MikeSlater
Politics • Spirituality/Belief • Culture
Our D-Day Tribute
Politics By Faith, June 6, 2024
June 06, 2024

As if words could do any justice to these men. My main takeaway: it was impossible. It shouldn't have worked. 


Welcome to politics by faith brought to you by the Patriot Gold Group. I just wanted to put here the segment we did on my radio show Breitbart News Daily on Sirius XM Patriot Simulcast on the First TV, 347 DirecTV, Pluto, Roku, Samsung, everywhere you stream anything, you can watch the First TV as well. But I wanted to give our D-Day tribute here, the best we could cobble together with words and hopefully there's something in here that's meaningful to you. Enjoy. Today is the

0:00:33
80th anniversary of D-Day. This is our attempt at some sort of tribute as if any words could even get any close. Years ago I talked to an army ranger who climbed the cliffs of Pointe du Hoc. This is a cliff that is overlooking the beaches of Normandy and there were giant guns on top of this cliff and they had to be taken out first and foremost had to be the first thing they did otherwise they were just gonna lob down on the Americans landing on the beaches and the whole thing would be over they'd have no chance.

0:01:14
So before anything else happened, before there was any landing, we needed to take out these pillboxes, these little concrete bunkers with a little hole in them, just big enough to shoot down on the beaches. So the plan was, we're gonna have these army rangers

0:01:30
land early in the morning when it's still dark out and somehow climb these enormous cliffs with ropes and then engage in hand-to-hand combat. I can't, like, if someone told me the plan,

0:01:44
I'd be like, what are you talking about?

0:01:45
That's, no, that's impossible, that's not gonna work.

0:01:48
But they, they're like, no, that's what we're gonna do.

0:01:50
So, they tried it. And everything went wrong. There was a storm, the currents were really strong, and they landed three miles off course. Three miles, that's not close. If you're driving right now, put your odometer,

0:02:19
reset it, and go three miles, that's how far off they were from where they needed to be. Okay, so you gotta hoof it over three miles to start off. But by the time they did that, the sun came up. So they lost the darkness, they lost the element of surprise.

0:02:35
And because they were all wet, the ropes, they had these ropes on the ends of these rockets, they're shooting them up on top of the cliffs, like grappling hooks, right? But they were wet now, so they were heavy. So many of them didn't make it up the ropes didn't make it up

0:02:52
so how are we gonna climb this thing now some of the ropes did so like okay great we'll climb these ropes but we're covered in mud we got barely move oh and there are now a bunch of Nazis on the top with machine guns shooting down on us but don't worry it's not that high of a cliff. It's only a hundred and ten feet. Which is a ten-story building.

0:03:19
That was the mission. That was the reality.

0:03:22
You kidding me? 225 men started. 77 were killed. It's amazing any of them survived that. That's impossible. That makes no sense but the mission was accomplished and D-Day could proceed.

0:03:50
So I was talking to a veteran, one of the men, I talked to one of the guys who did And I asked him if he's ever been back. He said yes, I've been back. He said he went back with his wife. Whatever, 30 years later. He went back and he said he put his feet over the edge of the cliff.

0:04:27
He walked to the edge of the cliff and he put his toes over the edge of the cliff and he looked down. And he said, there's no way we did that. There's no way we did that. And you would say the same thing. You can go now, you can go to Point du Hoc, I recommend you do.

0:04:46
You go check it out and you can do the exact same thing that this man did. Put your toes over the edge and look over the edge and you'll say the exact same thing. There's no way they did that. How could anyone ever do that? How did that possibly work? And there's a monument there now. There's a monument and it's so simple and all it says inscribed in this stone it says to the heroic ranger commandos Who under the command of Colonel James rudder of the first American division?

0:05:19
attacked and took possession of the point duhoc That's it

0:05:25
And at first I saw that I was like that's it

0:05:29
That what do you mean that's it? There's no story here. What do you mean that's it? And then I finally realized, no, no, no, there's so much beauty in that and just that. Every single World War II veteran I've ever talked to, every single one of them has said the exact same thing.

0:06:02
I was just doing my job. That's it. We were called to do a job. I had to do my job. Okay, what was the job? Saving the world from the Nazis and the Japanese imperialists.

0:06:15
Two of the most evil regimes in world history. Just doing my job, said the once 19-year-old ranger climbing the 110-foot-tall cliffs of Pointe du Hoc. Just doing my job with machine guns coming down on me. Just doing my job. What are you talking about? But I love this memorial because it doesn't give any of the details. The most famous memorial inscription ever was placed at the Battle of Thermopylae. It was where the 300 Spartans went and fought and knew they were going to

0:06:48
die. And there was no illusion that they were ever gonna come home, like they knew they were gonna die. And they were fighting against the massive Persian army. And the whole point of this was to give enough confidence to the people of Greece that they could fight against the Persians too.

0:07:05
Like, we're just gonna do the best we can here and hold off for as long as we can until the Persians kill all of us. And hopefully, war makes it back to everyone else and they get up and fight as bravely as we have. That was the whole point.

0:07:18
And the memorial says, go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here, obedient to their laws, we lie. That's it. That inscription, that memorial, says nothing about the battle. It says nothing about the Spartans, it doesn't mention the enemy, it doesn't mention the context, doesn't mention the outcome, it leaves

0:07:49
out all the stakes of, you know, what was at stake in the whole thing, left out the name of the men, didn't mention anything about the command, didn't do anything, and that's the greatest battle inscription ever. And Stephen Pressfield said, the key to that line in that memorial is obedient to their laws.

0:08:08
Obedient to their laws.

0:08:09
It's go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here obedient to their laws we lie. Obedient to their laws, meaning their code of honor, their code of honor, their valor, their integrity. The Spartan warrior was obedient to the standard, to our code of laws, to our expectations.

0:08:29
And the details of the battle don't matter nearly as much as the obedience to their code of honor that they showed there on that spot. So the question, of course, is what is our code of honor today that we're called to be obedient to? the end too. Our veterans, our World War II veterans, they certainly knew the stakes.

0:09:01
And that's why I love the simplicity of that memorial. To the heroic Ranger Commandos of the 1st American Division, attacked and took possession of the Point Duhoc. Like, like yeah, you know, well what happened here? Oh, the army rangers, they attacked and took possession. Okay, but it was impossible.

0:09:24
It was impossible.

0:09:25
I can't imagine these guys, because they trained for it.

0:09:28
Like they knew the mission, it wasn't like they did it. You know, they came up with it the day before. They were training for it in England and preparing to climb the cliffs and everything. But the entire time they're training, they had to be like, there's no way this will work, right?

0:09:47
Like we're all in agreement this isn't gonna, we'll do it, but there's no way it's gonna work. Maybe, I don't know. I can't, I can't fathom it. Stephen Ambrose wrote a book on D-Day. He said, but for all that American industrial brawn and organizational ability could do,

0:10:11
for all that the British and Canadians and other allies could contribute, for all the plans and preparations, for all the brilliance of the deception scheme, which is one of my favorite stories of D-Day as well, is that Hitler thought that it was going to come from this other area in France, and the Americans did all this deception campaign to make Hitler think that that was a brilliant... for the brilliance of the deception scheme, for all the inspired leadership, in the end, success or failure in Operation Overlord came down to a relatively

0:10:43
small number of junior officers, non-coms and privates or seamen in the American, British, and Canadian armies, navies, air force, and coast guards. If the paratroopers and glider-borne troops cowered behind hedgerows or hid out in barns rather than actively seek out the enemy. If the coxswains did not drive their landing craft ashore, but instead, out of fear of enemy fire, dropped the ramps in too deep of water, if the men at the beaches dug in behind the seawall, if the junior officers failed to lead their men up and over the seawall to move inland

0:11:24
in the face of enemy fire, why then the most thoroughly planned offensive in military history, an offensive supported by incredible amounts of naval firepower, bombs and rockets would fail. Add to that the fact that none of this was done to conquer any territory, it wasn't done to preserve any territory of ours, but it was just done so that Hitler would not destroy freedom in the world. To make it even more incredible. Ambrose says it just shows what free men will do rather than be slaves.

0:12:11
At least that's who we used to be. I hope we still have a bit of that today or enough of us still have some of that today. I saw a video that CBS News did, the CBS morning show, and it was fine. I'm not criticizing it at all. I'm not mocking it but the reporter

0:12:28
did some training to parachute into normandy as part of the ceremonies are going on and it was cool right because i can do it on the old school parachutes that they used back then all that but he said he's a somewhat like you know this is this must have been what it

0:12:46
was like for those boys to get on a plane and fly over the channel and land in France. And you're like, yeah, but not at all, actually. Because you land in France, right? So you get on the plane, you get on the old World War II

0:13:00
plane, it's all super cool, right? You get on the World War II plane,

0:13:03
and you jump out of the plane, and that's cool, and then you land, but you land in France and then you walk over to the closest cafe and get a croissant. The parachuting into France that was the easy part. That's just jumping out of a plane. Now what? Now you fight behind What's that plan?

0:13:36
I gotta be the worst soldier ever.

0:13:37
Slater, we need you to climb these cliffs.

0:13:40
What's at the top of the cliffs?

0:13:41
Bunch of guys with machine guns. Okay, not gonna do that. What else you got? Okay, you can jump out of this airplane. Oh, cool, where am I gonna land? In France, oh, beautiful.

0:13:51
What's going on there right now? Well, the Nazis control it, and they're definitely gonna kill you. Wait, what, what am I? No, I'm not going to do that either. Like, give me, this is ridiculous.

0:14:06
What are these plans? Alright, fine, we'll put you in a Higgins boat. Alright, great, what's the Higgins boat going to do? Well, the Higgins boat's going to roll up on shore and they're going to open up the door, and then as soon as they open up the door,

0:14:14
you're just going to be riddled with machine gun fire. What are you talking about? These are terrible plans. We cannot imagine what it would have been like to be a part of D-Day? On one of those Higgins boats.

0:14:31
This is again, this is from that Ambrose book on D-Day. When this guy, when Peters reached the beach, he said, I was loaded so heavy with water and sand, and I could just stagger about. He got behind a tank, was hit by an 88, shrapnel wounded the man beside him, hit Peters in the cheek.

0:14:46
Like, but think about it, he's so wet, he can't even move. And there was a moment when he was behind this tank that he looked out and he saw a man carrying a flamethrower, hit with a bullet, somehow it lit the tank on fire, and he started running to the ocean, and all the men around him were burning to death. He said, here I was on Omaha Beach, instead of being a fierce, well-trained, fighting infantry warrior, I was an exhausted, almost helpless, unarmed survivor of a shipwreck.

0:15:23
Man. 19, by the way. You're 19 years old. An exhausted, almost helpless, unarmed survivor of a shipwreck. That's who we were at that moment. When he got to waist-deep water, he got on his knees and crawled the rest of the way.

0:15:51
Working his way forward to the seawall, he saw the body of his captain. At the seawall, quote, I saw dozens of soldiers mostly wounded, the wounds were ghastly to see. So he picked up the helmet off of a dead soldier, grabbed his gun, this dead soldier's gun, because he was unarmed, so he grabbed this other guy's gun,

0:16:16
and ran forward.

0:16:17
What?

0:16:18
Ran forward? I gotta take my kids, so a while ago I introduced, or I told Jack there's this thing called laser tag. And we haven't had a chance to go, but we gotta go. And he's so excited to go play laser tag. And then once we do laser tag,

0:16:37
I'm excited to go paintballing. It's been a long time since I've gone paintballing, and I love paintballing. The adrenaline you get from paintballing is pretty cool for a normal person, right? Like, you know, because you get hit, and it hurts.

0:16:50
You know, like enough. Like it hurts enough that you don't want to get hit, you know? So I look forward to being old enough that we can go paintballing. Like, paintball and D-Day, you know what I mean?

0:17:01
But like that's the closest I can come to is that time I went paintballing 20 years ago.

0:17:07
What do you mean?

0:17:08
You ran forward. He said, I was alone and completely on my own.

0:17:16
How about this one?

0:17:17
One of the captains who survived, he later said, I cannot fathom these people. He said, I've often felt very ashamed of the fact I was so completely inadequate as a leader on the beach on that frightful day. What do you mean?

0:17:34
What is up with these people? Who are these people?

0:17:37
You were ashamed that you couldn't have been a better leader? How is it possible that this guy thought he didn't do a good enough job storming the beaches under hellfire? He's ashamed

0:18:02
One soldier said I was scared worried praying

0:18:05
Once or twice I can't miss this quarter here once or twice I was able to control my fear enough to race across the stand To drag a helpless GI from drowning in the incoming tide That was the extent of my bravery that morning. That was the extent of my bravery. So in light of what these guys did, they say, it's just my job.

0:18:30
I'm ashamed that I didn't do better. Oh, I wasn't brave. I ran out into the open and saved a couple guys from drowning and then continued to run forward towards the Nazis. I wasn't, you know. Amazing, 80 years ago, it just breaks me up that there's not many of these guys left.

0:19:21
It's just, it's the worst thing. I'm going to be a mess when that happens. When there's the headline, final World War II veteran passes away, that's going to be a bad day. One soldier said afterwards all he could think of was this poem by Alfred Tennyson. It's called The Charge of the Light Brigade.

0:19:56
And it was about a British cavalry charge against Russian troops. So the parallel here is this British cavalry were like the Americans and the Russian troops were like the Nazis, fully entrenched in their defensive positions. This is 1854. So the British cavalry, they go in and they charge against the Russians and they got destroyed, the British did. Which, and this is the most important thing to know I think about D-Day, other than these men.

0:20:28
I think this is the most important big picture thing to know is it's an absolute miracle that we won. It 99.9, it was so much more likely that we would have gotten destroyed and it would have been one of the greatest military failures in history that it was so much more likely than what happened we have this thing in his in America I think it's because we

0:21:02
won you know back-to-back World War champs that we're just like yeah yeah of course of course we're gonna win or America yeah of course it worked of course what else was it gonna do definitely not work was what else was going to happen. Like there's like no chance that this thing would work. You replay this thing a hundred more times it's not going to work. Just start with the point to hawk guys. That's why I always love that story so much. Start with the point to hawk guys. Like that shouldn't have worked at all and then it would have been over. The whole

0:21:26
thing would have been over. There's no way. If you don't take point to hawk then forget it. Even if you do take point to hawk it's still a nearly impossible. I think that's the biggest thing for me. There's no way this thing should have worked and it didn't in the charge of the light brigade this French general is Megan 1854 this French general said of that charge he said it is magnificent like the courage and bravery of these these British cavalry units that went in he said it's magnificent but it's not war

0:21:53
it's madness that's magnificent but that's madness. That's what D-Day, to me D-Day was madness. Which just happened to win. Anyway, the soldier thought of this poem by Alfred Tennyson. So Tennyson wrote this poem right after that charge of the Light Brigade in 1854. Here's what it is.

0:22:35
Here's part of it. Forward, the Light Brigade. Was there a man dismayed? That's what I've been talking about here, like, no way is this going to work, guys, right? Was there a man dismayed?

0:22:47
Yes. But theirs not to make reply, theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die. Into the valley of death rode the six hundred. Cannon to the right of them, cannon to the left of them, cannon in front of them, volleyed and thundered.

0:23:07
Stormed at with shot and shell, boldly they rode and well. into the jaws of death, into the mouth of hell, rode the 600. And it goes on and then it says, then they rode back, but not, not the 600. And the poem ends with, when can their glory fade? Oh, the wild charge they made. All the world wondered.

0:23:36
Honor the charge they made. Honor the Light Brigade, Noble 600. It's been 80 years. 80 years. When can their glory fade? Oh, the wild charge they made.

0:24:03
Let us always honor our D-Day heroes, and not just in even-ending years. Let us always honor our D-Day heroes, and not just in even-ending years. Go tell fellow Americans, stranger passing by, that they're obedient to our laws they

 

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It's A Wonderful Life
Politics By Faith, December 5, 2025

Even if you've seen it 100 times or if you've only seen bits and pieces, watch all of It's A Wonderful Life this weekend. And don't wait until Christmas to watch it. Let it inform your entire Christmas season starting now.

Welcome to Politics by Faith. Thanks for being here. This is my annual reminder to watch It's a Wonderful Life, the movie. Go watch it right now, this weekend. Don't wait till Christmas. You don't have to watch it on Christmas Eve. 

I feel like you miss it. You miss the whole month. You should watch it now so it informs the whole month of Christmas, not after Christmas. And then you forget about it by the new year. I watched it last year for the very first time. It's my favorite movie. 

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And she says, oh, this old thing, I only wear it when I don't care how I look. And then she walks away. She's like, all right, like we can handle this. Whatever Frank Capra in 1946 thought was risque, I think we can handle in the twenty twenty five. So don't let that stop you. Interesting. 

It's a wonderful life fact when it came out in nineteen forty. So actually, let me go back. It started with this guy wrote the story and he tried to pitch it to the thirties and he tried to pitch to a bunch of magazines and they wouldn't take it. So he sent it out to friends in a Christmas card. And somehow it made it to Frank Capra. Frank Capra loved the story. 

They bought it, made the movie, flopped, lost $500 ,000. The reason it became a Christmas classic is because in 1974, the production company made some clerical mistake or something, and the movie ended up in the public domain. They lost the copyright to it. So the TV stations could air it without paying any royalties. So they just played it over and over and over again. 

It's just to fill time. And that's how it became a tradition. That's how people saw it and loved it. And now they keep playing it, right? Isn't that amazing? The total fluke that we even know it exists. 

The author of the original, say, book, it's not even a book. I bought the book. It's by Philip Van Doren Stern. He wrote this, uh, he wrote the Christmas card. So I bought it and it's all right. It's like, fine. 

There's a couple points that he makes that are in the movie, but the movie is way better. I've never said that before. I mean, usually it's the book that's way better, right? In this case, the movies are way better, but he just sent out this Christmas card to friends and family and somehow it made it away. It's unbelievable. I love everything about the movie. 

Next time I watch it, hopefully this weekend again, I want to write down more of my favorite parts and favorite lines. I love how it starts off with people praying for George, the story of sacrifice. George wants to do all these things. He wants to travel the world. He wants to go hit it big. He wants to go on a honeymoon with his wife and he always sacrifices for other people. 

And his wife serves him in that last point of sacrifice. Love, love that story. Love that storyline. This is the best line in the movie. Think right here. 

Right in the middle of it. Soon as I got Mary's telegram, good idea, Ernie, a toast to my big brother, George, the richest man in town. 

Come on. There's so many great lines. I love that relationship between the brothers throughout the movie as well. That line always does it to me. One line came up during the show the other day. Why did it come up? 

Oh, darn it. Why did it come up? It was the line where George crashes his car into a tree and the owner of the house comes out. Do you remember what he says? The owner of the house? He said, my great grandpa planted that tree. 

Took a nick out of the tree. This part's actually in the Christmas card. My great -grandpa planted that tree. That amazing, that incredible connection to the land, to the town, to his home, that still this guy's living in the same house where his great -grandpa planted the tree in the front yard. Doesn't that speak to something so beautiful? Of course, the story of good man taking a heroic stand against forces trying to destroy the town. 

The last two times I've seen it, that theme always stands out to me, this beauty and importance of a town, a story of community where everyone knows everyone. Everyone knows Bert the policeman, Ernie the taxi driver, Sesame Street said, that's just a coincidence. I don't know how that could possibly be. How could that be a coincidence? The movie came first, by the way, and Sesame Street came after. You're going to call the two main characters Bert and Ernie and not be a reference to, and the good guys win and the good guys win with the help of the people. 

It's all the great things. On my SiriusXM show, I'll go into more detail about the town and the importance of towns. But this is a religious, I shouldn't say religious. I don't like saying religious because religious is like, Oh, we allow all the great faiths of history to be... No, it's a great... body. 

So let me bring in some scripture here because all good stories have a Christian roots in them. The one scene when Potter, the evil Potter, thinks he finally can beat George Bailey. Well, he realized he can't beat him, so he's going to join him or really get George to join him. So he's going to offer him a huge paycheck. Also, there's one line when George, when Potter is talking to Bailey, he says, oh, Bailey, you only make this much a month. And after you pay to provide for your mother, you only end up with this much for your wife and kids. 

And I love that little note there because then when George Bailey goes back, you know, as if he never existed, he goes to his mom's house and his mom is running a boarding house and she looks terrible versus that lovely scene when mom is bright eyed and thriving. And she tells George to go, go find that girl. Go, go meet Mary, go see Mary. And they, they kiss each other. They love each other so deeply. But then when George doesn't exist, no one's there to take care of her. 

And it's just that one little line that informs us that he's in fact doing that. So he gets enamored with the money. George does. It's a lot about falls off his chair. He says, well, let me, let me give it a day to think it over. Talk it over with the wife. 

Oh, sure, sure, sure. 

Go talk it over with the missus. I'll work on the papers. You let me know tomorrow. I sure will. Mr. Potter holds out his hands. And the second they shake hands, second, George Bailey feels the coldness and he's about to do business with the devil. 

He wipes, wipes his hand, like wipes the grime. off of his hand on his coat. Can't believe I even... considered it for a second. And then he told him off. Reminded me of Psalm 52. 

Psalm 52 is David writing about a story that happened in 1 Samuel 21. The very short of that story is Doeg, who was Saul's chief herdsman, told King Saul that David visited some priests. And then Doeg falsely accused the priests of helping David against Saul. So Saul ordered the priests to be executed, and Doeg is the one who carried it out. Killed 85 priests, along with other women and children too, but 85 priests. So that's Doeg. 

And here's David talking about him. Why do you boast in evil, O mighty man? The goodness of God endures continually. Your tongue devises destruction, like a sharp razor working deceitfully as his potter as well. You love evil more than good. lying rather than speaking righteousness. 

You love all devouring words, you deceitful tongue. God shall likewise destroy you forever. He shall take you away and pluck you out of your dwelling place and uproot you from the land of the living. The righteous also shall see and fear and shall laugh at him. Doeg, God took him out, right? Shall laugh at him saying, here is the man who did not make God his strength, but trusted in the abundance of his riches and strengthened himself. 

in his wickedness. That's Potter, isn't it? Strengthening himself in his wickedness, surrounding himself with as much wealth as he can possibly accumulate from the people. And then when he's in charge of the town, it becomes a den of gambling and prostitution and sin. But with George Bailey, salt and light, he brings a purity and a goodness to all around him and to his town. We are called to be these people. 

We are called to be George Bailey's. We are called, whatever business you work at, responsibilities you have, maybe business you own, I believe you're called to be Bailey building and loan as much as you can to your customers and to your employees. Well, I've been saying recently that as John Adams said, that our constitution was only made for a moral and religious people. I believe capitalism is only made for a moral and religious people too. We are called to be George Bailey. We're called to be and run our businesses like Bailey building and loan. 

And of course, more than George Bailey, we're called to be like Jesus. We talked today to the CEO of Trail Life USA. The Secretary of War has officially cut off the military from all connection with scouting America. It used to be called the Boy Scouts. Boy Scouts are no longer for boys. They've completely abandoned everything that made them amazing for 114 years. 

And they're a total disgrace. Trail Life USA has risen from the ashes. And it's a proudly Christian scouting organization. TrailLifeUSA . com. We talked to their CEO. 

He was wonderful. Talked to him this morning. The motto of Trail Life USA is walk worthy. That nice walk worthy. Where's that come from? Colossians 110. 

That you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing him, being fruitful in every good work. and increasing in the knowledge of God. May we dedicate ourselves this month, it's Christmas month and forever, but this Christmas month to walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing him. If Mr. Potter can give us a visual of what not to be, and if George Bailey can give us a little artistic visual of who to be more like, that's just great, as long as it's pointing us closer to Jesus. mikeslater . locals . 

com transcript commercial free on the website. Go watch the movie right now. Go go watch it. mikeslater .

 

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The End Of All Things Is At Hand
Politics By Faith, December 2, 2025

Abraham Davenport was a member of the founding generation. When everyone around him thought Jesus was coming back, and I mean thought he was coming back that second, Davenport didn't change a thing. We should have a similar posture.

Welcome to Politics by Faith. Thanks for being here. I read 1 Peter 4 this morning, underlined a bunch. I was going to go over a bunch of different things here, but I can't really make it past this one sentence. 1 Peter 4, 7, but the end of all things is at hand. Therefore, be serious and watchful in your prayers. 

That's the ESV. I almost always quote ESV, but I do want to give NASB here. The end of all things is near. Therefore, be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer. sound judgment, sober spirit, serious prayers, watchful of your prayers. John Calvin said it ought to be the chief concern of the believer to fix his mind constantly on Christ's second advent, his second coming. 

We should be thinking, we should be fixing our minds constantly on the second coming of Jesus. This is Christmas, so it's all about the first coming. That's great, but the second coming is quite important as well. Remember, Joy to the World is actually about the second coming, it's not really a Christmas song. So I was doing some research on that sentence because that stuck out to me so much. In my research, I came across this poem about a particular day in New England. 

Let me quote here from the newspaper in 1780. It says here, the Northern states wrapped in a dense black atmosphere for 15 hours. Again, this is 1780, the day of judgment supposed to have come. Cessation of labor. People stopped working. Religious devotions resorted to. 

The herds retire to their stalls, the fowls to their roosts, and the birds sing their evening songs at noonday. clips there was, it was crazy. All the crickets came out. Science at loss to account for the mysterious phenomenon. One of nature's marvels. Redness of the sun and moon. 

Approach of a thick vapor. Loud pearls of thunder. Sudden and strange darkness. Alarm of the inhabitants. End of the world looked for. Dismay at the brute creation. 

An intensely deep gloom. This is the newspaper in 1780. Difficulty in attending to business. lights burning in the houses, vast extent of the occurrence, condition of the barometer, change in the color of objects, quick motion of the clouds, birds suffocate and die, the sun's disk seen in some places, oily deposits on the waters, impenetrable darkness at night, incidents and anecdotes, ignorant whims and conjectures, an unsolved mystery. " That was in 1780. So this poem was written by James Whittier about Abraham Davenport. Abraham Davenport was the grandson of the founder of the New Haven colony, and he was a state rep. And I just want to read through the poem here that can give us some insight into how we should be acting every day. In light of 1 Peter 4, 7, the end of all things is at hand. Here is the poem. In the old days, a custom laid aside with britches and cocked hats. It's like the founders, their tricorn hats. The people sent their wisest men to make the public laws. And so from a brown homestead, where the sound drinks the small tribute of the Mayanas, waved over the woods by ripawoms, so in Connecticut, and hallowed by pure lives and tranquil deaths, Stamford sent up to the councils of the state wisdom and grace in Abraham Davenport." It's the people put forward 

Davenport and all his wisdom and grace. "'Twas on the May day of the far old year 1780 that there fell over the bloom and sweet life of the spring, over the fresh earth and the heaven of noon, a horror of great darkness, like the night and day of which the Norrland sagas tell, the twilight of the gods." It's " It's a reference to Norse mythology, end of the world. It was bad out there. The low -hung sky was black with ominous clouds, save where its rim was fringed with a dull glow, like that which climbs the crater sides from the red hell below, like a volcano. Birds ceased to sing and all the barnyard fowls roosted. The cattle at the pasture bars lowed and looked homeward. 

Bats on leathern wings flitted abroad. The sounds of labor died. So everyone stopped working. Men prayed. Women wept. All ears grew. 

Think about the state of people. where it goes dark for a while and everyone freaks out and starts praying and thinks it's the end of the world and that it's not the end of the world, second coming. I wanted to say like there's something like this that happened if people would think it was aliens or people's instinct would be like a nuclear attack or war or something like that. I wonder how many people would think second coming. That's what happened in 1780. Men prayed, women wept, all ears grew sharp to hear the doom blast of the trumpet shatter the black sky. 

That trumpet would be 1 Corinthians 15 -52, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. So people were waiting to hear that doom blast, that the dreadful face of Christ might look down from the rent clouds, not as he looked, a little guest at Bethany, but stern as justice and an exorable law. Meanwhile, in the old state house, dim as ghosts, sat the lawgivers of Connecticut, trembling beneath their legislative robes. The state reps are freaking out. 

They're dim as ghosts, right? It is the Lord's great day. Let us adjourn. It's second coming. We're done. 

Bang the gavel. 

Let's get out of here. Some said, And then, as if with one accord, all eyes were turned to Abraham Davenport. He rose, slow, cleaving with a steady voice the intolerable hush. Here's what he said. This well may be the day of judgment which the world awaits, but be it so or not, I only know my present duty and my Lord's command to occupy till he come. So at the post where he has set me in his providence, I choose for one. 

to meet him face to face. No faithless servant frightened from my task, but ready when the Lord of the harvest calls. And therefore, with all reverence, I would say, let God do his work and we will see to ours. Bring in the candles. And they brought them in. Then by the flaring lights, the speaker read, albeit with husky voice and shaking hands, an act to amend, an act to regulate the shad and all why fisheries. 

So just take a dumb bill about fish. Whereupon wisely and well spake Abraham Davenport straight to the question. With no figures of speech, save the ten Arab signals, yet not without the shrewd dry humor now. to the man. So it's just like logical, no -nonsense, right to the point, but also witty and thoughtful. His awestruck colleagues listening while, by the way, the world's coming to an end. 

His awestruck colleagues listening all the while between the pauses of his argument to hear the thunder of the wrath of God break from the hollow trumpet of the cloud. And there he stands in memory to this day, erect, self -poised, a rugged face, half seen against the background of unnatural dark, a witness to the ages as they pass that simple duty hath no place to fear. JFK would sometimes use this story, this poem, as in his campaigns. He would say, I hope in a dark and uncertain period of our own country that we too may bring candles to help light our country's way and not hide, not be afraid. But I love his argument. He says, God put me here to do this work. 

I'm going to keep doing it. When he's, if he's coming down, this is, I want him to see me doing this, what he put me here to do, which of course means if you're not doing what God is calling you to do, we better get doing it. The end of things is at hand. Therefore be serious and watchful in your prayers and everything else. The sound judgment of first Peter four, seven, sound judgment, sober spirit, sound judgment is really interesting word. It means the Greek word here. 

It means saved mind. This word is used six times in the new Testament. Mark 5 15, I'll just give a couple. Mark 5 15, and they came to Jesus and observed the man who had been demon possessed, sitting down, clothed, and in his right mind. There it is. Luke 8 35, and the people went out to see what had happened. 

And they came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had gone out. sitting down at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. If you're in your right mind, you would be at the feet of Jesus. Romans 12, for though the grace given to me, I say to every man among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think, but to think so as to have sound judgment as God has allotted to each a measure of faith. Sober judgment, a saved mind. It means you're sane, you're clear thinking, you have self -control. 

A self -control against earthly passions, earthly pleasures. William Barclay made a whole list of how Greeks, like ancient Greeks, used this word in a secular way. So Plato defined this word as the mastery over pleasure and desire. Aristotle said it's the power by which the pleasure of the body are used as law commands. Pythagoras said it is the foundation on which the soul rests. Euripides said that it is the fairest gift of God. 

This other Greek philosopher said it is the safeguard of the most excellent habits of life. So the idea is that someone with a sane mind is someone who knows and loves Jesus and therefore has serious prayers. You are serious about your prayers. You're watchful in your prayers. You have sound judgment and a sober spirit for the purpose of prayer and in doing what you're supposed to be doing all the time. And so Confident in that, that even when it looks like the world around you is coming to an end, when everyone else around you thinks the world is coming to an end, at this very moment, like it's pitch black outside in the middle of the day, the world's coming to an end, this is the second coming, even then, you'll say, well, I just need to keep doing what I'm doing. 

Let's be sane minded, save my life. Let's be doing what God would want us to be doing when he does come, because it's going to happen in a flash. Matthew 25, 27, as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the son of man. To drive it home one last time, if you're doing right now what you're not supposed to be doing, you better stop. The second coming could be right now. The end of all things is at hand. 

Mike Slater . locals . com for the transcript and commercial free. Mike Slater .

 

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Boasting Serves You Right
Politics By Faith, December 1, 2025

A sailor on the Mayflower, not one of the Pilgrims, boasted about his health and mocked the sickly Pilgrims. Then, he got what was coming to him. We must learn the lesson his fellow sailors learned: to thank God for all things.


Welcome to Politics by Faith. Thanks for being here. I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving. I have one final Thanksgiving message and then after that we'll move on to our one month long analysis of the movie It's a Wonderful Life, which we saw on Thanksgiving night. Last year was the first time we watched It's a Wonderful Life from start to finish. And if you asked me two years ago if I've ever seen It's a Wonderful Life, I'd be like, oh yeah, definitely. 

I've seen it because I've just seen bits and pieces my entire life. But that doesn't cut it. That's not the whole thing. Seeing bits and pieces of It's a Wonderful Life is not the same as seeing the movie It's a Wonderful Life. And it's my favorite movie, and it's incredible, and I want to encourage you to watch it now and not wait until Christmas. Because if you watch it on Christmas Eve, you kind of miss, you miss a whole month of opportunity to really reflect on it throughout all of Christmas. 

So go watch It's a Wonderful Life right now with the whole family. It's amazing, and we will do more It's a Wonderful Life analysis. I wasn't kidding, by the way. Not a month, of course, but I'll sprinkle it in now. But I have one final Thanksgiving message just about the pilgrims. We can talk about all the time, but what's going on here is some people sent some stuff from the old world to the new world and it didn't make it. 

So William Pierce wrote a letter back to the people who sent it and they said, we lost all your stuff. I don't know if we lost it or you lost it. It just got lost. Just the way it goes. So here's what he said. Dear friends, you may know that all your beaver and your books of your accounts are swallowed up in the sea. 

Your letters remain with me, and shall be delivered, if God bring me home. But what should I more say? Have we lost our outward estates? Yet a happy loss, if our souls may gain. There is yet more in the Lord Jehovah than ever we had yet in the world. Oh, that our foolish hearts could yet be waned from these thoughts. 

here below, which are vanity and vexation of spirit. And yet we foolishly catch after shadows that fly away and are gone in a moment. Would you have had that mentality if you were traveling to a new world with nothing but an ax and a Bible? God, well, all the stuff you sent over, it's gone. But anyway, it's great. It's a happy loss if our souls may gain. 

And if God has ever decided to bless you with any good things, which are all the things you have, you better not be boastful. William Bradford wrote this. He said, I may not omit here a special work of God's providence. There was a proud and very profane young man, one of the seamen. So remember there were 102 guys on the boat, but 61 of them were not Puritans or the separatists. They were the crew, 61, most of them. 

So one of the young men of a lusty, able body, which made him the more haughty. He would always be contempting the poor people in their sickness and cursing them daily with grievous execrations. It's an execration. Making fun of an angry denouncement or curse. Just making fun of the old sick people and did not let to tell them that he hoped to help to cast half of them overboard before they came to their journey's end. So he'd mock them for being sick and say, I can't wait to throw you overboard when you finally die. 

You're not going to make it. You're so weak. And to make merry with what they had. Stop complaining. Be strong like me. And if he were by any gently reproved, knock it off, he would curse and swear most of the time. 

But, okay, so you're with me on the scene here, right? You got 41 of these Puritans, these pilgrim separatists having a tough time, 66 days over the ocean and six more months off the coast, dying. This guy's making fun of them. But if it pleased God before they came half seas over to smite this young man with a grievous disease of which he died in a desperate manner, and he was himself the first to be thrown overboard, Thus his curses light on his own head, and it was an astonishment to all his fellows, for they noted it to be the just hand of God upon him. " So it's all the all the other not Puritans were like, oh, they're not be like that guy. I wonder if that's one of the reasons why they ultimately signed the Mayflower Compact. 

I'm like, well, these guys seem to have something special helping them out along the way. So I hope you brought the pilgrims into your Thanksgiving celebration. They're wonderful people. And this is who we came from. And we can't forget it. And I was reading Deuteronomy 8 the other day, and I thought of this story from William Bradford that we just shared. 

Deuteronomy 8 says, every commandment which I command you today, you must be careful to observe, that you may live and multiply and go in and possess the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers. And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you the way these 40 years in the wilderness to humble you and test to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know what manna is. not that man shall not live by bread alone but man lives by every word that proceeded from the mouth of the lord your garments did not wear out on you nor did your foot swell these 40 years you know incredible that is 40 years of walking your sandals never wore out your feet never your knees never hurt Clothes didn't wear out. You should know in your heart that as a man chastens his son, so the Lord your God chastens you. Man shall not live by bread alone. 

There it is, Deuteronomy 8. Therefore, you shall keep the commandments of your Lord your God to walk in his ways and to fear him. Do we fear the Lord? For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, fountains and springs that flow out of valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley and vines and fig trees and pomegranates. I don't love pomegranates, but I guess if you were back then, pomegranate would be pretty special. A land of olive oil and honey. 

A land in which you will eat bread without scarcity. See Harry, here's how boastful I am. God's like, I will bring you to a land of pomegranates. I'm like, I don't really love. That's the kind of cuties. 

I love cuties. 

Cuties are good. 

I have cuties instead of pomegranates, the averils or whatever those things are. They're kind of like you chew them and you don't really get a lot of burst of flavor. And then it's kind of like, it's like a seed inside of it. It's not that impressive, but hey, whatever God, whatever you want to give me. A land of olive oil and honey, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity in which you will lack nothing. A land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills you can dig copper. 

When you've eaten and are full, you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which he has given you. " That's what's true for us today. When you are eaten and you are full, every time that God provides and everything you have is God providing, then you should bless the Lord your God for everything that he has given us. We should break down every line of Deuteronomy 8, but the point is everything comes from God. God will protect you, provide for you with manna. Everything you have is manna. 

What's manna? Manna is everything you have and everything you earned is because God gave you manna to earn it with. He gave you the ability to... earn it. This radio show I have, this is not from me. Well, I'm very good at the radio. 

If I ever do anything good, it's only because God gave me the ability to do a thing. But even if I do good, if no one listens to it, then that's, and that's not up to me. I can't decide if anyone, if you decide to listen to this right now, that's all God. Everything, it's entirely 100 % in every way, all God. And then if you lose it all, will you still praise God? That's the story of Job, and that was the story that I first shared here with the pilgrims. When they're like, ah, we lost our stuff. 

Yet it's a happy loss if our souls may gain. One last part of Deuteronomy 8 verse 11, beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments, his judgments, his statutes, which I command you today. Lest when you have eaten and are full, and you have built beautiful houses and dwell in them, and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold are multiplied. Gosh, this is today. Did you eat a big Thanksgiving meal? Do you have a nice house that's safe? 

Do you have things, herds and flocks, nice TV, whatever, nice car, your silver and your gold are multiplied, your stock market's doing well, and all that you have is multiplied. When your heart is lifted up and you forget the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, who brought you from the life of sin you were living in, from the house of bondage, who led you through that great and terrible wilderness in which were fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty land where there was no water, who brought water for you out of the flinty rock, who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and that he might test you to do good in the end. Then you say in your heart, my power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth. It is wonderful to have wealth and flocks and health like the sailor on the maple leaf. 

had. 

But we better not boast that God had nothing to do with it, because he had everything. MikeSlater . Locals . com. For the transcript and commercial, free website, MikeSlater . Locals .com

 

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