The Senators are back from their much-needed vacation. They work so hard that they needed a good two weeks off. Is the sarcasm thick enough? Why are Republican Senators the worst? They can't pass obvious legislation like the SAVE Act or even pass a funding bill. It's because they haven't followed Jesus' message in Mathew 5:38

Welcome to Politics by Faith. This is where we take the news of the day and we bring it to the Bible so we can walk away with peace and perspective. New headlines every day, but Ecclesiastes says it's not the new under the sun. So thanks for being here to get the true story. The true story today is Republican senators are the worst. They're just, there's, I know, I'm sorry. 

I mean, uh, uh, the news of the day is reconciliation bills and DHS ICE funding and the SAVE Act and filibuster. The story of the day is these Republican senators are just Awful. I know it's not much of a news flash, perhaps, but I would just like to, it's a little commiserating here about how absolutely frustrating these people are. They pretend like they're on your side. They hide, they hide behind the fact they're like, Oh, we really want to do this conservative thing that we said we want to do. And you elected us for, but we need seven Democrats. 

And then we say, well, there's actually a way where you don't need seven Democrats. Can't do it that way. Nah, I'm against, I'm against that, but oh man, just, oh, I'm with you. You're like, definitely not with us. The analogy I used to say was if there's a mountain, right? You need 60 votes to pass a bill. 

There's this big mountain. Oh, we got to cross that mountain. We're not going to be able to do it. I'm like, okay. Um, but there's also this Valley. You can just walk right through this Valley right here to pass the SAVE Act too. 

Nah, I'm not going to do that. Because this mountain is so hard to climb. We can't get seven Democrats. Yeah, you don't need seven Democrats. Just do this thing. Just get rid of the filibuster. 

No, I can't do that. Guys, see how demoralizing this is? The reason this is on my mind is because we talked to Senator Rick Scott from Florida. He's one of the 

good guys. 

But, gosh, it's so annoying. Someone called in and said, because the word frustrated isn't quite it. And someone called in and said, Slater, I think you're looking for disenfranchised. And that's part of it, sure. But I'm trying to find more of an emotional state. And my emotional state is one of seething disdain. 

I'm full of disdain. Let me look up Webster's Dictionary here. Got to use Webster's Dictionary 1828 . 

com. 

Dane. 

That's a good word. 

To think unworthy. 

That's right. I think these senators are unworthy of the positions they hold. To deem worthless, for sure. They're worthless. To consider to be unworthy of notice, care, regard, esteem. Unworthy of one's character. 

To scorn. To condemn. The man of elevated mind disdains a mean action. Yeah, that's right. He disdains a society of worthless men. He disdains to corrupt the innocent or insult the weak. 

Yeah. I'm full of disdain. They can't get anything done. And they like it that way. There was a CNN story we shared a couple weeks ago, I don't know if we played it here, of a woman who was planning on seeking asylum. She was in the process of seeking asylum using the CBP One app. 

And then Trump canceled all appointments made for asylum hearings made through the app. So CNN did the story on this woman. who's she's from i think guatemala and she's still in mexico she was on her way to america now she's in mexico and the the funny part of the story she's like i'm gonna wait until trump's gone to apply for asylum and you're like well that's not what asylum is you can't like if you're fine here which clearly you are she owns like a little restaurant that you can't just And she said the question was, why did you leave Guatemala? She's like, there's no jobs. Like, well, that's not asylum. 

Right now, the CBP one app was created in 2020 to streamline trucking cargo going across the border. It was made to make crossing the border for cargo more efficient. But the Biden administration took the CBP one app and they turned it into something totally different for people where they could claim asylum anywhere in the world. That's not what it was intended to be, of course. So. That's what Biden did. 

And there are 50 ,000 people a month for two years who use this to claim asylum and made it across our borders. 50 ,000 a month for two months straight. So Trump wins and he says, we're not doing that anymore. We're canceling all of it. There are 900 ,000 claims for asylum and Trump canceled them all. Well, a federal judge, Alison Burroughs, says you can't do that. 

Trump can't do that. So one point of frustration is you can have a president, Biden, who says, we're going to completely recreate this app to let in a million aliens, million foreigners legally. And the president can do that. And Allison says, that's great. But then the next president comes in and says, you can't do that anymore. We're not doing that. 

Oh, Allison is against it. 

Allison thinks it's terrible. Okay. Well, well, what? So that's frustrating. But what could solve this very quickly is if the legislative branch passed a bill, but they don't ever, they could pass a bill. about all this defining citizenship and defining birthright citizenship. 

They could define all these things properly and pass these, but they just don't. And what's broken about this scenario is we have a legislative branch that doesn't get anything done. They can't even pass the budget, which is the fundamental thing to do, right? We have a judicial branch full of Alisons who are going way beyond their scope and authority. All we're left with is the executive branch. 

So if we ever want anything to get done, it's going to have to happen through a more powerful executive branch, which I don't care for ideally, but it's obviously the direction we're going. And I put most of the blame on Congress for being pathetic. So someone called into the show today and said, Slater, the reason why Congress people, senators, especially are like this is because, and then the members of the unit party is because they just want to stay there and get rich and be comfortable. And that's true. Of course, it's a cushy job. If you're a narcissist who likes that sort of thing, it's not terrible to me, but if you're wired for that, then this is like a great job. 

In the past, you were reluctant to take this position before the 17th amendment, the directional direct election of senators, the state houses. voted for senators to go to DC and represent the state legislature. That's what the senators were. And when we got rid of that process and went to direct election of senators, it jacked up the whole system because the senator's allegiance is now focused on DC. It used to be on their own state assemblies. That's who they were beholden to because that's who put them in office. 

That's who voted for them. It was the state legislatures. And the people voted for the state legislatures, but the state legislators voted on the senators to go represent them. Now they don't have that. So now the senators are there to represent DC. They're there to represent the national government. 

And And that's not what it is. The gravitational pull is now to D . C. and all the lobbying and all the fame and power and comfort that comes from D . C. 

is now centralized there where it used to be centered. The gravitational pull used to be on their own state. So it's all messed up. All right. So let's go to the Bible. So picked up this book yesterday sitting on my desk. 

It's an amazing book. You have to go get it immediately. 

I'm going to call it Required Reading. 

Studies in the Sermon on the Mount by Dr. Martin Lloyd -Jones. It's wonderful. And I picked it up yesterday. It's been a long time since I read it, so I got to read it all over again. So good. So good. 

I picked it up yesterday because, you know, yesterday's episode we did about the spat between the president and the pope. By the way, After I recorded the episode, I read the tweet from the Pope about embracing the Muslims in Algeria. You're like, oh man, yikes. We'll see how it goes. Maybe we'll do another episode on that. But I would have put that in yesterday's episode if I saw it before. 

So we did the episode yesterday on the Pope and the President, and the Pope's criticizing the President for not choosing peace. 

Whatever, ridiculous. 

And I thought, you know what, I want to go see what Dr. Martin Luther King says about turn the other cheek. That's Matthew 538, Sermon on the Mount. So grab the book. So Martin Luther goes through every line of the Sermon on the Mount and breaks it all down. It's brilliant. So let me quote here. 

538. You have heard that it was said, this is Jesus. You have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you, 

and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who begs from you and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you. " Okay, so let's break this down. So eye for an eye, right? Jesus said you've heard it say eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. Almost everyone misinterprets that, certainly pagans who hate Christians and hate Christianity and hate the Bible. And what they do is they say that Eye for an eye, tooth for tooth is bad because you people want to seek revenge, right? Like Gandhi, there's no evidence that Gandhi ever said it, but everyone quotes Gandhi as saying, oh, an eye for an eye will make the whole world blind. But the point of eye for an eye was not so that we go seek revenge. It was to limit the revenge that is instinctual in humans and to enact a system of proportional justice. Meaning if someone pokes you in the eye, you can't kill them. That would be disproportionate. Justice has to be proportional. We see this principle in our constitution. No cruel, unusual punishments, no excessive bail, no excessive fines imposed. I believe it's the eighth amendment. So eye for an eye, tooth for tooth, like nothing beyond that. So it's not, it's not a call for revenge. It's a limit to revenge or, uh, I would call it portional justice. But then Jesus says, but I say to you. do not resist the one who is evil, but if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also." Now, Martyn Lloyd -Jones brilliantly goes into this whole thing about how this is for individuals, not for the state, not for the government, not for the military. It's not about the death penalty. 

It's not about pacifism. This is about the individual. it's a key point this is but the individual christian and their reaction to injustice done to them now once you realize that this leads to a very important question that i guarantee you i shouldn't guarantee you i bet you asked yourself without even noticing this is what happened to me i asked myself this question but it was like really deep down and i could barely hear its voice until martin lloyd jones pulled it out of me i was like oh yeah i was wondering that actually i did but it was i didn't even here let me see if it Let me see if this happened to you. So I'm gonna read that section again, Matthew 5, 38. You've heard it said, you've heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for tooth. But I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil. 

But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, give to him your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who begs from you and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you. So my question is, why are all these seemingly unrelated things all jammed together like this? Like we always, everyone stops at, you know, turn the other cheek, but he keeps going. 

This is the middle of a thought, which by the way, is in the middle of a sermon, which matches the same theme that I want to make clear in just a second as well. But, but it seems like he has all these totally unrelated things all jammed together. Like it's like Jesus had a bunch of things to say and he forgot he was running out of time or like the end of a sermon. He's like, I can tell people are getting a little, a little antsy here. Let me just, let me just throw everything in here at once. A bunch of random things. 

What is turning the other cheek have to do with giving away your cloak and having to do with going two miles when you don't want to go. two mile, you don't want to go any mile, right? What do those have to do with each other? Here's what ties it all together. It's about the emptying of the self. If you are truly a Christian, you must become dead. 

to self. Meaning if something bad happens to you, if there's an injustice done against you, your first human instinct, of course, is to attack, attack back, seek revenge. That is all fueled by the self. Similarly, your personal possessions, your cloak, it's about the self. If someone says, hey, let's go this way one mile, that's your self. Like they're trying to take you from where you want to be and where you want to go. 

And Jesus says, we'll go to go even further. But we don't want to do that because we want to be about the self. Because that's our natural state is to glorify the self and to protect ourselves. And when someone asks you for something, our instinct is to be like, no, that's mine. Why would I, why would I impoverish myself? It's all about self. 

So what Jesus is saying here is that if you want to be a disciple of mine, you have to become dead to yourself. If you want to be my disciple, you have to deny yourself. Everything about it, everything about you, all the rights to self, and you have to take up the cross and follow me. So we can bring it to the Pope. Again, it's not, it's not about this verse right here. It's not about pacifism. 

If you want to read about pacifism, go read Romans. If you want to hear about what Jesus thought about the Roman soldiers or whatever, there's other verses, other scriptures you can go to about that issue. This scripture, turning the other cheek, it's not about pacifism. It's not about the military. It's not about war. It's about dying to self. 

Now, why does our, back to the main topic here, why is our Senate so awful? Because they're all about the self. It's all about their power, their money, their prestige, their greed, their cloak, their power. Injustice is there, going where they want to go. It's all about me, me, me. Our founders set up the system, the constitution as justice. 

Adams said, for a moral and religious people. And in a Christian country, the only people who would become senators would be moral and religious people who are not about the self. So they would do the right thing. With moral and religious people, lobbyists would come knocking, job offers would come knocking, corruption deals would come knocking. In Swalwell's case, women would come, whatever. But the senator would already be dead to self. 

So all of these efforts would be useless. So if you want to have a Senate and a Congress that functions again, and beyond just DC, if you want to have anything in our society that's broken, you want to have it work again. We need to be a moral and religious people. And what does that mean exactly? You have to die to self. YouTube . 

com slash at politics by faith. If you haven't subscribed yet, I really appreciate it. It'd be amazing if you could subscribe over there at YouTube, trying to break into that algorithm so that we can together spread the word.

After the Pope criticised Trump's actions in Iran, the president said the Pope should focus more on being Pope and not a politician. What exactly was the Pope's criticism of Trump? And when the Pope referenced Isaiah 1, surely he wasn't suggesting Trump is anything like King Ahaz, right?

Welcome to Politics by Faith. It's where we take the news of the day, we bring it to the Bible so we can walk away with peace and perspective. There's new headlines every single day, but Ecclesiastes says there's nothing new under the sun. So thanks for being here to get the true story, the story of the day. President Trump attacks the Pope. That's what all the headlines are saying today anyway. 

So let's chat about it. It all started back about a week ago when the president wrote A Whole Civilization. We'll die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will. " He says, let me just keep reading. However, now that we have totally complete regime change where different, smarter, less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen. 

Who knows? We'll find out tonight. One of the most important moments in a long, complex history of the world. 47 years of extortion, corruption, and death will finally end. God bless the people of Iran. Now, we know how the rest of that story ended. 

It was like, tonight at eight o 'clock and it never happened, right? And then the left criticized Trump for chickening out. We talked about this. But the Pope was commenting on the president's message there. When the president wrote that, it never crossed my mind that he was going to nuke the people of Iran. But people with TDS took that literally. 

They really thought Trump was going to kill them all. Have you not been paying attention for the last 11 years? Don't you know? What Trump does? Don't you know how he does it? And then maybe more importantly here, don't you know who he's talking to? 

He was talking to the insane mullahs of Iran in a way that only they, and I shouldn't say only, in a way that they understand. And it got them to the table. Now, the negotiating table didn't work, as we then found out with the negotiations with J . D. Vance in Pakistan. So nothing came of that, which leads to the blockade. 

Let me explain this blockade real quick. Why this blockade, the president's blockade of the straighter who moves is different than when Iran had a blockade of straighter who moves. When Iran blocked the Strait of Hormuz, that stopped 20 -25 % of the world's oil from going to the rest of the world. About 20 -25 % of the world's oil goes through the Strait of Hormuz. When Trump blocks the Strait of Hormuz, he's only blocking Iranian ships. He's not blocking ships that want to go get oil from UAE, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, anywhere else in that area. 

Iran is only about 4 % of the world's oil. So when Iran stopped 25 % of the world's oil, that's going to affect things. That's a problem. But when Trump stops 4 % of the world's oil, Iran's oil, and only Iran's oil, well, that's not a problem at all. We could pick that up everywhere else or maybe even in Texas. So that's the difference with that. 

But anyway, I never thought that Trump was going to nuke Iran, never even crossed my mind. It was like a couple of days later when I was like, oh, wait, people thought People thought he was going to nuke Iran. Like, what are we talking about? That's what all the Trump trained people were thinking and MSNBC and apparently the Pope were thinking. The Pope said today, as we all know, there was this threat against all the people of all the people of Iran. This is truly unacceptable. 

No, it wasn't to the people of to all the people of Iran. Trump, Trump, not only has he never said anything bad about the people of Iran, he repeatedly has talked over and over about how brave the people of Iran are and how they're not like their leaders and how they need to, when the time is right, stand up and take their country back. He is doing this all for the Iranian people in a way that the Iranian people could then take over their country and be a normal country. The idea that he was ever going to kill them all is insane. The president saying he wants to kill all the people of Iran, that's not even a threat against the leaders of Iran because the leaders of Iran are happy to kill all the people of Iran. 

As we saw with the most recent round of protests a couple months ago, they killed 30 ,000, I believe 30 ,000 of their own people. So if Trump says, Hey, you leaders in Iran, if you don't knock it off, I'm going to kill all the Iranians. They'd be like, whatever. We don't care. That's fine. 

Go ahead and do it. 

We'd love it. 

Actually. We'd like it. It would save us some bullets. So it clearly wasn't directed. He was never going to kill the people of Iran. It's the leadership. 

That's obviously what he was talking about. But the Pope said, there are certainly issues of international law here. So only international law only applies to us. It doesn't apply to when Iran blocks the Strait of Hormuz. So we're the only ones who have to fight. But even more so a moral issue for the good of the whole entire population, the Pope said, I would like to invite everyone to truly think in their hearts about the many innocent people, so many children, so many elderly, completely innocent, who would also become victims of this escalation of a war that began from the very first days. 

This is Archbishop Paul Coakley. Tell me more. Tell me more about how you would stop the Iranians from getting a nuclear bomb, Archbishop. Talk. bomb. Pope Leo is weak on crime. 

This is the president's response to Bob. Pope Leo is weak on crime and terrible for foreign policy. He talks about fear of the Trump administration, but doesn't mention the fear that the Catholic church and all other Christian organizations had during COVID when they were arresting priests, ministers, and everybody else for holding church services, even when going outside and even being 10 and even 12 feet apart. I like his brother Louis much better than I like him because Louis is all MAGA. I forgot about him. I forgot about Bob's brother. 

He gets it and Leo doesn't. I don't want a pope who thinks it's okay for Iran to have a nuclear weapon. I don't want a pope who thinks... I don't want a pope who thinks it's terrible that America attacked Venezuela, a country that was spending massive amounts of drugs in the United States and even worse, emptying their prisons, including murderers, drug dealers, and killers in our country. And I don't want a pope who criticizes the president of the United States because I'm doing exactly what I was elected in the landslide to do, setting record low numbers in crime and creating the greatest stock market in history. The US should be thankful because as everyone knows, he was a shocking surprise. 

He wasn't on any list to be pope and was only put there by the church because he was an American and they thought that it would be the best way to deal with President Trump. I don't think that's wrong. If I wasn't in the White House, Leo wouldn't be in the Vatican. Unfortunately, Leo's weak on crime, weak on nuclear weapons, does not sit well with me, nor does the fact that he meets with Obama sympathizers like David Axelrod, a loser from the left who is one of those who want churchgoers and clerics to be arrested. Leo should get his act together as Pope, use common sense, stop catering to the radical left, and focus on being a great leader. not a politician. 

It's hurting him very badly, and more importantly, it's hurting the Catholic Church, President Donald J. Trump. " Okay, so what do we do with this? First, we must address the war concept here from the Pope. We can never fight a war ever. That's clearly not what the Bible says. We've talked about a lot of Old Testament examples of war. Just last week, we did a couple episodes on that. But even in the future, I'll use a Catholic saint, Thomas Aquinas, to prove that war is not always sinful. Aquinas said three things need be present. You should be in a position where you can declare war, like, for instance, a commander -in -chief. As the care of the common wheel, wheel is like welfare, is committed to those who are in authority, it is their business to watch over the common welfare of the city, kingdom, and province subject to them. says Trump, and just as it is lawful for them to have recourse to the sword in defending the common welfare against internal disturbances when they punish evildoers according to the words of the Apostle, Romans 13, 4, which says, But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. for he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer." So you have to be in a position to wage the war, which this president is. Second, a just cause is required. Namely, that those who are attacked should be attacked because they deserve it on account of some fault. Anyone want to question 47 years of Iran and the terrorism? 

that they've brought upon the world and their desire to have nuclear weapons. Thirdly, says Aquinas, it is necessary that the belligerents should have a rightful intention so that they intend the advancement of good or the avoidance of evil. True religion looks upon as peaceful those wars that are waged not for motives of aggrandizement or cruelty, but with the object of security. securing peace, of punishing evildoers, and of uplifting the good." " Absolutely 100 % believe that that is this president's intent. I don't know what Pope Leo thinks about those points from Thomas Aquinas, but I would be curious what he believes. Now, let's go into a different direction here. So Pope Leo, what he quoted in critique of the president is Isaiah 115. Isaiah 115 says, when you spread out your hands in prayer, this is God talking through Isaiah. When you spread out your hands in prayer, I hide my eyes from you. Even though you make many prayers, I am not listening. Your hands are full of blood. So this was written about, was written by again, Isaiah through Isaiah. Let me just quote verse one. This is the vision of Isaiah, the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. So these kings each had their problems. Ahaz was the worst, which we'll get to in a minute. So Isaiah had this prophecy. The Lord has spoken. I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me, people of Judah. The ox knows its owner. The donkey is a master's crib, but Israel does not know. My people do not consider. So we have a sinful nation here. A people laden with iniquity. A brood of evildoers, children who are corrupters. They have forsaken the Lord. They have provoked to anger." This is not good. 

Why should you be stricken again? Okay, so God wants the people to repent here. Why are you doing this? You will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick and the whole heart faints. the sole of the foot, even to the head. 

The more people rebel, the more bad things happen. Your country is desolate. Your cities are burned with fire. Strangers devour your land and your presence and is a desolate, and it is desolate as overthrown by strangers. So the daughter of Zion is left as a booth in a vineyard, as a hut in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city, unless the Lord of hosts had left us a very small remnant. We would have become like Sodom. 

We would have become like Gomorrah. So Judah was attacked by a bunch of other kingdoms. We're talking mostly about King Ahaz. But even then, God showed mercy to the point where in Sodom and Gomorrah, there were no survivors. Right. So unless the Lord of Hosts left us a very small remnant, we would have become like Sodom. 

We would have been made like Gomorrah. No one made it out as a lot and his family. But that's it. There are no survivors, Sodom and Gomorrah. And here's Isaiah saying that we should have been just like them. That's how bad they were. 

All right. So here's the part that the Pope quoted. We're getting to verse 15 here. I hear the word of the Lord. You rulers of Sodom give ear to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to me? 

This is God talking. Says the Lord, I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed cattle. I do not delight in the blood of bulls or the lamb of goats. When you come to appear before me, who has required this from your hand to trample my courts? Bring no more futile sacrifices. Incense is an abomination to me. 

The new moons, the Sabbath and the calling of assemblies. I cannot endure iniquity in the sacred meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts, my soul hates. They are trouble to me. I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes to you from you. Even though you make many prayers. 

will not hear your hands are full of blood that's what the Pope was talking about so this makes sense right so he's saying God is saying that a has here in this case it's just like you guys like Sodom and Gomorrah and you're doing these religious ceremonies but what's the point you're not you're not even close I'll hide my eyes from you and I won't even hear you as you quote -unquote pray so I don't know if the Pope was intending or explicitly compared Trump to King Ahaz. Ahaz was as bad as you get. So give me some proof. He burned his own children as a form of child sacrifice to Baal. That's bad. He built pagan altars across Judah. 

When Ahaz was attacked by Syria, Ahaz went to Damascus to meet with the king there. And he made offerings to their pagan gods because he's like, well, if they beat me, then their gods must be better than my God. Like that's a problem. Second Chronicles 28, 23, for he sacrificed to the gods of Damascus that had defeated him and said, because the gods of the king of Syria helped them, I will sacrifice to them that they may help me. But they were the ruin of him and all of Israel. Then he replaced the altar, which God gave Moses the instructions to build and built his own altar and then made sacrifices to that. 

Like he's as bad as you can get. Now, this was at a time when the people of Judah were in such a horrible state, they should have turned to God. But they didn't. They went deeper. Because of Ahaz's horrific leadership, they went deeper in their sin and their pagan idolatry. There's a point here to be made about rock bottom. 

We hear a lot about rock bottom. I think we put rock bottom on a pedestal, if you will. We bank too much on rock bottom. We're like, oh, well, things will get better when they hit rock bottom. Then when they hit rock bottom, then they'll trust God. Not necessarily. 

Didn't happen with Ahaz. Now, I don't know if Bob Pope here was saying that Trump is like King Ahaz, therefore God doesn't listen to him. I hope not. I hope that's not what he was doing. That's a horrifically inaccurate comparison. But I'll end on a positive note. 

What is true is that And I do believe this is a positive note. What is true is that our nation needs to repent for our sins. Forget about Trump. Forget about the Pope. We're talking about us and this country, our nations, our founders and the pilgrims. They talked about all the time, repenting for our sins. 

They talked about supplication. Supplication means you confess your sin, you admit your weakness, you ask for forgiveness, and then you ask for God's blessing. If we go continue to go down this road of Ahaz, we're only going to become more pagan. And I don't know how much God's mercy will last. The only way to be more blessed by God, the only way for God to show more mercy than he already has is for us to put him back in the center of our lives as individuals. And therefore, as a result of him being in the center of more individuals' lives, he'll be the center of our civic life as well. 

That's what I get from this drama is, oh, hey, let's not be anything like King Ahas or the people of Israel. who kept getting worse and worse and worse. And then when they hit rock bottom, kept going. We need to turn youtube . com slash at politics by faith.