In Minneapolis, the ICE shooting of Renee Good is a Rorschach test. The Bible speaks of the “rabble” from the "mixed multitude" of Numbers, craving comfort and stirring grievance, to the mob in Acts 17 whose fury drives them to a different city to cause trouble. Let us learn to beware the "rabble" of the Old and New Testaments. 

Welcome to Politics by Faith. 

Thanks for being here. 

Came across this quote, Richard Sibbes. He was an English Puritan, late 1500s. He was called the heavenly doctor, not because he was a doctor, medical doctor. He would heal souls. He would lighten people's injured souls with his preaching. Known for his line, the depths of our misery can never fall below the depths, his depths of mercy. 

And there's more mercy in Christ than sin in us. But here's the quote I came across. The special work of our ministry is to lay open Christ, to hold up the tapestry and unfold the mysteries of Christ. Let us labor therefore to be always speaking somewhat about Christ or tending that way. When we speak of the law, let us drive us, let it drive us to Christ. When of moral duties, let them teach us to walk worthy of Christ. 

Christ or something tending to Christ should be our theme and mark to aim at. Love that. Hope we do that. with this podcast here. I have some final thoughts on the Minneapolis shooting from the ICE agent the other day. Still a lot of questions that we don't have answers for. 

I don't know if we ever will. Yesterday on the show, we talked about the kindergarten teacher complex, which I think is a major part of what would drive this woman to introduce herself into a law enforcement operation. We got some confirmation yesterday, confirmation on this fact to back up my kindergarten teacher complex idea, that she has three kids. She dropped one of them off at school. The father of that child is deceased from a couple years ago. She has two other kids, though, who are in the custody of their father. 

I don't know the details, of course, but I know enough about family court. and the bias that the family court has towards the mom, even in the face of obvious problems with mom, the courts will side with the mom. So the bias is so strong that if you ever come across a situation where the courts side with the dad and give the custody of the children to dad, there are major problems in the mom's world. I think that confirms a lot of what we talked about yesterday, and I think that could be be an example or lead to some of the misplaced mothering and care that this woman had for the Somali migrants above all else. It's been interesting to watch everyone's reaction to this incident. It's a bit of a Rorschach test. 

Everyone can see what they want in it. I suppose that's true with everything. I was going to say most things, but I think it's true with everything. No matter how obvious, people will deny the truth right in front of their faces. I don't know if I can find this clip fast enough. There's a funny video. 

of a guy, he's actually a Washington state rep. Let's see if I can find it. Again, this is a podcast, I can just press pause. But it was, okay, here it is, this is great. So this guy, he's a state rep in Washington. 

He was asked, well, here it is. I want you to give me one example of socialism you think working well somewhere. 

A good example of socialism working well somewhere, this is a really, really cool question. I think of Cuba in particular, a very, very high literacy rate, number one. Number two, extremely strong commitment to public health. So that's one example that I can think of that would resonate with pretty much anybody in our state who cares about education or health care. Would you disagree with that? 

People flee on makeshift rafts and die in the ocean to flee Cuba for the United States. 

Yeah, and I think that that is something that absolutely we have to be sensitive to, but you asked me about institutions that are working really, really well. 

I asked you about places socialism is working, and you chose a country that people will risk their lives to flee from to this country. 

Okay, so instead of just saying, yeah, you're right, That was a bad example. Listen to how he spins this and tries to get out of it. 

There was a revolution in Cuba. That is correct. 

They still do it to this day. They show up on the beaches of Miami because they would rather be here and would risk their lives in shark infested water to flee the country that you just gave me an example of. 

And if the situation were reversed, the injuries and the ailments that they sustain as a result of migrating to a place where they believe that they're going to be better off. I believe that they can be treated in a much better way than American health care facilities are currently able to treat people. So that's one example that I can think of, of, of, uh, socialism working very well in public health and in education. 

Uh, so that's from the podcast, Brandy Cruz, KR USC. And she made that clip and the camera pans back to her and she wrote dies inside. But his spin is, I think, if a Cuban gets on a raft to come to America, he'll receive terrible healthcare treatment here. He said if the situation was reversed, if an American got on a raft and went to Cuba, then his healthcare would be amazing. So I think that's how he tried to get out of there. So that's just a little side example of how people will deny the truth, so obviously deny what is obvious. 

Yesterday's show, the point of it was to talk about how to gain wisdom and discernment between good and evil. It's in the Bible. The only way to do it is to be saved, converted, and then in the word constantly. I have a bit of an addendum to that. Acts 17, we actually talked about Acts 17 the other day, but this one word keeps standing out to me. 

So the background is Paul and Silas went to Thessalonica and Paul taught in the synagogue for three weeks saying that Jesus is the Christ. Let me pick up here. And some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks, and not a few of the leading women, so a lot of them. But the Jews were jealous, and taking some wicked men of the rabble, they formed a mob, set the city in an uproar, and attacked the house of Jason, seeking to bring them out to the crowd. Now, when we talked about this earlier in the week, we focused on Jason. and how cool it would be to be Jason, right? 

You got to mention in the Bible, pretty neat for him. But we talked a little bit about Jason and standing up for what's right, no matter what. He went to jail for helping Paul and Silas, but he didn't care. That was his top priority, nothing else. But I want to go back to this word rabble. I love when I'm reading the Bible and I come across a word that just like stands out like rabble. 

I don't really use that word today. It's used in the Old Testament to describe the non -Israelites that left with the Israelites out of Egypt. You'll hear it called the mixed multitude, often sometimes translated as the rabble as well. These were the first to whine and complain and worship false gods. Numbers 11 -4, they yielded to intense craving. That was these people, the rabble. 

They're the ones who encouraged everyone to build a golden calf, all that. And we've done a message on that before. Be careful of the mixed multitude. Similarly here, the term refers to a disorderly crowd, or a group of people who incite unrest or rebellion. among the people of God. 

" Rabble -rousers would be how we use it today. Webster's original dictionary, Webster's 1828 . com, a tumultuous crowd of vulgar, noisy people. The mob, a confused, disorderly crowd. Now, I read the ESV a second ago. They use the word rabble. 

The King James Version says this, but the Jews, which believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort and gathered a company. Lewd fellas of a baser sort. The Greek here, the Greek word is wicked men from the marketplace. That's interesting, isn't it? From the marketplace. And if you look up the Greek word for of the marketplace, it's a negative connotation. 

This is not like you're nice people at the farmer's market. This is not a good place. These are the hucksters. These are the petty traffickers. They're the idlers. They're idle. 

causing problems because they have nothing to do. Vulgar is a word that's often used to describe this. They're not honest and decent people. They're lazy, fraudulent, loafers, bums, agitators, and most importantly here, people who would do anything for money. They'll do anything for money. So the Jews in this case would pay them to be their muscle, if you will, and cause trouble and manipulate people, intimidate people, cause disorder, disruption, the opposite of unity. 

Division is what we're looking for. We need unity. We're looking for unity. But you have people that are causing division. Now if we go back to Acts 17, skip ahead a little bit. Verse 13, Paul and Silas, so Jason goes to jail. 

Paul and Silas, like, we're out of here. They go to Berea, about 50 miles away. It's a two -day journey. Let's go to verse 13. But when the Jews from Thessalonica learned that the word of God was proclaimed by Paul at Berea also, they came there too. agitating and stirring up the crowds. 

Now, I don't know if it was the Jews who went to Thessalonica. I think that's what it says here. Or if it was more of the rabble. Either way, we can learn a lesson. Either. Well, let me say this first. 

They so couldn't stand that Paul was preaching. It wasn't even enough that Paul stopped preaching in their town. They were full of so much envy, so much hatred, so much fury that they went on a two day journey to stir up people in the city next door. They had to stir up people there too. And either they took that journey themselves, Which is a long journey. Two days is a lot of time to cool off. 

Two days is a lot of time to think about whether or not this is a good idea or not. But they did it. So either they did it themselves or they paid more of those people of the marketplace, those wiki people to do it. Either way, watch out for the rabble. Either people who are such believers that they can't accept the truth no matter what, no matter how clear it is in front of them, or trolls paid who will do anything for money. Rabble. 

MikeSlater . Locals . com. Transcript commercial free on my website, MikeSlater .

What was happening in her heart and mind in the minutes before she hit an ICE agent with a car? Today we look at what influences our choices—and how, through Scripture, we can learn to guard our hearts and act in wisdom.

Welcome to Politics by Faith. Thanks for being here. Trying to think how we should approach today's podcast in regards to the ICE shooting in Minneapolis. Trying to think if I should do more of just a news presentation and then get to the Bible or how much hot take to give on this episode here. I'm going to lean a little more towards the hot take. I think we'll see how it goes. 

I think the reason I'm actually waiting for the news part, it sounds backwards, but I need to see more of the video. I need to see not only the video of the woman in the car reversing and then driving forward while there's an ICE agent in front of her where the ICE agent then fires and kills her. I need to see more than that and the eight seconds before it when ICE agents get out of their car and tell her to get out of her car and then she reverses and goes for it. I need to see more than the eight seconds before that. I got a lot of questions. Why is she there? 

Was this just her neighborhood and she heard stuff going on and she showed up or was she tipped off that something was going to happen? Did she get a call? hurry get here i don't i don't know where is she from where she live how far does she drive to get there why was she there what was her intention was she in the hour before was she following ice was she harassing ice before this was this not the first time she blocked ice from driving down the street maybe and i don't know i've heard anyone say this i don't know did she ram an ice car already at some other point maybe not but i just don't know i can't judge the situation just off of a few seconds Was there some other evidence that she had already used her car as a weapon? I think these are good and fair questions that I don't have answers for. I'd also like to know more about the ICE agent. Where did he come from? 

What direction was he coming from? How long was he engaged in this specific scenario? Did he know anything else about this car, the person in the car? Did he see this person do erratic things already? Did that add to the data that he had in the moment where he decided to fire his weapon instead of something else? There's a totality of the situation that I don't have right now. 

Hopefully we will soon. I do though, feel comfortable making some other conclusions. These are more of the hot takes because I'm just fascinated by the person who would put themselves in this situation, which is a very dangerous situation, interfering with a law enforcement operation. You have no business being a part of. What's going on here? And that's what I want to try to explain here in just a few minutes, and then we'll bring the Bible into it. 

There's something that I've heard called the kindergarten teacher complex. Think of your stereotypical kindergarten teacher. sweet, wonderful, amazing, heart of gold woman who loves profoundly, deeply in her heart, loves her babies. Now imagine a woman who has that same mentality, but instead of five -year -olds being her babies in her kindergarten classroom, it's refugees. It's illegal aliens. This woman felt, I guess, so strongly about caring for the Somalis in her neighborhood that she felt the need to go to this ICE operation and get in their face. 

Why? 

Because in her mind with the kindergarten teacher complex, Somalis are helpless little babies who need her protection. She's the teacher and the Somalis are her students. who need love and care. They're cared for and they need protected. And the Ice Agents are mean bad guys who are coming into the classroom and want to cause harm to her babies. And she's going to launch her mama bear instinct upon them in all her fury. 

Does that make sense? There's a lot of words for this. Toxic empathy is a good word for it. I've heard misplaced mothering, where you take a feminine mother's instinct, but when it's not placed on your own children, then it's placed on other things that don't make sense, that aren't wise. But maybe a misplaced mother instinct would be placed on not a baby who is a weak, but on a Somali immigrant or someone else who's oppressed in their worldview, and they have to protect it. That's why people are yelling, like, get away, get out of here, go, get out of my neighborhood, kindergarten teacher mentality. 

Combine that with a mob mentality, this constant inputs from wherever, MSNBC, whatever's online, people who are on your team. 

crazy. 

kept LARPing, it's like, okay, but when you LARP as fighting Nazis and you roll into a law enforcement operation against real men with real guns, your LARPing will be met with real life real fast. I don't know what she was thinking in the car, obviously. Maybe she was driving away, right? The officer comes up and says, get the blank out of the car. And maybe that was her moment where she was like, oh, I'm in way over my head. 

This got real, I gotta get out of here. And she was leaving and unfortunately there was an ICE agent in front of the car. Maybe she didn't even see the ICE agent. But there, I'm guessing, I'm totally making this up, but I'm guessing there was a moment when she, it hit her that it got real fast. And we've all had those moments as a kid. You're playing with your friends, you're playing war with your friends, maybe you're throwing mud balls at each other and you're having a grand time and then one of the mud balls has a rock in it and you throw it. 

at a friend and it hits them in the head and now they're on the ground bleeding. In that instant it gets real and everyone stops playing. Every kid instantly knows it got real and we're gonna get in trouble and if it's your little brother the first thing you tell your little brother is don't tell mom and you wish you could take it all back because you're playing abruptly confronted real life and maybe that was this woman too where that instant she thought oh jeez I wish this I wish I didn't do this I wish it could all go away but that's not how it works. So we have kindergarten teacher complex mixed with this TDS -fueled online mob frenzy of fellow activists and freedom fighters, which can make you feel invincible, mixed with LARPing as a superhero against the Nazis, and it can all culminate in a situation that is not a good one to be in, where you end up driving your car towards an ICE agent. That's the situation, that's my hot take. Here's my Bible take. 

And this message I want to share, I want to be very clear. This is not me saying all you liberals out there be more like me. That's that's not it. We all, myself included, need this message all the time. I love all the Bible verses, period. I could just stop my sentence right there. 

I love all the Bible verses, but I love especially, I guess, the Bible verses around this concept of guarding your heart or keeping your heart. I think of the information diet that so many people have, an information diet that keeps people uninformed or misinformed and a lifetime of that can really mess with you. And it could be little things. I saw a video the other day of a guy who was asking his coworkers, he showed him a picture of Missouri and they asked his coworkers, what state is this? This is in America. What state is this? 

And no one knew that it was Missouri. And everyone's laughing because they don't know. And you're like, well, that's not good. So like that's uninformed. But it's even beyond that. That's just like trivia. 

What state is this? But it's beyond that would be people who lack wisdom to just like navigate life and more important than anything who don't understand, people who don't understand that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom and that we need to be in the Bible every day to connect to that source of all wisdom. Otherwise, we're going to end up in places that are not good, that are not wise. So a couple of scriptures on this point, Philippians 4, 8, finally brothers, whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely. 

I mean, think about that. 

Are the things that you input into your soul every day, are they true, honest, just, pure, and lovely? Think about these things, Paul says. Romans 12 .1, be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that you may prove what is good and acceptable and the perfect will of God. If we have wisdom and we think about good, true, lovely, pure things, and our mind is renewed, then we can discern good from evil. This is Hebrews 5 .14. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment, trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. 

To go back to Philippians 4, the way to be these things, true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, we've got to be more like Jesus, because he is all these things. This is sanctification, becoming more like Jesus. Proverbs 4 .23, watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flows the springs of life. Pastor Stephen Cole made the point that the way to watch your heart, he gave it five ways, five ways to watch your heart. One, be converted. First and foremost, before you're converted, before you're saved, you have a depraved mind. 

And once you're saved, you have the Holy Spirit. Number two, we have to clean out and block out all sources for sinful thoughts. Maybe it's a New Year's resolution episode two, where the challenge is to get rid of anything that you're watching, shows, movies, whatever, that aren't good enough for you. Do you know what I mean? They're not of a good enough standard that are worthy of your time. and are not good for your soul. 

Get rid of them. Third advice, take in God's word from every source. I heard the line that you cannot be profoundly influenced by that which you do not know. So read the Bible, listen to podcasts, whatever it is, take in God's word as much as possible. Read from the greats, read all the old good stuff. There's plenty of old good stuff out there. 

And then number five, similar to the one about inputs, music, listen to wholesome music, listen to good classical music, listen to the great hymns. And the more you do this, Your mind will be more focused. You'll be thinking about more things that are just and pure and true and lovely. You'll have a renewal of your mind. The more you read the word, you'll be able better to distinguish between good and evil. You'll be quicker to act on it when you see it. 

I love this too. Ephesians 5, 25, sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word. " There's a cleansing that happens when you read the word, so that you might present the church to himself in splendor, without blemish. Isn't that amazing? We're going to wash ourselves with the word. 

And the more you do, you'll have more wisdom, you'll have better discernment, you'll make better decisions. You'll care about the things that you should be caring about. You'll care about the things that matter the most, and you'll care about them in the right way. I'm grateful for that. This show right here is part of your information guide. Slater Radio on Twitter and Instagram. 

My website where you can listen to this podcast. No commercials and the transcript is on mikeslater . locals . com.

We can no longer rely on our European allies for global security. It is also true that any reworking of global leadership has to start with renewed faithfulness to God. In this episode, we talk about Jason’s courage in Acts 17 and what it means to stand firm when you don't know who to rely on.

Welcome to Politics by Faith. 

Thanks for being here. 

Got an email from yesterday's episode that we did about how God's hand was clearly protecting our service members during the operation in Venezuela. There's no question about it. Steve wrote me a note, Steve in Ohio. He said, I was thinking not long after the success of the mission to Gran Maduro was promulgated, how many prayers for God to be with the troops at the beginning of this mission were offered up? I bet more than a couple. Knowing this administration, knowing the secretary of war like we do. 

I'm certain that that was true. I want today to provide one more broad overview of what's going on right now and what time we're living in. And then I want to bring in a biblical story of Jason that I think can drive all this home. One point, the big overall point I want to make is that, and maybe you've said this in your life as well, if you want something done right, you got to do it yourself. So what we outlined over the last couple of days is that we live in a post -Cold War era. where we've been told by academia that all empires are bad. 

All of human history has only been about empires, more empires than we can count, more empires than we've ever heard of. Some have totally been forgotten. There'll be empires just listed in the Bible. Just like one little mention of it. That's it. You never hear about it ever again, even though there was like an empire for hundreds of years that existed. 

I'm reading one book and it mentions an empire that existed that we know nothing. 

We don't know anything about. 

We have no evidence of it existing other than several different mentions of it in ancient texts. And it's a real thing, a real place, we don't even know where it was or what it's about or anything, right? It's only been empire. But after the Cold War, academia said, empire's bad. The problem was we were the only empire, therefore America bad. 

So from like 1970s or so on, empire's bad, therefore America bad. So from that point forward, our country went on a decades long intentional weakening of America. We gave authority over the UN, which is just a cabal of our enemies. We outsourced more and more of our manufacturing, more of our power. We imported more and more of the third world here, right? So we're going to make ourselves weaker by exporting what is good, or not exporting, outsourcing what is good. 

And we're going to bring in more of what is bad, more things that make us weak. And we were told diversity is our strength, of course, in that process. Everything that was done was done to make us weaker in the last just like 50 years. That's never been the case. I think the Panama canals, I know it's in the news too, but it's the perfect analogy. Everything in our history that we ever did was done to make us a player on the world stage, and the Panama Canal is such a perfect example. 

We built it, we finished it in 1914. The point of it, other than, of course, the geopolitical significance and economic significance, but the other point of it was to show the world what we're made of. The fact that the French who built the Suez Canal, which was easy, flat and straight, thought that they could come and build the Panama Canal here and failed, and then we had the gumption, the bravado to think that we could come in and get it done, and we did. It was crazy.