People are wondering what we should do to pick up his torch. I have three general principles on how we each should proceed.

Welcome to Politics by Faith. Thanks for being here. Still, of course, thinking about Charlie Kirk and his life and what happened and what's to come and his legacy in this country. I pray so fervently that this is the spark of a revival in this country. I'm encouraged because the Overton window of what's acceptable to talk about biblically has been so blown off the wall. It doesn't even exist right now. 

which is incredible news. The Overton window, if you're not familiar, it's the idea is here's a window of what is acceptable to think and say out loud. And when the Overton window moves, it means now there's more things or different things that are acceptable now to say that weren't in the past. I've been talking about the Bible on the radio for 10 years, probably. And it's been growing every year over those 10 to the point where like every day, Oh, Slater, so much Bible thumping. It's one of the reasons we started this podcast is like, we can put this Bible thumping somewhere else. 

I had so much of it. It's like, okay, we need another podcast to put it on. But here I am talking about the Bible now and again. And people are like, oh, you're Bible thumping so much. I can't take it. Meanwhile, now people in normal conversations and in conservative circles are talking about demonology. 

They're talking about demonic possessions. It's like, oh, love it. Here we are talking about spiritual warfare. Are you kidding me? I am here for it. Let's go. 

So that's wonderful news. I pray more people go to church. More people are saved. This is it. This is revival time. Looking forward to Sunday. 

I don't know how many people are gonna go. It's at the Arizona Cardinal Stadium. 65 ,000 people fit in this stadium. For a memorial for Charlie Kirk and the president's gonna be there. It's gonna be massive, it's gonna be huge. And I pray that it's, I know it will be Christian in its entire nature, but I just pray that sparks something powerful. 

Still so soon, thoughts are still racing. I'm sure you as well. I got three things I wanna say here. Three kind of random thoughts. I saw this tweet that, Charlie Kirk sent on Twitter, October 13th, 2011. He said, Glenn Beck, I am a 17 high school student. 

Listen to you every day. I speak for local tea parties about debt and deficit. Fight liberal bias. 17 years old, 2011, 14 years ago. He accomplished a lot since that tweet. How did he do it one day at a time? 

A lot of people send him emails wanting to know, what can I do? What can I do? How can I pick up the torch and carry it? I don't know, but get going. 

What's that? 

That's not helpful. 

What do I do? 

Just go. That's my first point. Just go. What's that? That's not helpful. The wonderful woman who sits next to me in church, excuse me, let me rephrase that. 

The wonderful woman who we have the honor of sitting next to at church, Ms. Martha, I've mentioned her before. Uh, she was wanting to make it to her 75th wedding anniversary, but just a couple of months ago, her husband passed away. She's 92. She is sweet as pie. She's wonderful. I talked to her about teaching Sunday school before church. 

I started that yesterday. I'm tasked with going through really, from now until Thanksgiving. Me and another member of the church, we alternate every week. And I talked to her about it and she was so sweet. She gave me one of her husband's books on Romans. 

She's just wonderful. 

But today, at church, before church, she showed me Exodus 31. This is where God told Moses to make the tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant. Ark of the Covenant, of course, is beautiful, sacred, golden chest. Put the 10 commandments in it, a couple other things. And Moses says, well, what do I do? What do you mean? 

God says, make this thing. Moses is like, what are you talking about? How do I do that? Who's going to make it? Exodus 31. The Lord said to Moses, I have called by name, Bezalel, the son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah. 

And I have filled him with the spirit of God. 

Boom. 

With ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver, and bronze, in cutting stone for setting, and in carving wood, to work in every craft. And behold, I've appointed with him Aholiab, son of Asamach, the tribe of Dan. And I've given to all able men ability that they may make all that I have commanded you. " In other words, I got it, Moses. Moses is all, in the very beginning, Moses is like, I'm not a good speaker. God's like, don't worry about it. 

Let's go. And here he's now, hey, make this thing. I don't know how to make a thing. What are you? He's like, yeah, I got it. Don't worry. 

So if you right now, you don't know what to do or how to do it, don't let that stop you. God has it. Just like you don't know how to make your heartbeat, you don't know how to make your lungs fill with air, you don't know how to make your brain work, you don't know how to do anything, but that doesn't stop you from living. You don't wake up in the morning, you're like, I don't know how to work my heart. Better just stay in bed. You just get up and go. 

Same thing here. You know what to do. 

It's okay, just do it. 

What do you think? You accomplish things on your own anyway? You think anything you've ever accomplished in your life, you did it? Get that out of your head. So why do you think he would not be with you on a mission to glorify him? Because that was Charlie Kirk's mission and God was with him. 

And if God asks you to do this thing, he'll help you. Number one, just do it. Number two, trust in God. I read Psalm 146 this morning. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. 

Oh, my soul. While I live, I will praise the Lord. I will sing praises to my God while I have my being. Do not put your trust in princes, nor in a son of man, in whom there's no help. His spirit departs. He returns to his earth like he dies. 

In that very day, his plans perish, boom, gone. The princes here, a good translation of princes is actually just like any influential people or person, people that were more inclined to trust rather than God because they look the part or whatever, but it doesn't matter who it is. The plans perish. Don't put your trust there. Here's the positive turn. Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord is God who made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them. 

God made everything who keeps truth forever, keeps truth forever, who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry. The Lord gives freedom to the prisoners. The Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord raises those who are bowed down. The Lord loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the strangers. 

He relieves the fatherless and the widow pray for Erica and her two children. And we also pray for those who are blind, so blind to think that Charlie Kirk was a bad person, a racist, fascist, a Nazi, and therefore deserve to die. Oh, have you seen such darkness ever in our country before? Not in my lifetime. The people celebrating the assassination, it's, I think it's as bad as it gets, other than, of course, the assassinating. Beyond that though, I think that's, it's pretty demonic and wicked. 

So God, we pray that we, that you can open the eyes of the blind. And if that doesn't happen, well, the final line, but the way of the wicked, he turns upside down. Bible commentary, Matthew Poole, 1600s, he said, he maketh them to lose their way. He not only frustrateth their plots and enterprises, but turneth them against themselves. He turns it totally upside down. This is the real ending. 

The Lord shall reign forever. Your God owes high unto all generations. Praise the Lord. So point number one, just go. Point number two, trust in God, not in princes, not in you, not anything else, just him. And number three, don't be discouraged by the wicked. 

It said right there what he's going to do to them. I'll turn their plans upside down. Ecclesiastes 8 .10. Then I saw the wicked buried, who had come and gone from the place of holiness. And they were forgotten in the city where they had done so, where they had so done. They forgot, like everyone forgot them. 

He said, this is also vanity. Now I've heard a couple of different interpretations. One interpretation is that they died and they, the people forgot even the wicked things that they did when they were alive. But I've also heard that just the people themselves, like the wicked people who sought so much for fame and glory, like who? They're gone. 

People forget about them. But here's how it goes on. Because the sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. If we got what we deserved instantly, it'd be over for us. It'd be over. So I just talked about this yesterday in Romans 2. 

There's a part in Romans 2, well, let me pull it up here. Should I quote it properly now? Romans 2. Hmm, here it is. Or do you suppose, oh man, do you suppose, Mike, you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and his forbearance and patience? 

Presume means to preassume. Do you preassume that because he's so kind to you and so patient with you and is showing you such forbearance, forbearance means not giving you the punishment that you deserve. Like if you get forbearance on your mortgage, it means you don't have to pay the mortgage for a couple of months. So forbearance on your sin. Oh, you presume that because, uh, that God hasn't, that he's showing forbearance. He's, he hasn't yet given you the punishment for your sin, that you're good. 

And Paul says, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance. And because you're not, you're storing up wrath for God. When God's judgment is revealed, you're storing up wrath. We know about storing our treasures in heaven, but have you ever thought about storing your wrath up? Because that's what you're doing by not repenting. God's kindness, God not showing you immediate punishment for every sinful, wicked thing you do right now is to lead you to repentance. 

It's not to affirm. what it is you're doing. And here it is in Ecclesiastes 8, because the sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily. Therefore the hearts, the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. 

I'm good. 

I did an evil thing and I'm fine. Nothing bad happened right away. So I'm going to keep doing it. Though a sinner does evil a hundred times and his days are prolonged. Like here's this wicked person over there doing horrible things all the time. What are they doing? 

How are they getting away with it? God, why are you letting him get away with it? Yet I surely know that it will be well with those who fear God. It's like, I don't know why they're getting away with it, but the ones who fear God, it'll be well with us who fear before him. But it will not be well with the wicked, nor will he prolong his days, which are as a shadow because he does not fear before God. Don't be discouraged by the wicked. 

Justice will fully be served. If not on this earth, in this life, then in the afterlife. Three thoughts. I don't know if they're helpful for you right now. It's still a bit of a whirlwind. And what happens next? 

Politically, don't know yet. What happens next spiritually as a nation? I pray it's bigger than anything we've ever experienced before. Because I'll tell you this, all the biblical stuff I've ever talked about on the radio, it's all like basic Bible 101, standard, normal, every American in history until like 50 years ago knew it. And like only the last 50 years. years can you talk about the stuff and people are like, what are you talking about? 

Stop Bible thumping. Everyone knew this. Everyone believed this. Everyone lived this way. Everyone knew this was true. And we just forgot it the last 50 years. 

And then we wonder why things are so screwed up. So I'm excited for all of that stuff to come back. All the basic, we are a Christian nation. So all of this basic Christian nation founding principle values to come back into America, we'll be so much better off. So don't be afraid. Don't be afraid anymore. 

Just go. Trust in God, don't be discouraged by the wicked. Slater Radio on Twitter and Instagram. And my personal email is slaterradio at gmail . com. And then a transcript or commercial free on the website, mikeslater .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Daddy! 

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

Your Word? 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Allegedly. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

S. 

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

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

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

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

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

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