But the real question is: does Putin even WANT to end this war? The fact that Trump wants the killing to end speaks to his heart, and also the American ethos that we value human life.

Welcome to Politics by Faith. Thanks for being here. So we had our wonderful Breitbart World Editor on the SiriusXM show the other day and she brought forward an analysis that I've never heard before

and checks out and it's dark, but it's probably more realistic than what I've been considering. I made a flippant comment because it would have been on Friday show that this meeting with Putin

and then today we had all the world leaders or a bunch of world leaders from Europe join the president at the White House, never a gathering like this at the White House ever with all these European leaders and they got there in like a day.

Like Trump called the meeting and everyone dropped everything and showed up and it was great. And a wonderful sign of Trump's power and strength and prestige and influence. And they all talked about how Trump made all this happen. It was great.

So it was all good. But, and I said a comment, I was like, you know, this is all good developments if you want the war to end. If you don't want the war to end, then I guess it's not very good. And then I just moved on. But Frances came in and she said, there's a high likelihood that Putin

does not want this war to end. And I was like, well, what do you? Maybe Russia, maybe Putin doesn't want the war to end. See, I'm doing this analysis on the ending of this war from a very, and you and I, we're doing it from a rational perspective. As if there's rational actors, like,

oh wow, a lot of people are dying, that's terrible. Therefore, we should end the war. Well, how can we do that? Well, we'll give up a little land, we'll get a security guarantee. Let me slow that down.

Ukraine gets a security guarantee from all of Europe, sort of like a NATO section five, that says if Ukraine's attacked, then you're attacking the whole world, and we'll all attack you back. So a little preventative measure there, Ukraine could get that, and then Russia gets a little bit of land. They'll get Crimea,

and they'll get maybe some of eastern Ukraine, called the Donbas region, and everyone's a little upset, everyone's a little happy, and we can stop the killing. That's a rational actor perspective of it. And we look at that, we're like, oh yeah, that makes sense.

But Putin's not, he's not a rational actor. It's a murderous dictator. Like what makes us think that he would come at this rationally at all? Okay, fine. So why does Putin want the war to go on?

Or why does Putin want more young Russian men to go be slaughtered? Because maybe killing young Russian men solidifies his power by eliminating a potential opposition. Oh, that's dark. That is a dark thought.

Probably right.

Probably right though. There's something in politics we've talked about a lot. It comes up from time to time called the Curley effect. It's named after the former mayor of Boston whose name is something Curley. I'm looking it up right now. James Michael Curley, four time mayor of Boston early 1900s.

His stated goal, articulated goal, was to kick out all non-Irish people and all wealthy people and leave Boston with poor Irish people, not because it was in the best interest of the people of Boston, but because it would strengthen his constituency

and increase his chances of re-election. Black mayors have done this in cities as well, explicitly. Gavin Newsom has done this in California. I don't know if he's explicitly done it, but it's certainly been the effect of it. Mayor Coleman Young in Detroit

was probably the most obvious black mayor who did this. He was in 1973 and he talked about, like, this is a black city now. If you're not black, you better get out. The former Oakland County prosecutor, just straight outside Detroit, so the former Oakland County prosecutor at the time

said, Coleman Young has made it very clear that honkies are not welcome. And he was in power for 20 years. Now, again, I mentioned Newsom. Newsom, I don't know if Newsom is explicitly kicking the opposition out, maybe, but no question that the results of his policies

is that his power is further solidified. Now, that's a very, that's a political analysis of American politics, like Newsom, Coleman Young, and John Michael Curley, not murdering people murdering the opposition. But Putin would. Same effect, same idea. Send young men from his country off to die. And you think, well, that's impossible. So that's a that's the darkest thing I've ever heard. Such an absurd accusation., it's Russia. So it's an it's getting said a state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny.

There's a woman, her name is Marilyn Murray. She's a therapist and a professor, her family's from Russia, and she has dedicated her life to understanding the Russian psyche. And two things, first, on a lighter note, helping American businessmen do work in Russia, try to understand Russian culture,

if you want to do business there, but also helping the victims of Russia and the Soviet Union understand that their life matters and that they're a real individual with dignity and a soul. Here's what she said, she said,

my Russian students have shared with me that under the Soviet system, they had no worth as a person, that they were only a cog in the wheel that made the system run, made the state run. One of the most important issues

that we constantly address in our classes is to help each participant realize that they are unique and valuable. She said she asked her dad about his childhood when he was growing up in Russia, and he would always say, I don't wanna talk about it.

And she found out that her family, his family, just this decades and decades of trauma and neglect and abuse and just horrific Subjectivity to the Soviets and then you know, and then just communism basically and this is how Russia has for a long time viewed their people She talked about talking to a child in Russia

who drew a dot on a piece of paper. And she said, I'm only a spot, a tiny little spot. I have no worth at all. If you, the people have grown up in Russia and they've grown up to have this mentality for a reason. This is how their leaders have taught them

to think about themselves. We don't do that in America. In America, every person has value and worth. It's crazy to think, but Trump may care more about the young Russian soldiers than Putin does. We value life in America.

The Soviets and the Russian state, they don't. They just don't. We want people to live. This comes, and here's my biblical turn, this comes from our Christian worldview, that everyone is made in the image of God. Everyone has inherent value and dignity.

And other cultures do not share this concept. It's just so important. We've grown up in it, so we don't realize how different it is. We don't understand how special and important this is. We value human life.

Not every other country does. So where did this value of human life come from? It comes from the Bible, Genesis 127. Now, let me say one thing about Russia. I don't know much about the Russian Orthodox Church. In my brief research, there's a few doctrinal differences, some pretty big ones. This is Stephen Nicholas.

He ends his analysis with the other distinction, and I want to be careful here, but I think it's a fair assessment, is that in many cultures where the Eastern church is dominant, it's more of a cultural religion than a heartfelt, convictional religion, especially as the Eastern church has evolved over the centuries. Now, that can be said about some Americans too. Some Americans in the South who are just like culturally Christian just because their parents were and there's a lot of churches everywhere.

It's not like that. But if you read the Bible and understand the Bible, which people who are founding who created the culture that we've lived in for a long time obviously did, they understood Genesis 127. So God created man in his own image. And in the image of God, he created him.

Male and female, he created them. There's nothing else in God's order, God's created order, that is made in a reflection of his image. This is a status only for humans. And then the Bible says we are fearfully and wonderfully made. That's Psalm 139, 14. The word fearfully is a very interesting word here. What does that mean, fearfully and wonderfully made? The translation from Hebrew means with great reverence, with heartfelt interest, with

respect. We are not mass-produced. We're not churned out in an assembly line, which is how the atheist and the communist view is of people here on earth. But God does not have that view of us. And he never has not even when he made us, when he knitted us in our mother's womb. One translation of this word fearfully, uh, means to cause astonishment and

awe, to be held in awe, to inspire reverence or godly fear or awe. We're not cogs in a machine. We are made in a most intricate, intentional, and beautiful way. But when you're in an atheist, communist worldview, then obviously you're not going to come to that same conclusion that we have in America. Now this ideal that we had in America has been eroded over the last few decades here. The rise of evolution, which says we're just slightly more evolved than monkeys, and of course abortion, which says that babies in the

womb are just a clump of cells. These two things have really done a number on this idea that everyone is, you know, a beautiful creation of God knitted in the womb, but the fact that these are two attacks on this ideal prove the ideal right that the Satan has had to actively attack this idea that we are created in God's image and have inherent worth, value, and dignity. I love 1 Samuel 16, seven, but the Lord said to Samuel,

do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees. Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.

There's a lot of cultures that don't do that, that don't care about the heart of people, that don't care about the soul of people, they don't care about human life. Life is cheap. And that could be either a, from theology, so like Buddhists believe in karma and reincarnation. So if you're poor, then it's your own fault

from something you did in a previous life. And I'm not gonna get involved, I'm not gonna help you because that is unjust towards the karma that you have to pay the consequences of. So I'm not gonna lift you up because you're here for your own fault.

It could be cultural that people think life is cheap. I mean, there's,, let's say India, there's a billion people, there's like people as far as the eye can see. So it's easy to come to the conclusion that people are just expendable pieces of flesh,

but not in America. In America, every life matters. Dare I say all lives matter. So to bring it back to this war, Trump wants to end it. People are dying. He keeps saying over and over and over and over and over. Let's stop the killing. So he says over and over. He says, let's stop the killing. And

that speaks to us. But in Russia, perhaps there are some people there who are like, I kind of like it. I kind of like all the killing. And if that's the case, okay, like we can't help you guys. So at least can you maybe stop killing civilians? How about we just give you guys a little piece of land you can fight over forever.

You Putin can kill a bunch of young men, opposition, put them in a meat grinder, they die. You Zelensky, you can remain dictator forever because you don't have elections during a war and you guys can both stay in power and just do this little game forever and that's fine. But don't move beyond that area. Don't engulf all of Europe in it. Don't bring us into it anymore. Just keep killing each other all

you want, but keep us all out of it. And don't make it bigger than outside of this little bubble. Maybe that's the best we can do. Trump wants more. And as Americans, we should too. But that desire that we have in this country for peace and for life, not every country shares that.

Not every culture shares that. We need to lean into it more in this country. Celebrate it. And thank God for it. Mike Slater dot Locals dot com. Transcript commercial free on the website.

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

This might be the most important secular question of our time: what is an American? I'm frustrated that I love this country in my bones, but am unable to articulate a proper answer to that question. But we should be prepared to make a defense of anyone who asks.

Welcome to Politics by Faith. Thank you for being here. I want to bring over a very important question that we asked on the SiriusXM Breitbart show. And I want to bring it here to you because I think you will have the best answer for it. I think if you're listening to this podcast, I think you have the key. I'm going to skip over some of the backstory and cut right to the chase here. The question is, what is an American? Matt Walsh wrote,

this is why what is an American is the new, what is a woman? Or Matt Walsh had that wonderful documentary entitled, What is a Woman? And really gave a platform for the people who are pushing this transgender stuff to just

beclown themselves. And it was great. But now we have a more important question or not more important. It's like next level. We're ready to move on to the next question, which is what is an American? He said these people want to be embraced as Americans and even become political leaders

in America. But to them being an American means absolutely nothing at all. He's referring to this interview with Democratic representative congressperson Delia Ramirez. She's a congresswoman from Guatemala. She represents the people of Illinois, one of the most gerrymandered

districts in the state and the country. Third District of Illinois outside Chicago. We I don't think we played it here, but there was a clip of her about a week or so ago in some foreign country talking about how she's more proud of being Guatemalan than she is an American.

And she's a congressperson. Her mom came across the border illegally while pregnant, plopped her out and she's an anchor baby. And now she's a congresswoman. Here is what she said the other day.

I wanna ask, it seems like a really broad question,

but what does it mean to you to be an American? What is it for me to be an American? For me being an American is the ability to dream, to love, to have dissent.

Okay, so already, so dream and love that's like nothing, it's like pablum, and then immediately into negativity.

To be able to organize and build a kind of solidarity that recognizes the good and the bad of the formation of this country.

Yeah, so I shouldn't say negativity, right into bad mouthing America. It's even worse. Dream, love, America's awful. That's what it means to be an American. Dream, love, and we're the worst.

That is willing to reckon with how we have used colonialism to harm others, especially in the Western Hemisphere, and begin to think about and imagine creatively what reparations look like, what building solidarity looks like, what bringing all of us together means. To be an American, for me, is the ability to love and also

push back, the ability to be able to fight back and also build community. And to me, this precise moment is a time for us to ask ourselves, who are we as Americans? And let's be frank, we haven't always been great. And let's be frank, our history says a lot about what we've done and who we've done. This country has never been great for poor people, for black people, for indigenous people.

And so to be American for me is to be able to live into what we should be, not what we have been.

So we all know that's a terrible answer, but if we can sit at a rock bottom moment, okay, let's use it for good. But I'm thinking, geez, if that woman asks me, what is an American? I don't know if I would give a satisfactory answer. I'd do better than that. But I don't know if I'd give

a very satisfactory answer, actually. So Matt Walsh said, if someone, I could tell here, I know, like I know it in my bones, like I know it deep down, but I'm not able to articulate it. Matt Walsh said, if someone answers what is an American without any mention of tradition, culture, ancestry, language, borders, or even legal documentation, at least, then that is a person who thinks America doesn't exist.

And being an American means precisely nothing. So I grew up in the very beginning of woke very be so where there was an era where, for example, we were taught that Christopher Columbus was amazing and now kids are taught that Christopher Columbus is a murderer and the worst person ever to have lived. I was in the middle where we just didn't learn about Christopher Columbus.

I said, so it's there was an era where it's America's amazing and now we're in the era of America invented slavery and I was in the era of just don't learn anything about this country and because of that because I was never given the tools to think properly about America I can't think clearly enough about it and I can't articulate therefore what is an? Not like I want to be able to. So I want to ask you, what is an American?

How do you define it? What is an American? How do you answer that question? What is an American? Now here's where I want to push back. And this is what we did on the radio.

We did this for two hours a day, and we're going to do it for many more hours because we got to get this right. You can't, if you can't define it, you can't defend it. That's gotta be true. That we're just coming out of 20 plus years of fighting terrorism. We couldn't, we didn't define the enemy.

Terrorism is a tactic. It's not an enemy. It's like you're fighting a war against like people attacking the right flank or something. It doesn't, it doesn't make any sense. Because we wouldn't say Islamic extremism. We wouldn't define what the enemy was. And same thing here, if you don't define it,

you can't defend it. If you can't define America, what is an American, then you're gonna lose it, and we are, in the process of losing it. But here's what I wanna push back on, because all these phone calls came in,

and everyone, and we she did in the beginning. She said, oh, it's love and dreaming. What? And we had a lot of people calling that was like a little bit of that, but it was like, oh, it's the freedom to do whatever you want. Is it?

Because then the Somali comes over here and says, I'm a Muslim and I'm going to kill my daughter because she wants to wear a skirt and you can't do anything about it because I'm free to do whatever I want like, oh, that's not what we mean. What then do you what do we mean? What do we mean? It's a real example and they rubbed it in your face.

There's a bunch of Muslims who are building this Muslim community in Texas and they're naming it's like it's a like a housing development, but just for muslims and they're keeping christians out by building this huge mosque and all the hoas go to the mosque. So that's all i keep and all the streets are named after muslim conquerors before the crusades and the guy was on the podcast the muslim guy behind this and he said yeah and if anyone criticizes us we just use their freedom of religion against them. They knew what they were doing.

So it's got to be more than just freedom to do whatever. And I'm not satisfied anymore with any answer, and again I mean this nicely, with any answer that also applies to other countries. Like oh it's the freedom to go where you want to go. Well like in France you could do that. Or it's the freedom to love who you want. It. Well, like in France, you could do that. Or it's the freedom to love who you want.

It's like, okay, you can do that in Spain. I don't like, I need something, I don't know, deeper, more unique, more specific. Maybe that's a better word for it. I just need something more specific than that. Now, okay, so we kept digging.

People were adding these great elements of it. We're like, okay, let's go a little more. Let's go a little more. Okay, well, the freedom to live in the vision of our founders. I got an email on that. Great. Love that. What's their vision?

All right, it's free to live up to our founding values. Okay, awesome. What are they? We need to be able to define those found those founding values. Finally, someone called in and brought up Christianity. It was about an hour and ten minutes before someone did, so it's interesting and I don't know if it was people who are

unable to bring that to the table or they were afraid to so instead they couch it as founding values, but I got any more than that or or they'll couch it as something even Judeo-Christian values. It's like no. Pilgrims didn't come over to spread Judeo-Christian values. That's not what they came here.

They came here to create a new promised land, a new, leaving, and that was a second Exodus from tyranny to a promised land, to spread Christianity or to live their Christian lives. So we need to be as specific as we can. Slater at brightbar.com, I got a ton of emails on this.

So if you can send an email with your answer, Slater at Breitbart.com, I would really appreciate it as we try to figure this out. And I want as precise, and as we keep doing this, I want to get to something that is precise and as specific as possible.

Because I don't know what an American is, but I do know and I'm certain that Christianity is a defining aspect of it. And again, not just do Judeo-Christian values, Christian. The biggest lie that the devil has pushed on the American people in the sense of our history and specifically to our history is that we were not founded as a Christian nation. It is so it is as absurd as saying the earth is flat.

That is how that statement should be treated. The more you read about our founders and our and from our founders and our founding grandfathers all the way back to the pilgrims, these men and women were profoundly devout Christians beyond anything we see today.

Beyond anything we would believe today. And for 250 plus years later, 400 years later for the pilgrims to say that they weren't Christian is so ludicrous. I provided three proofs on today's show that I just want to present to you here. This is kind of a fun one. So we talked about Trump taking over DC, renaming it Washington DJT. He hasn't actually done that, but I don't know why that hasn't taken off more Washington DJT. Come

on. So CNN did a report from Union Station, the train station in DC. It's this beautiful building and we went over the whole history of the building in on today's show. I'm not going to do it here, but in front of the train station is a giant statue called the Columbus fountain. And that statue was dedicated on in 1912 by president William Howard Taft. And he gave this wonderful speech about Christopher Columbus. I highly recommend it. Just search for William Howard Taft,

a Columbus memorial or Columbus fountain dedication, or it'll pop up. Beautiful speech about Christopher Columbus. Again, we used to celebrate Christopher Columbus. Now we rip down his statues, but just I wanna share one quote from it

that's relevant here, the opening. He said, we are gathered here today to dedicate this beautiful memorial to the greatest mariner of history, who for centuries and two decades ago, opened to the possibilities of Christian civilization, nearly one half of the geographical world. Uh-oh. Christian civilization. Muslim civilization? Chinese civilization? Middle Eastern civilization? Judeo-Christian civilization? Nope. Christian

civilization. That's the first point. Second, before the revolution, I know I made this point before, I'm doing it again. Before the revolution, every colony had their own religious tests in order to hold office. And they were as blatant as you could possibly believe. This is Delaware. This was the oath of office you needed to take before you got into an elected or an appointed position.

The oath was, I do profess faith in God the Father and Jesus Christ, his only son. And in the Holy Ghost, one God blessed forevermore. And I do acknowledge the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration.

There are some churches that barely require an oath like that anymore to join the church. And this was just to be like the state treasurer or anything in the state. That's what you had to talk about. Jesus, the Holy Spirit, God, and and you you say that the old and New Testament were divine inspiration just to hold office

Someone called in today It's maybe the first maybe the second person to talk about Christianity on the show And he talked about the freedom to worship. I think he just said the freedom to worship. That's right It's the freedom worship and I said, okay, okay freedom to worship. I think it just said the freedom to worship. That's right, it's the freedom to worship. And I said, okay, okay, freedom to worship what? Right, because now you get all the people that are like,

oh, you're free to worship whatever you want. And it's like, a bail? Right, well, you're free to worship bail? And yeah, I guess in America you are, but that's not what it means. That's not what American culture is. That's not what we should be striving for to get back to bail worship.

So I asked him, I said, what free to worship what? And he said, God, I said, what God? He said the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Bingo.

Last proof. John Adams wrote in his diary, 1756. It's before, before the revolution. He said, suppose a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their only law book. And every member should regulate his conduct

by the precepts there exhibited. Every member would be obliged in conscience to temperance and frugality and industry. You just got some virtues here. So now we're talking like, we're getting closer to some real things.

Like you are freedom to do whatever you want. No, freedom to be frugal and industrious and temperate. Right, it's like, oh, well, that's not freedom. Freedom should be, right? No, no, that's not our founders perception of freedom was it to do whatever you want.

This is why it's a life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. Pursuit back then meant practice of and happiness our founders knew could only be accomplished through virtue. So it's life, liberty, and the practice of virtue. That's what you're free to do.

What virtues? Temperance, frugality, industry, to justice and kindness and charity towards fellow man, and to piety and love and reverence towards almighty God. So it's not as the, go back to the Congresswoman, what does it mean to be American?

To dream in love. Well here's Thomas, excuse me, John Adams talking about love, but it's not just love. It's piety, love, and reverence to Almighty God. In this commonwealth, no man would impair his health by gluttony, drunkenness, or lust. So now we're against vices. No man would sacrifice his most precious time to cards or any other trifling and mean amusement. No man would steal or lie or in any way defraud his neighbor, but would live in peace and goodwill with all men.

No man would blaspheme his maker or profane his worship, but a rational and manly, a sincere and unaffected piety and devotion would reign in all hearts. What a utopia, what a paradise would this region be?" It's John Adams. Our founders weren't Christian. What an absolute joke. As I was reading that quote, it popped in my head, the fear of the Lord, the fear of the Lord the fear of the Lord our Founding grandfathers, I think of like the pilgrims they had a fear of the Lord. That should be part of the definition I don't want to put anything in your minds. Let me let me write that down

I don't want to put anything in your head yet. I'll write that down for Monday show as we continue on this Okay, I'm gonna do more study on that in the Bible and of our founders saying that, okay. I'm not saying Christianity is the only aspect of what it means to be an American,

but it's gotta be part of it, has to be, right? So I'm gonna throw it to you now. I've said enough. Fundamental question of our time right now. Our ability to define this, our ability to answer this question.

It's like our American version of being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. What is an American? Please send me your answers at slater at breitbart.com. Put these together and we'll get closer to the truth here.

Slater at breitbart.com. My website is my, the website where we put these is mikeslater.locals.com. There's a transcript there and a commercial free on the website. Mike Slater. There's a transcript there and a commercial for you on the website. There's a transcript there and a commercial for you on the website. Mike Slater.locals.com

At the press conference for the Trump takeover, the President spoke about scrubbing sidewalks clean. I didn't expect playing this clip would take us in this direction, but I'm glad it did, and we ended up in Matthew 25.

Welcome to Politics by Faith. Thanks for being here. Got an email. Slater at Breitbart.com.

This is from Brent in Texas. He said, today's show reminds me of Matthew 25. Ooh, love that. We have squandered. I always had a little trouble getting my head around this scripture because it seems to reward the rich person and punish the poor.

However, the concept of being given a country of great wealth, resources, and virtue, and letting it get to where we are now helps me understand it better. Really good. I don't exactly know what we said on,

this would have been, say it's Thursday today, so it's gonna be Wednesday show. I don't exactly know what we said on Wednesday's show that inspired Brent's email. It was probably the conversation we had on sidewalks. We spent an hour talking about sidewalks. Can I tell you how much I prepared talking about sidewalks?

Zero, I didn't prepare at all. I had no intention of talking about sidewalks. We did it for over an hour. And it started because I played this clip of Trump at the press conference talking about the need to take over DC and to beautify it.

And I played this as just a flippant little thing, but it turned into much more.

But here they're really bad. And we're gonna either put new or fix it. And it's not expensive, it's not really expensive. And we're gonna fix our roads a little bit. We're going to clean up our sidewalks. You have countries where, every Saturday, the people go out and they wash their sidewalks in front of

their stores and their houses. They scrub. They scrub their sidewalks. So we aren't quite at that level yet. I don't think, Gaddy, we're not quite there yet. But maybe we will. They go out and they scrub. I think it's so beautiful to hear that and to see those stories.

But we're going to make it clean. But just to finish with your question, it's a very, very strong reflection of our country. And when they see a bad city, you know, my father always used to tell me, I had a wonderful father, very smart. And he used to say, son, when you walk into a restaurant and you see a dirty front door, don't go in because if the front door is dirty, the kitchen is dirty also.

Same thing with the Capitol. If our capitals dirty, our whole country is dirty, and they don't respect us. So it's a very good question actually.

So I really played it for that last part. That's what I intended to do. But everyone called in about the scrubbing of sidewalks. Before we get into it, I can't get over Trump taking over DC. This is such an opportunity. I forget if I said this here or not, but I'll do it again. Never in a million years would any city in this country say the

people in the city say, you know what? Let's clean house. Let's just elect a bunch of conservatives on the city council and the mayor for four years. And we'll give them a chance to see what that would never happen ever impossible. But here we now we have one, we have a city now. One of our cities we have total control over. One of our drug infested, crime ridden cities of squalor, it's ours now. And we can fix it.

This is our opportunity to show what can be done and to send a message to all the other people in the rest of the cities across this country that this is what's possible. What an opportunity. We would never get it in any other chance ever

to prove what we are capable of. This is totally nation changing in a profound way. Think of any other city, they're all nine- oh Democrat seats, right? City councils. Maybe one Republican, maybe.

This is just all Trump, all conservatives, all Pam Bondi, all Kash Patel, all, it was a total our team. We get the whole city. We'll get it for three and a half years and we'll see how clean and beautiful

and wonderful it can be. What an opportunity. But back to the sidewalks. Someone called in, they sent me an email and said, Slater, I grew up in Baltimore and there were all these apartments,

like town, like row houses in Baltimore that had these marble steps. And people here in America, we don't have to go to Europe or England or wherever, people in America would scrub these steps. And he sent me a picture of it. I put it on my Twitter Slater Radio on Twitter.

You can see it there. It's like the 50s, 60s. These kids, like 10 year old kids scrubbing their marble steps. It's like four steps, four big hunk of marble steps leading up to it. And the whole block, everyone is cleaning it. Just like Trump's talking about here.

Right on the front porch in Baltimore. So I did a little research on these steps. Baltimore made these steps, whoever built these, they made these steps from the nearby Beaver Dam quarry. And it's such a beautiful story because this means to me that we built these steps to last. It was important, it was beautiful.

The marble from this quarry was used in the Washington Monument and the US Capitol building and give a search of the Baltimore City Hall and the Maryland State Capitol building. Beautiful, stunningly beautiful buildings. A couple other buildings in DC, these beautiful marbles and and then also the same marble steps

of apartments in Baltimore. And they were so beautiful, they were like, oh, we gotta keep these clean. We have to. That's when we made things that we cared about and things that we intended to last. And we quoted this a couple weeks ago,

I don't know if we did it on this podcast here, but this author I like, Eric Sloan, he writes a lot about how things used to be. And he said, great-grandfather did things always with a purpose. He did them conscientiously because he did them himself. That is why he so often put his name

and date on his belongings. The date we see on old things was put there in pride, as if to say, in this year, I was satisfied with this piece of work, which I myself created.'" He said, "'A typical inscription on a 1771 date stone reads,

to thy care of Lord are commanded all in this household going in or out. Psalm 121. But we would put a date on things and we put our name on it because we had pride in it. And as our pride in things has eroded because we just replaced it with cheap crap from China,

I call it the H&Mification of things. It's probably a better reference I can think of, but you know, H&M cheap junky clothes, just throw it away, right? Throw it away and throw away. Our connection to things has eroded.

Also our pride in places around us has eroded. And with that also our care and attention of people. So we don't care about things or places or people. And I don't know if they all degrade at the same time or one leads the others, I don't know, but I see them all degrading around us.

We used to make things with our ancestors in mind, even the steps of our tenement housing. And now whoever thinks about making anything that your grandchildren will use. I was talking to Director Eric. Director Eric grew up in total poverty,

meth addict parents, total squalor. But he told me the story that his grandma was a farmhand in the Imperial Valley of Southern California, 120 degree farm valley. She lived in a tent. A tent, like a real tent.

And she would sweep the tent, the floor in the tent. It was a dirt floor. She would sweep the dirt floor. The dirt was packed down as hard as you could. And then there'd be like a little dirt. There'd be like some dirt particles on top of the dirt

and it would be dirty. And she would sweep the dirt off the dirt floor. And she would tell Eric, her grandson, you do the best you can with what you have. Poverty doesn't cause squalor and poverty doesn't cause crime either.

You can have no money and keep things clean and be neat and be virtuous. We've so lowered our expectations for people in poverty that we expect nothing out of anybody. We're so dedicated to this victim mindset. Oh, nothing's in your control, nothing. The whole world is against you in every way. We expect nothing out of anybody. We're so dedicated to this victim mindset. Oh, nothing's in your control.

Nothing. The whole world is against you in every way. We expect nothing out of you ever. Not even keeping things clean, not even not stealing. We expect nothing out of the whole world's against you no matter what. And this has just debilitated people even more. And Made a spiral meanwhile my friend's grandma is sweeping the dirt floor in her tent Let's turn to the Bible here Because of Brent and his inspiration let's talk about Matthew 25 starting in verse 14 is the parable of the talents Let's go through it. The Bible says for the kingdom of heaven is like

the kingdom of heaven is like, the kingdom of heaven is like this.

A man traveling to a far country who called his own servants and delivered his goods to them. So he's going out of town. I need you guys to take care of my money. He gave to one of the servants five talents, to another two and to another one, to each according to his own ability.

And immediately he went on a journey. A talent was a lot of money. A talent was a weight. It was a weight of metal. So the value depended on the type of metal it was. But it is believed that one talent

was 20 years worth of wages for this laborer. It's a lot of money. So if you make $50,000, it'd be like someone giving you a million dollars.

Right?

That's what we're talking about here. So imagine you make $50,000, imagine you work at, you know, wherever you work like Best Buy and the manager comes in and says, here's a mill. I need you to take care of this million dollars. And that's just the one talent guy. So I think Brent said something like, the rich and the poor.

It's seeming to me he rewards the rich person and punishes the poor. They're both equally, they're all equally poor. They're all the laborers. But even the poor guy is given essentially a million dollars. 20 years worth of wages.

Let's see here. Then he who had received the five talents went and traded with them and made another five talents and likewise he would receive two gain two more but he who had received one went and dug in the ground and hid his Lord's money. The idea here is that the people who were given a lot money, the two and the five, they did something. They worked immediately.

They went, they did something, they kept working. They were successful at it. They did it without delay. They felt a responsibility. Remember, this is what the kingdom of heaven is like. You should feel this desire to go

and use this money wisely to serve your master. I need to go do better. After a long time, a long time, right? So there's plenty of time for the servants to be like, maybe he's never coming back. Maybe I can use some of this money myself.

Maybe I can steal some, whatever. After a long time, the Lord of those servants came and settled accounts with him. So he who had received five talents came and brought five other talents saying, Lord, you delivered to me five talents. Look, I gained five more talents beside them. His Lord said to him, well done, good and faithful servant.

You were faithful over a few things. I will make you the ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your Lord. He's talking to you by the way. You were faithful over a few things. I will make you ruler over many things, enter into the joy of your Lord. He also received two talents, came and said,

Lord, you delivered me two, look, I gained two more. The Lord said to him, well done, good and faithful servant. You've been faithful over a few things. I will make you ruler over many things, enter into the joy of your Lord. It didn't matter that he gave one, two and one, five.

It's just that things with it. The reward was the same for both servants is my point. Even though one was given two, one was given five, same reward. Also good and faithful servant, isn't that wonderful? Charles Spurgeon wrote this, he says, it is not well done good and brilliant servant,

for perhaps the man never shown at all in the eyes of those who appreciate glare and glitter. It's not well done great and distinguished servant, for it's possible that he was never known beyond his native village. And I'd love this because it helps you analyze and dive in.

Oh yeah.

Good and faithful. Those are the words that God shows. Maybe in today's words, it would be, uh, you know, it's not good and rich servant. It wasn't the amount of money. It was good and faithful servant, which is what we need to be to God. Good and faithful. Back to the Bible. Then he who had

received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew you to be a hard man reaping where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. Ooh. And I was afraid and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Look, there you have what is yours." So interesting point here. If you look at these three servants as a group, they did good. Uh, there's see, there's three, no five, six, seven, eight.

No eight, yeah. Five, two, and one, eight talents. Eight talents given and 15 returned. Pretty good. But it wasn't, you're not, God doesn't judge as a group. He judged each on their own individual faithfulness and effort, their own good and faithfulness.

So it doesn't matter if you're in a group, if you go to a good church, or if you associate with these people, or your parents, or your faithful kids, or your faithful that or this, no, that's not it. It's individual person.

You don't enter into heaven in a group. Also check out this insult from the servant. Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have, you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So he's blaming, blaming his master. Now you're only rich because of luck anyway. So I didn't do

anything special here. I just buried it, but you know, whatever. Here you get to have it back. And he was like, oddly pleased with himself. Like, Oh, here, I didn't, I didn't waste it. But the Lord answered to him, you wicked and lazy servant. Actually, this is to you. This is us. You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather

where I have not scattered seed, so you ought to have deposited my money with the bankers. And at my coming, I would receive back my own with interest, like at least therefore take the talent from him and give it to him who has 10 talents. For to everyone who has more will be given

and he will have abundance. But from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away and cast the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Ooh, wicked and lazy.

This is what the kingdom of heaven is like. We don't talk about laziness a lot in our culture, but laziness is a sin, a sin that you need to repent of. We don't ever talk about it. So much entitlement all over the place. We talked about some welfare queens today on the radio,

played a woman who she insisted that she is entitled to a brownie because food stamps, you can't, in a lot of states you can't buy junk food on food stamps. She's like, who are you to say that I'm not entitled to a brownie?

I am, like, what do you mean? So just so much entitlement, we can go on forever about that. This is FF Bruce, his Bible commentary. Not dishonest. The master had not misjudged as to that. So what he didn't call him a liar because he didn't lie. He said you're lazy, indolent, unenterprising, timid, slothful, a poor creature altogether. He said, you know,

I was afraid, suspicious, timid, heartless, spiritless, and idle. We can't be this for Jesus. That's it. We can't be this for God. This morning, I read Psalm 147. What are the chances? Just perfect. It's like unbelievable. Alright, starting verse 10. Here's verse 10. He, excuse me, his delight is not in the, this is God, his delight is not in the strength of the horse nor his pleasure in the legs of man. But the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love." Good and faithful.

That's what God wants us all to be good and faithful. He doesn't delight in the strength of the horse nor the legs of man, but in those who fear him and put their hope in them." That's what we need to do. And if you have that, then you would go and be a good steward of what God has given you, which is what the first two servants did. One more scripture here. This is 2nd Corinthians 13, verse five, examine yourselves

to see whether you are in the faith. So that's what I have to do, we all have to do right now. Which of these servants are we? The first, second or the third, you don't wanna be the third. So examine yourself and see if you are good and faithful. See if you're in the faith.

Ooh, that's what it says in your faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves? That Jesus Christ is in you. If that is true, we're not looking for perfection, impossible, but there should be evidence of it. There was evidence from the first two servants.

Well done, good and faithful servants. So the question is, what have we done with our talents, with your talents? The word originally was a weight, like a weight of weight for money, but over time it took on the more metaphorical meaning of your abilities, your gifts and skills, but that's it came from this verse of the Bible, your talent. So what are you doing with your literal talents,

like the weight of money you own, but also of course, your talents, your time, your abilities. What are you doing? What are you not doing that you should be doing? We need to examine ourselves so that we too can hear at the end of our lives,

well done, good and faithful servant. Brent, thank you for the email. Slater at brightbird.com is my email, or my personal email is slaterradio at gmail.com. If you made it this far into this podcast, then you can get my personal email, slaterradio at gmail.com.

Mikeslater.locals.com is the website where we put this podcast up Mikeslater.locals.com is the website where we put this podcast up with the transcript and no commercials. Mike slater.locals.com.