I love the reaction Jillian Michaels has to the truth of Jesus' existence. So many people think that Jesus didn't even exist, that he was like the Tooth Fairy. But when people hear the truth, what a joy to see the scales fall from their eyes.

Welcome to Politics by Faith. Thanks for being here. Someone asked me yesterday or two days ago. So what are you doing for Thanksgiving? And I said, Oh, I don't know. 

What are you like? 

What are you doing for the Fourth of July Thanksgiving? It's like forever away. You're talking about it's a week away. 

So I say that here because in the next couple of days, our episodes, we will have a celebration of the Puritans and our pilgrims, my favorite people. Oh, love the pilgrims. I can't speak enough about the Pilgrims. They're the best. They're just the best. And I will prove it over the next few days when we do a humble attempt to celebrate these amazing people. 

This is our heritage. These Pilgrims are our heritage. It is a crime, purposeful, to disconnect us from these people who founded this country. These are our true founders. We talk about our founding fathers. These are our founding grandfathers. 

They did incredible things and for all the right reasons. So we'll talk about them in the days to come. I want to share this here, including the preacher, the main preacher of the church, these Puritans, because the Puritans, they started in England, of course, but then they went to Amsterdam for 12 years and things didn't go well there. We'll talk about why next time. And when they went to England, or when they went to New England, there was a sermon that the preacher gave from the boat about Ezra 821. 

So we'll talk about that. 

But I want to play this instead, and maybe this can be encouraging to you before we go into Thanksgiving gatherings. This is a video of Jillian Michaels and Victor Davis Hanson. That's a fun video, and I don't know how much you can tell it from listening to it. But Jillian Michaels, who, by the way, is married, married to a woman, she's been going out with him. conservative kind of awakening. How shocked she is as VDH goes into the historical confirmation of Jesus outside of the Bible itself. 

And Jillian Michaels is blown away. She's never heard this stuff before, can't believe that this was true, but also loves it at the same time. 

Jesus the Magician was written by a scholar at Columbia that showed that, I don't necessarily agree with his thesis, but there were a lot of people that were traveling magicians, and Christ was the best one, and that also bothered the Romans, and he was able to create mass populist Sermon on the Mount stuff. And then the message, you've got to remember that the message... 

I thought we didn't even know this guy. This is going to infuriate people, and I'm so sorry, and I stay out of it. But I thought we weren't even really sure whether or not Jesus existed, and the apostles wrote this stuff hundreds of years later. 

No, no, the Romans knew. We have Roman documents completely separate from religion that he was a magnetic, he was a romantic, wonderful person to the people who knew him and he had staged a revolution and that that presented a problem in this troublesome Province and how the Romans ran Judea as they ran everything they had client Kings Herod So they would go to the Jews or the Gaul anybody and say you're going to be the regent here This is the protocol. We have Roman legions to keep you in line, but we want this and it's basically a question of taxes control and in exchange for that we give you roads and aqueducts and habeas corpus and Civilization and that was a deal. 

So the way by the way that we go into the developing world. 

Yes, and so there were Regent Kings and then you always had a provincial Roman official, like Pilate, who had a temporary, you know, assignment, and he was the ultimate judge. So, his whole point was, I don't want to get into this stuff between this new offshoot of Judaism called Christianity, and this guy Jesus and the Orthodox, but I do know, I don't know what he did, but I know that it's troublesome. Both, he's got a new religion, and unfortunately it's turned the other cheek. Brotherhood of man, blessed are the meek, blessed are the poor. That's not Roman. 

We have a Roman military ethos, that the strong inherit the earth, and if an enemy offends you, you hit him twice. And this guy is preaching something very different. And oh, by the way, the local Orthodoxy doesn't like him either. So we'll just wash my hands of it and say, how do we kill two birds with one stone, i . e. not have them angry at us so that and not have this revolutionary new sect, so what we'll do is, we'll get Pilate and he'll say, well, I washed my hands of it, but since these guys think he's guilty, I'll let him kill him, and then we'll blame them. 

But at the same time, with the Apostles and the next two generations, they were being killed systematically in Rome by Romans that had nothing to do with Jews. 

Right, right. 

Yeah, so when anybody says that the Jews killed kill Jesus, it's more like the Romans wanted a quiet province and they did not like Jesus and what he represented was anti -Roman. It was a popular revolt they thought could happen. And there was an orthodoxy that they had come to terms with and used them to keep the peace. So they said basically, well, in Judaism, in Judea, the Jewish establishment, the religious establishment doesn't like him any more than we do. So we can get rid of him and then say the Pharisees basically did it. 

This is so wild. I'm sorry, I know it's not wild for people who know this information, but I genuinely thought, okay, the Jews had the Old Testament, the Torah, and then maybe there was this guy Jesus. The apostles wrote stuff, but the first guy who wrote something was like, you know, 90 or so years later. We think maybe there's some Dead Sea Scrolls, kind of mentioned this guy Jesus, but then constantly had a, what, the Council of Nicaea or something like that? 

He had a vision of the Milliman Bridge that all of a sudden he saw crossing the sky and he flipped the entire empire. So under Diocletian and other recent emperors, they were completely banned and they were executed because they were too revolutionary. Christianity because they could deal with the Jews because the Jews Judaism was localized in a particular area at that time and It was a particular group of people but Christianity said that anybody could get to heaven Through the combination of what would become the New Testament in the Old Testament And so the Romans said you know what this has an ability to be it's kind of like what Islam would do later This can infect everybody because it's not it's not ethnic or anything It's very dangerous and then all of a sudden Constantine was flipped 300 years after the death of Christ. And then they took all of the Roman rituals that had been used to oppress Christianity and turned them upside down. So when you see a cardinal with a purple and the pointed hat, that's all from the Roman legate and provincial system. And when you look even today, the organization of the Roman Catholic Church, it mimics the divisions in the empire. 

They took the whole administrative system that the empire had, and they flipped it over to advance and institutionalize Christianity. 

Okay. 

It's a fun clip, isn't it? So Jillian Michaels is, again, married to a woman. She's been on the left her whole life, but I think just through default. And she's going in this process of awakening. I say default because again, the opening comment she said was, wait, wait, I thought we weren't even sure that Jesus existed. It's one thing to say that Jesus wasn't actually the son of God. 

It's another to deny that he was even a person who walked around. So Jillian Michaels is going through a bit of an awakening on her own. By the way, I want to take back the word woke, or I shouldn't say take it back because we never made it up the word woke, but I want woke to be a word. us because it's actually a biblical concept first. Ephesians 5 .14 says, for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead and Christ will shine on you. 

Awake, awake, O sleeper. What's a sleeper? The Greek word here for sleeper is someone who yields to sloth and sin or someone who is indifferent to their salvation. So wake up, you who are indifferent to your salvation. Arise from the dead and Christ will shine on you. Wake up. 

Romans 13 11. Besides this, you know the time that the time has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. " Isaiah 52, 1 says, Awake, awake, put on your strength, O Zion, put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city, for there shall no more come into you the uncircumcised and the unclean. But awake, awake, wake up. 

This is the original wake. Be awakened from your spiritual sleep. Be awakened from the darkness that you live on. Get the scales off your eyes and see the truth. It's time to be woke. Anyway, that's why I want to take back the word woke. 

So just about the history of Jesus, that Jesus actually was a real person. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, they wrote their gospels after Jesus died, rose, and ascended. Mark was 40 years later. Matthew was 50 years later. John was 65 years later. Matthew and John knew Jesus personally. 

Mark was close with Peter. Luke was close with Paul. They all based their writings on witness testimony. Of course, it was all the work of the Holy Spirit. But I love Jillian Michaels being aghast at Jesus even being a real person. I distinctly remember, this was before I was a Christian, I was in a seminar in college, and I remember this room, I don't even know how we got up because it was about the Vietnam War or something, but everyone in this seminar, so like 15 people, were talking about how Jesus wasn't real. 

Now, I wasn't a Christian at the time at all, but everyone was talking about how he wasn't real, like he was like the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus, like straight up not real. never existed, not a real person, figment of our imagination. 

All of it. 

All of him. I remember thinking, hey, I'm not a Christian, but he was definitely like a guy. He was definitely like a real person that walked around. Liar, lunatic, or lord. These people in college say he didn't even exist. But there were a lot of historians who admitted that Jesus existed. 

And they were contemporaries of Jesus Tacitus. Roman historian wrote about Jesus in 116 AD, wrote about the persecution of Christians. The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus wrote just within a few decades of Jesus's death, he talked about Jesus. Pliny the Younger mentioned Jesus as well in his writings. He wrote about how Christians would meet regularly and sing songs to Christ as to a God. Actually, I'm going to quote this, just so you don't think I'm making this up. 

This is Pliny the Younger writing to the Emperor Trajan, 112, 112 AD. Pliny said, It is my custom, sir, to refer to you in all cases where I do not feel sure for who can better direct my doubts or inform my ignorance. I have never been present at any legal examination of the Christians, and I do not know, therefore, what are the usual penalties passed upon them, or the limits of those penalties, or how searching and inquiry should be made. I have hesitated a great deal in considering whether any distraction should be made. according to the ages of the accused, whether the weak should be punished as severely as the more robust, whether if they renounce their faith they should be pardoned." " So he's like, hmm, we've got these Christian people, how should we punish them? And what's too far? Does it matter if they're old or young? What if they're weak or strong? What if they renounce their faith, should we pardon them? Or whether the man who has once been a Christian should gain nothing by recanting. So if they, if they recant, should we let them go? Or nah, anytime you even mention, you know, say that Jesus is Lord, that's it for you, no matter what. Whether the name itself, even though otherwise innocent of crime, should be punished or only the crimes that gather around it. So should you get them for worshiping Jesus or should you get them for all these other crimes? In the meantime, this is the plan which I have adopted in the case of those Christians who have been brought before me. I ask them whether they are Christians. If they say yes, then I repeat the question a second and a third time, warning them of the penalties it entails, and if they still persist, I order them to be taken away to prison until the Roman governor has arrived." 

He goes on and says, "...but they declared that the sum of their guilt or their error only amounted to this, that on a stated day they had been accustomed to meet before daybreak and to recite a hymn among themselves to Christ, as though he were a God, and that so far from binding themselves by oath to commit any crime, their oath was to abstain." from theft, robbery, adultery, and from breach of faith. " So he's like far from this being like a criminal group. Their oath was to not break the law and not to deny trust, money placed in the keeping when called upon to deliver it. When the ceremony was concluded, it had been their custom to depart and meet again to take food. Same thing we do now after church, after church lunch. But it was no special character and quite harmless. 

And they had ceased this practice after the edict in which in accordance with your orders, I had forbidden all secret societies. It's great. That was only like year 112, he wrote that letter. Jesus was real. The Christians who knew him were willing to go to their death. I'm very encouraged by the spreading of the gospel and the truth of Jesus and God to many people. 

There'll be many new people who are gonna hear the truth for really the first time, even though they've grown up in a so -called Christian country. And I'm encouraged when I hear stories like Jillian Michaels here who are amazed by what they've never heard before and curious to know more. 

It's great. 

Let me give you one of my favorite facts about Jesus that when, when I was not a Christian, I was reading my first apologetics book, Frank Turk, not enough faith to be an atheist. It makes the point that all the new Testament documents were written just within a few decades of Jesus's crucifixion. And there are 5 ,300 Greek manuscripts of the new Testament, 5 ,300. And still people are like, I don't know if he existed. Does anyone question if Plato existed? Anyone like, I don't know about that Plato guy. 

I don't think he was real. There are only 250 known manuscripts of Plato's works that survive. And those date back, even though he was alive in about 400 BC, those date back to the year 900. So you've got like 1300 years between the actual Plato, like Plato the guy. 1 ,300 years before Plato the god. and the earliest documents we have of his. 

1 ,300 years and no one questions Plato's existence. Yet for Jesus, these are contemporaries who wrote of him and people are like, I don't think so. And again, it's one thing to say you don't think he's Lord or God and all, like that's fine. The son of God, but it's another bit like, I don't think he exists. 

It's great. 

So super grateful, more people being woke, the good woke, the biblical woke. And let's just pray for more. I may have read Titus 3 the other day. I don't know if I did, but even if I did, it's worth it again. I love this section. He says, remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities. 

Talking to Titus and his church. Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, to show perfect courtesy towards all people. And that's what Pliny was talking about. He's like, ah, man, these guys are like really good people. I don't even know what to get them on. But here's the best part. 

For we ourselves, were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people. " We can't be boastful about those things. who are not Christians yet, or who are new and working through it. 

We can't be boastful because that was us not long ago. And also don't be discouraged by those who scoff, who don't believe in the truth of Jesus in the Bible. The fools will scoff. 

That's fine. 

But you also never know whose eyes you can help open, just like yours were. Praise God. Hopefully that's encouraging as we go into this Thanksgiving season. Maybe have some more interactions and encounters with people. You never know. Mike Slater, diallocals .  com, transcript. and no commercials over there. Mike Slater out, Locals .

Some details about the would-be Trump assassin came out, and it's too predictable. There is too much degeneracy in our culture today. It all has to be rooted out. 

Welcome to Politics by Faith. Thank you for being here. I just picked up this book, The Existence and Attributes of God, by Stephen Charnock, written in the 1600s by this wonderful Puritan preacher. Like, just a couple pages in. But I got a lot of underlines already. I'll just start off with this line. 

When men deny the God of purity, they must be polluted in soul and body and grow brutish in their actions. When the sense of religion is shaken off, all kinds of wickedness are eagerly rushed into, whereby they become as loathsome to God as putrefied carcasses are to men. " He didn't hold back, didn't hold back. There's a section about this scripture right here, Psalm 14 1. The fool has said in his heart there is no God. It's a fool. 

It's what a fool says. They are corrupt. They have done abominable works. There is none who does good. That's my intro to any topic we could possibly imagine in the realm of politics. It's like, spin around, put a blindfold on, spin around, throw a dart in any direction. 

We're like, great, we'll go that way and go anywhere we want. Let's go this way. New York Post has a story about the guy who was a millimeter away from murdering the president in Butler, Pennsylvania. And it's about how the FBI committed a live omission, saying, oh, we know nothing about this guy's political political motivations from online. Kids warning, if there's any kids listening right now. On one of his accounts, he went by they them. 

So there's some transgender stuff. He also was a furry into this furry stuff. So furry is so wicked and deviant. Actually, the online community is called deviant art. It's like that one website online, it's like his feminist website, it's called Jezebel. They're like, oh man, they literally actively on their own chose to name their website after the most wicked woman ever to have lived. 

And here we have a website where they went out, they called themselves deviant art. Like the pride parade calls themselves pride. It's like they're not even hiding any of this. It's all in the open. Furries are people who dress up like animals as a fetish. So he was engaging in some of this online. 

So total degenerate. The word degenerate, It's interesting, we have to have a pretty firm understanding of this word. On my radio show, this was one of the school shooters, I forget even know what, and a woman called in and said, because we're talking about demons, and she made the point that the demons, demons see weakness, they see prey, and they went after it. And you think of someone who has grown up their whole life with broken family and a school system that she's accommodates every violence or antisocial degenerate whim for 13 years, K through 12. 13 years of no accountability, no masculinity, no discipline, no guardrails, pure poison poured into their brains constantly. Throw in maybe some other horrors and abuse in there, just wicked depraved evil for their entire childhood. 

Of course, that person's soul is going to be ripe for the picking. The word degenerate, the original dictionary definition from Noah Webster, 1828, is to become worse, to decay in good qualities, to pass from a good to a bad or worse state. In the natural world, plants and animals degenerate when they grow to a less size than usual or lose a part of the valuable qualities which belong to the species. In the moral world, men degenerate when they decline in virtue or other good qualities. Manners degenerate when they become corrupt. A coward is a man of degenerate spirit. 

" Isn't that great? And because the original dictionary, Noah Webster, was such a strong Christian, one of our founding fathers, almost every dictionary word has a Bible verse. And he quotes Jeremiah 221. And this is about Israel pursuing false gods, as usual. And Jeremiah says, I had planted you a noble vine, a seed of highest quality. How then have you turned before me into the degenerate plant of an alien vine, degenerate. 

One could say the same about America. Once a shining city upon a hill, how we have turned into a degenerate plant. Now a little added spin to this. The Latin root of the word means birth or descent. So there's a connotation of falling away from the quality of your ancestors. Genius is birth or descent and de means off or away from. 

So genius, degenerate. So you're falling away from your birth. Isn't that interesting? Now I don't know if this stood out to you in the Noah Webster's dictionary definition. The plant. They used the word degenerate to describe a plant. 

It was one of the definitions. And then Jeremiah was also about a plant. 

That's interesting. 

isn't it? So in this book, The Existence and Attributes of God by Stephen Charnock, here's what he says about the word, about the fool. He says the fool, a term in scripture signifying a wicked man. Isn't that interesting? So a fool is not someone who's aloof. A fool is someone who's wicked. 

Also used by the heathen philosophers to signify a vicious person. And then it has a Hebrew word that's coming from a different Hebrew word, signifies the extinction, of life in men, animals and plants. So the word and the Hebrew word is taken a plant that hath lost all that juice, which made it lovely and useful. So a fool is one that had lost his wisdom and right notion of God and divine things, which were communicated to man by creation, one dead in sin, degeneracy. And there's all types of degenerate behavior and it's all wicked. And it has every culture, every group of people. 

It knows no race. There's no bounds of race or income bracket. There's all types. of degeneracy and degenerate behavior. None of it's good. You know, we all know for God to love the world, that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. 

We know that. Everyone knows that line. But how many people quote the next line? Let me just jump a few lines down. We'll go to verse 19. And this is the judgment. 

The light has come into the world and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. People love for everyone who does wicked things, hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his work should be exposed. But whoever whoever what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God." " Darkness, light, degeneracy, virtue. I don't know when this will hit fully the way it needs to. 

I pray we're in the beginnings of it because this isn't enough wherever we're at right now. We need such a proper revolution in this country. We did a great show today on SiriusXM. Three hours of the economy, basically. It was great. But make America great again cannot be GDP. 

And I want the economy to do great and all that, but that cannot be it. We need to root out degeneracy in this country. We need to get out and get rid of the darkness. We need to turn the lights on. Scales need to fall from people's eyes. We need to not only make America great again, but we need to aspire to something bigger again. 

I think this is a place here on this podcast where we can talk it out, figure it out. and hopefully spread the word. Mikeslater . locals . com is my website. We just put the transcript up there and no commercials as well.

What is our responsibility to upend the entire economic order of America to accommodate for people's laziness? And, what is our duty to praise God for anything we're ever capable of doing?

Okay, politics by faith. Thanks for being here. We had someone call into the Sirius XM show today who I'm not sure if he was the owner or a manager, pretty high up guy who said he can't find good work. He can't find people with hard skills or soft skills, hard skills. I asked him, I was like, well, what do you mean? Like what kind of hard skill? 

What are people, what are Americans not capable of doing? He said, uh, operate and read a tape measure, basic math. And I don't, I think the soft skills are worse. Like that's more concerning. that people don't have soft skills of showing up on time or caring just a little bit, taking a little initiative, a little ownership, wanting to finish the job for the job's sake, just because it is good to finish. Thinking that something is, you know, that's not my problem. 

But that attitude, you know, after Zoran and a bunch of other Democrats won the election a week or so ago, it seems to be a common thought here that this next year, Trump and everyone really needs to focus on the economy. We got to get prices down, got to get the economy humming, got to get wages up, got things got to be good out there in the economy. That's true. But how much of the problems with our economy are so foundationally broken? How much of the problems of our economy, just laziness and maybe not even late, but just our, whatever this is, whatever the sin is, whatever the vice is. And I'm not letting the fat cats off the hook. 

There's plenty of blame to go around. Here's what I was, why I was thinking about this. I saw this, uh, this podcast called financial audit. And I watch these little shorts every once in a while. This guy is broke. He's in debt. 

He does DoorDash. He's got two kids, 10 month old and another kid and a wife. He does DoorDash. He has DoorDash, DoorDash to his car while he's DoorDashing. He said it takes two hours of DoorDashing in order to pay for the DoorDash. So that guy, so lazy and like pathetic. 

But then he's going to complain that he doesn't own a home and he'll complain that he's 40 years old and doesn't have a home and doesn't have any capital. He's in debt. And you're like, listen, man, what do you what do you want me to do? This is a serious question. What is my and our obligation to completely rewrite the entire economic order for people like this? How many bills must we pass? 

Do I have to command and demand our president and Congress people to write bills in order to help people like him? I need to change. We need to make it so home ownership is easier for him. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. There's plenty of biblical wisdom here about how you can't force people to do the right thing. Even when it's right in front of them. 

We're going to do more on Monday's radio show about this and we can report back here. What's the root of this? What is the root of this laziness other than just sin? And how do we get rid of this? Another part of this is our materialist culture where our identity and our life is all about money and how much we have. And we always need more. 

Now we have credit cards. We can get as much as we want, but no one wants to work for it. And then they complain when they don't have it. It's a mess. I read Mark 3 this morning. Mark 3 might apply. 

This might be too much of a stretch. That's fine if it is. If you don't think it's a stretch and you're like, wow, that was a great analysis. Take it. If you think it's a stretch, ignore the first part of this and let's just enjoy Mark 3 verses 1 through 6. Here it is. 

And he, Jesus, entered the synagogue again. And a man was there who had a withered hand. A withered hand? What's a withered hand? This guy's hand was paralyzed. Didn't work, shriveled up, and he couldn't make a living back then. 

So he's probably super poor as well. Withered hand. So they watched him, Jesus, closely, whether he would heal him on the Sabbath so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man with the withered hand, step forward. Then he said to them, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill? But they kept silent. 

And when he had looked around at them with anger, being grieved by the hardness of their hearts, He said to the man, stretch out your hand. And he stretched it out and his hand was restored as whole as the other. Then the Pharisees went out and immediately plotted with the Herodians against him, how they might destroy him. So we've got a couple of really interesting things here. If Jesus entering the synagogue, the critics of Jesus were there and they were watching him closely. They knew of Jesus. 

They knew what he could do. They didn't question if he could heal this man's hand. It was just if he was going to do it on the Sabbath. They were hoping it would so that they could accuse him. Isn't that interesting? So they knew of Jesus, they knew what he could do, they didn't question it. 

but none of that brought them, none of knowing what Jesus could do brought them any closer to loving him. I heard it said it was as if a man could fly, but the authorities wanted to know if he had a pilot's license. Do you imagine that? Do you imagine someone flies, someone's flying around like a bird and you're like, I don't know if he's allowed to do that. That's, he needs to check in with the FAA on that one. Let's kill him. 

Like, as opposed to what are you doing? It didn't matter that he was healing people. It was that Jesus was doing something that was taking away their power. And these men had hard hearts. It says that Jesus looked at them with anger, grieved by the hardness of their hearts. You don't hear often or think often about Jesus being angry, but here's the part I wanted to highlight here. 

Jesus said to the man, stretch out your hand. 

Well, hold on. 

How can he stretch out his hand? It's withered. That's the point of the story. Well, first of all, one interesting point too, Jesus said to the man, step forward. So the man's feet work. And his feet work well enough to even bring him to the synagogue. 

So his feet work, praise God for that. But his hand doesn't. But Jesus still says, stretch out your hand. Can't, it's withered. This is Adam Clark, around 1790s or so. He said, this is Bible commentary. 

He said, this man might have reasoned thus, Lord, my hand is withered. How then can I stretch it out? You make it whole first, Jesus. And then afterwards, I'll do as you command. This may appear reasonable, but in his case, it would have been foolishness. At the command of the Lord, he made the effort. 

and in making it, the cure was effective. So he healed the man's hand, and instead of the Pharisees saying, that was awesome, we love you, Jesus, they went immediately to these other people to destroy him. Can't please everyone, can you? This other group, they were not religious. They were Jews who loved the king, King Herod. Got to go kill Jesus now. 

Tons to focus on here. I just want to highlight the faith that it took for this man to stretch out his withered hand. Martin Lloyd -Jones says the ultimate cause of all spiritual depression is unbelief. For if it were not for unbelief, even the devil could do nothing. I wanted to bring all these together here because A, we need to focus on Jesus, less on stuff. Talking to me here. 

And two, we need to thank God for our ability to do things, to do anything. Every single part of me is withered without blessings from God. All of me is withered. Physically, spiritually, every single part of me is withered. So the fact that I can do anything ever, praise God, but it's got to be Sinful, isn't it? If you have the ability and you don't, what a waste, what an insult to God. 

I think it's very important that we encourage people to do as much as they can with their God given abilities. We should rebuke those who do not and praise those who are. Okay, quick time out here. That was the end of the podcast. I stopped recording. I was about to edit in the music before and after. 

I got distracted with something. My TV producer, Matt, sent me a text and said, Jonathan Edwards. This is exactly what happened 10 seconds ago. I said, Jonathan Edwards, what about him? He goes, that was the link I sent you. And I said that wasn't the right link. 

And he's like, oh, let me send you the right link. He sent me the right link. And here's a quote. He sent me a quote from Jonathan Edwards. It's like, oh, this is the perfect quote for what I was just talking about. This is Jonathan Edwards. 

Sin, like some powerful astringent, contracted his soul to the very small dimensions of selfishness. And God was forsaken, and fellow creatures forsaken, and man retired within himself. and became totally governed by narrow and selfish principles of feelings. Self -love became absolute master of his soul, and the more noble and spiritual principles of his being took wings and flew away. " Isn't that it? James 3 .16, where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there's disorder, there's disorder in every evil thing. 

Selfish ambition can either mean I'm going to achieve all the money and get all the money and fame in the world for me, Or it can be the opposite of that in a secular sense, but it's the same idea. It's all about me, me, me, my feelings. Even if that's laziness, which leads to poverty. Either way, you're worshiping the self. Great last second, last second shot from Jonathan Edwards, rate buzzer beater. We had a buzzer beater right at the end there from Jonathan Edwards. 

The idea is whatever we do in all things, glorify God. mikeslater . locals . com. Transcript commercial free on the website, mikeslater .