no one else dared to do.

It makes us all safer. You're flying into another big success in the Hague this evening, the Netherlands. It was not easy, but we've got all of them signed on to 5%. We'll get to that in a minute. Don, you've driven us to a really, really important moment for American Europe and the world. You will choose something no American president in decades could get done. Europe is going to pay in a big way as they should, and it and see you at his majesty's dinner. I don't know, is that fawning? That flattery or like, hey, great job.

No, I don't think so. I think it's a bit of a question of taste, but I think he's a good friend. And when he is doing stuff, which is forcing us to, for example, when it comes to making more investments, would you ever think that this would be the result

of this summit if he would not have been elected president? Do you really think that seven or eight countries who said, yeah, somewhere in the 2030s we might meet the 2%? We've now all decided in the last four or five months to get to 2%. So doesn't he deserve some praise? And when it comes to Iran, the fact that he took this decisive action, very targeted, to make sure that Iran would not be able to get his hands on a nuclear capability. I think he deserves all the praise.

Okay. Now that leads up to this. Oh, should we talk about the 5%? Stop at the 5% quick. So when Trump's first term, he said, Hey, NATO countries, you all need to pay more. And the media said, oh, Trump's attacking NATO.

Well, no, he's not attacking NATO. He's saying he's saying countries need to spend more money, which strengthens NATO. Well, that was 2%. What Mark had a NATO is talking about is now the country's agreed to spend 5% of their GDP on defense. And that's what he's saying is that no one would have no country would have done that if it weren't for Trump. Trump strengthened NATO. Now, Spain is not playing along. So Trump said, I'm going to make them pay double tariffs.

He's like Spain. They think they're going to free ride through in NATO without paying more for defense. No, it's not going to happen. So you're just going to pay double tariffs to the United States. No more freeloading. That's what they're talking about there.

Now, here's what happened yesterday.

Saw this on Trump's Instagram.

After every trip he makes, they do like this hype reel video of him, you know, getting off Air Force One and all the things, right? Everywhere he goes, they put these out every week or so. And this is the one they put out yesterday.

♪ I just wanna get your attention.

You want to be all up in your head. I don't. It's kind of a weird song choice. I don't want to be my first choice. I don't some like weird kind of pop song thing, but okay, I will keep listening here. So the song is by Usher. It's called Daddy's Home.

And all the video is of him meeting with NATO leaders. Here's the NATO flag. Here's Pete Hagseth. Here's Marco Rubio. Here's Trump at the podium. So fit, just perfect. Every other president would have put their whole crisis team on this, send out press releases saying, Oh no, no, that's no we're gonna make our allies feel good no we're not daddy we're all equal members in a league of

nations Trump's team comes out and says I know you've been waiting for this loving all day. You know your daddy's home. Very good. Very good. Well done. Very funny. All right.

So what do we do with this? How do we turn this into a biblical segment? Well, God is your real daddy. No, I'm not going to, not going to do that. Not going to make that point. Abba means daddy.

I want to make a point about delight. This is fun. Right? Trump is having fun. You see him up there when he's having fun. It's fun to watch.

This whole administration is having fun. Hard work of course, but they're doing it all with a smile. The other day we did a segment on the origin of peace through strength. Where did that idea come from? It didn't come from Reagan. It came from the year 400. The other day we did a segment on the origin of peace through strength. Where did that idea come from? It didn't come from Reagan. It came from the year 400. There was a book called De Re Militaris written by Flavius Vigetius Renatus.

It's about Roman warfare and the line is, if you want peace then prepare for war. Then we did the origin of the line, speak softly but carry a big stick. That came from Teddy Roosevelt, 1901, Minnesota State Fair. It is a beautiful speech, highly recommend it. Just search for national duties, Teddy Roosevelt, 1901, and it'll pop up, it's a beautiful speech.

But where did the term happy warrior come from? It's another line that people associate with Reagan, right? The happy warrior, where did that come from? That came from a Wordsworth poem, William Wordsworth, that's gotta be the best name of a poet, right? He wrote a poem called Character of a Happy Warrior,

another beautiful read. But let me just go through, instead of making it poetic, I'll just give you a list here. A happy warrior has a generous spirit, noble ideals, an inner light, a sense of purpose, eager to learn, he has moral integrity,

turns adversity into advantage, can meet the worst that can befall the best and make it his own good. I would argue that's what Trump did with the whole daddy thing. Self-control, passionate, forgiving, resilient,

guided by reason, virtuous, honorable, faithful to duty, unselfish, courageous, serene in adversity, the line is, can meet the storm and keep his heart serene, loving, loyal, persevering, unwavering purpose. And who of course in world history has best exemplified all of these wonderful characteristics? That would be Jesus, every one of them.

For some reason right now, serene and adversity stands near the top of them all, but he is all of them. And we're called to show these as much as we possibly can as well. And when I think of the happy warrior, I want to put the emphasis on the happy part, but what does that mean? I like the word delight. And that reminds me of Psalm 37, four, delight yourself in the Lord. Have fun with these other things,

but delight yourself in the Lord. Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land and feed on his faithfulness. Delight yourself also in the Lord and he shall give you the desires of your heart. I just want to focus on the delight yourself

in the Lord part. Charles Spurgeon, he said, Believers who know Christ understand that delight and faith are so blessedly united that the powers of hell cannot separate them. Those who love God with all their heart find that his ways are pleasant ways and all his paths are peace. Proverbs 317. Such joy, such abundant delight, such overflowing blessedness. The saints discover in their Lord, so much so that

far from serving him out of obligation, they would still follow him even if the whole world put down his name as evil. We don't fear God because of any compulsion. Our faith is no shackle, our profession, no slavery. We are not dragged to holiness or driven to duty. No, our devotion is pleasure. Our hope is happiness, our duty, delight.

Have fun, happy warrior. Whatever it is you do, do it with all the great virtues from that Wordsworth poem. And throughout it all, delight yourself in the Lord. Mike Slater dot locals dot com transcript and commercial free if you want to listen over there and commercial free if you want to listen over there on the website Mike Slater dot locals dot com.

 

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The Muslim, Communist Mayor of NYC
Politics By Faith, June 26, 2025

NYC might elect a Muslim, communist from Uganda as their next mayor. How is this possible? Because people want fast and free. We want something more.

Welcome to Politics by Faith. Thank you for being here. Been working on some thoughts here about the New York City mayor's race. Zohan Mamdani, 33-year-old Muslim communist from Uganda, who it's pretty likely will become the next mayor of New York City. Made a bunch of different arguments this morning, of course, how did this happen? I don't think it's immigrants, although that's

certainly part of it. You know, do you know what percentage of New York City is foreign born? It's 40%. So that's clearly part of it, but this is mostly homegrown. Uh, what got him across the finish line was progressive white women, rich, progressive white women. Mostly we'd talked about it for three hours today. So I can't do the whole thing. I'll just tell you what he stands for and what he's calling for. He's calling to end the NYPD, like totally defund the police, abolish prisons, abolish medical bills, abolish private health insurance,

ban all guns, legalized sex work, safe injection sites end cash bail, decriminalize drug possession, end all cooperation with ICE. He said taxation isn't theft, capitalism is. $65 million on transgender medical treatments, including on kids. I mean, it's like as crazy, crazy as you can get.

There's so much to be said here. I think my, well, I'll just make two quick points and then I'll get to the new stuff. This is the future of the Democratic Party. When the baby boomer generation passes on. The Clintons and Bloomberg

and all those establishment Democrats who have been around forever who endorsed Cuomo, they'll be gone and we will all this whole country will be left with Zohan dumb daddies, daddies all over the country. That's the future of the democratic party. It's the first point.

Second point. I don't want to cede any ground to communists in America. If, if we were talking about the capital of Uganda, electing a communist mayor, probably wouldn't talk about it, but it's New York city. This is in the United States of America. And I totally understand this desire to just let them, you know, they voted for these people, let them have it and they'll learn from their mistakes. But I don't agree with that anymore. We saw what happened when

we did that with college campuses. I thought that all the wackiness on college campuses would just stay in the bubble, but it doesn't stay in the bubble. Now all the craziness from the Ivy League schools is that every university and in K through 12 and med schools and law schools and teaching schools and every other institution across America doesn't just stay in the bubble and it won't just stay in New York, maybe start in New York, but it won't stay in New York. And I don't want to cede any ground

to communists. Let me move on to something new though. Nature does what's easiest. This is one of the reasons why evolution is so stupid. Because nature doesn't get better on its own. Nothing can't evolve up into an eye.

Right?

You can't have nothing and it just gets better because turning into an eye would be hard to do. And that's not how nature works. We were in the Grand Tetons a week or so ago. There's rivers everywhere. And they come from. We were in the Grand Tetons a week or so ago. There's rivers everywhere. And they come from the snow melt in the mountains.

And the rivers are fast. These are fast moving rivers and it just keeps coming. There's just an endless supply of water that's constantly rushing down the mountain. And you're in the river, these big huge rivers, you're like, where is this? This water just keeps coming and it goes all summer long, and the snow never melts away.

I mean, it's snow melt, so some is melting, but you look up in there, you're like, it's still there? And it's there all summer long. And we're on this, we're hiking around this lake. It's the most popular there's this huge waterfall. It's about a hundred feet tall. It's awesome.

And you're watching this waterfall and it comes, pours down, it's huge, pours down. And then it hits the side of this rock and it turns 90 degrees and it comes at you. It's so powerful. And at some point in the trip, it would just fascinated me and I'm living it

now that these rivers at one point in time, who forever ago first cut their way through the mountains, like the water's up top and it's got to get down and the water's gonna take the easiest path. And my point is once it makes its path, that's it. The path is set. It's not gonna change. Nothing naturally is going to move that waterfall to a new place or any of the rivers.

They're not going to change. There can be some erosion, of course, but it's not gonna be like, you know what's a better direction? Uphill and around the rivers. They're not going to change. There can be some erosion of course, but it's not going to be like, you know what's a better direction uphill and around the bend and that like that doesn't once the path is set, once it has its foothold, it's never going to give it up. And even if humans wanted to change, it would be a massive task for humans to come in and divert

that river to make a new waterfall or a different waterfall, even if we wanted to. My point is, this is why we can't let communists win elections anywhere. Because the devil gets a foothold. The river makes its groove. People keep voting certain ways. It's really hard, if not impossible, to change that path.

Nature does what's easiest, and so do people. This is why last week we talked about AI boyfriends and AI girlfriends, and I said that a majority of people will do this. If there's any kids listening now, you may want to hide their ears for a second. But a majority of people watch pornography pornography and it's the same principle it's selfish and easy once physical ones emotional but it's the same principle and

so it's communism it's easy the pitch is easy it is brilliant for Mamdani to call for free buses but he doesnani to call for free buses, but he doesn't just call for free buses or the elimination of bus fares. He doesn't call it, he calls it fast and free. Now it's not really free and someone's gotta pay for it.

Taxes, and of course it won't be fast. It's neither of those things, but the marketing is brilliant because it appeals to what people want. It appeals to people being selfish and easy, fast and free. This is what we want everything to be. We want everything to be fast and free.

And we have an entire political party and a massive cultural movement that provides people with all their heart's desires, whatever appeals to people's sinful nature. Fast and free, sometimes at a price. But, or at least a monetary price, there's always a real price, but we know that what's easy

is almost never what's best for the individual or what's best for society. Tonight for dinner, you know the easy thing is to just grab some ice cream from the freezer. That's the easy thing. But the better thing is to get some chicken and broccoli and cook it up and eat it. But that's harder.

We all know what the right thing is to do.

But the 99 cent tacos at Taco Bell, that's fast and pretty almost free. And it gets the job done. But does it? I mean, it'll satiate you in the moment, but long-term it destroys you. We all know that.

We know that the easy thing is rarely the right thing. Now we, unfortunately, as conservatives, we are members of a political party that advocate for hard things. We call upon people to engage in hard work and to strive. We call for virtue and accomplishing things.

The other party advocates for fast and free. Now I'd rather be on our team because our team when we accomplish what we stand for leads to greatness. But man, it's harder to win elections that way, isn't it? Here's the last analogy I wanna make

and then we'll get to the Bible. June 25th, 20, or excuse me, June 25th, 1929. President Herbert Hoover authorized the construction of the Hoover Dam. The Hoover Dam is a spectacular achievement, stunningly beautiful, stunningly beautiful in every way.

And it's full of art. The people who built this dam, who designed it and built it, they believed that they were building something that would last forever. I'd love one day, we can spend more time on this, but they built a celestial map on the site of the Hoover Dam

where, it's not ancient, where civilizations, thousands of years in the future from now, can read this map and figure out just by the stars, the positions of the stars and what's characterized on this map when this Hoover Dam was built.

Not using any words, but when the dam was built because they really believed that they were making this for something that would last forever, as forever as humans can build a thing, even without maintenance. I think they said it can last for a thousand years as humans can build a thing. Even without maintenance. I think they said it can last for a thousand years

without any maintenance on it even. Things spectacular, but it's beautiful too. It's built in this beautiful art deco theme. And it's an incredible engineering achievement that we're still celebrating today. We're still benefiting from today.

They finished it in five years, two years ahead of schedule. 21,000 people. It provides power today for 1.3 million homes. Water for Southern California, Arizona. So they built it fast, ahead of schedule, and it still works. People of California high-speed rail

can learn a lesson from here. But here's why I wanted to bring it up here. 100 people died making this thing. There's a big plaque at the Hoover Dam. And it says, they died. So there's this man, this art deco man

rising out of the water. And it says they died to make the desert bloom. The desert doesn't bloom on its own. It takes hard work to make it bloom. All good things. Now, of course, God does all of this, right?

God even, he made the concept of blooming and he made flowers and he made, right? So all this is God and God could do, of course, but our role on the earth is to participate in that creation and to create and make beautiful things too. And that can't be done without effort. The left promises fast and free, fast and free, everything fast and free, everything. It never works. Of course. Can't never can. Uh, like meaning the buses will never be like those won't work. It'll work when

it like getting elected. It'll work in that regard, but it'll never actually work in governance. But they promise fast and free, very appealing. We promise good, beautiful, and true. It's much more difficult, but obviously it's better. Satan's world is one of temptation. When people are selfish and want the easy way. I just this morning,

I kid you not just this morning, read Proverbs 28 and it says, better is the poor who walks in his integrity than one perverse in his ways, though he'd be rich. In his ways, like his own ways. Better to be poor and walk in his integrity than one perverse in his own ways, even though he be rich. This one stood out, again, this is Proverbs 28, 20. A faithful man will abound with blessings,

but he who hastens to be rich will not go unpunished. Hastens means quickly, but like you'll do anything to be rich will not go unpunished. Hastens means quickly, but you'll do anything to get rich. You'll cheat, you'll compromise, you'll do whatever it takes to get rich. I must be rich and nothing else matters. You will not go unpunished this life or the next, but the hasten, the fast, I want it now. Me, me, me now fast and free. Another one of Proverbs 28, a man with an evil eye hastens after riches and does not consider the poverty that

will come upon him. Fast and free. And just speaking to the how the good things the righteous is hard. It takes effort. It takes effort. 1st Corinthians 9. Do you not know, says Paul, do you not know that those who run in a race all run but one receives the prize run in such a way that you may obtain it. Go get it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown but we for an

imperishable crown. See all these people competing in like the Olympics, they do it for a silly medal or crown, right? But we do it for one that lasts forever. Therefore I run in this way, not with uncertainty. Thus I fight not as one who beats the air, like silliness, but I discipline my body and bring it into subjection.

Lest when I've preached to others, I myself should become disqualified. They had like these, this athletic competitions in Corinth. So he's using their language, but run in a way that you could win it, train for it, be disciplined, just like the great athletes are.

But here's what's interesting. When he says, I, where is it? I discipline my body. We don't translate that quite right. The actual Greek means to beat black and blue, to smite so as to cause bruises and livid spots like a boxer beats his body, to be disciplined by hardships. It means to give a black eye. That's what he's talking about, discipline.

Why? To bring the body into submission. Meaning to make the body my slave. So with the temptations in the world, we act like our souls are slaves of the body, that the body's in charge, right? Our emotions drive our actions, our desires, our impulses, our cravings, our lusts. So much

of politics today is about feelings. Well, I feel this, I feel like that, I feel for these people, I feel, I feel, right? I feel all the time. I'm gonna cry, that person's crying, oh we better do what they want, they're crying. It's all about the feels, what feels good. Because for most people, our body, the flesh, is the master over our soul. So we do whatever the body says. But Paul here says, no, flip that around,

bring your body into subjection. Now that doesn't mean work on your six pack, although that's good too, but work against your lusts. Like your body's not in charge of your soul. Your soul with the Holy Spirit needs to be in charge of your body, meaning all the temptations around us,

all the promises of fast and free. Politically, this is a very difficult thing to do. It's definitely the uphill battle, but I believe it is the good one. And spiritually, it's the most important thing.

And Jesus took the ultimate beating and punishment for all of our sins, not just physically on the cross, but all the sins of the whole world on him as well. Mike Slater dot locals.com transcript commercial free on the website, Mike Slater dot locals dot com. Transcript commercial free on the website. Mike Slater dot locals.com transcript commercial free on the website, Mike Slater dot locals dot com. Transcript commercial free on the website. Mike Slater dot locals dot com.

 

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