After playing highlights from Day 3 of the RNC, the WWII Veteran, the gold star families from Afghanistan, and parents of the citizen held hostage by Hamas, we had two listeners call in who were angry. We, mature Christians, need to understand and harness our righteous anger.
Welcome to Politics by Faith, brought to you by the Patriot Gold Group. Lately I've been recording these podcasts right after the Sirius XM Patriot morning show at 8 o'clock. So often this is a reflection of something that happened on the show that day, and today was a very moving show. We started off playing clips from the Republican National Convention last night. This would have been day three and we played segments from the Gold Star families of those who were killed in the Afghanistan withdrawal. The World War II veteran, 98-year-old World War II veteran, who was absolutely incredible. The parents of an American citizen who's still held hostage by Hamas today. It was just a moving story after moving stories. It's incredible. We played all those and then took some phone calls. Here's the first phone call. This is right after we played the World War II veteran. Go to Thomas, who's in Vermont. Hey, Thomas. Good morning.
Good morning, Mike. How are you? I mean, after hearing all those speeches this morning and especially that World War II veteran, I mean, come on, that guy. You kidding me?
I just moved me to tears, Mike. I guess my grandfather served in World War One. He still had mustard gas stains in his eyeballs, but I knew him. Well, my father served in the Korean War as a combat cook. I have three honorable discharges. And that man's words just moved me to my soul, man.
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I we need so much more patriotism and loyalty to our flag in this country. And it just personified all of those feelings back to me. And I have to get up at 430 in the morning. So I was asleep last night. And I'm thanking you so much for playing that. I'm going to try to find it and listen
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to the whole speech. But it meant the world to me. And I loved it. I'm still emotional about it, Mike. You should be. You should be. Yeah, we're in the same boat. We're in the same boat, Thomas. I missed it last night too,
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but heard it this morning for the first time. I was like, oh, this is, this is perfection. And he's 99. We're not going to get that message anymore, right? There's only a few more years of that. He has to get more together than Joe Biden at 99,
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but that's, to hear him speak on behalf of our World War II veterans, that's as good as it gets.
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It is. There aren't many left and they're so inspiring and we owe so much to all of them for their sacrifice. Not only the ones that are still living, but all of the ones that gave the ultimate sacrifice. And we wouldn't all have our freedom if it weren't for them. And it means the world to me, Mike.
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Not even close. Thomas, let me ask you one last question. I'm sure there's a few lines in there that spoke to you. The one that hit me is the America is our home. Does that hit you too? And what does that mean to you? That America, it's not an idea, it's not even just a place, it is a place. It is an idea. I mean, there are ideas. It is a place, but it's more than that. It's our home. What does that mean to you? a lot to me because I've heard all these years from the Democrats, Mike, that this country was founded on an idea and we're just an idea here. And they want to fundamentally change
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everything because it's still an evolving idea. But listen, we have fought and died to make this ground our home. And you don't fundamentally change our home. Because we're going to stand up and fight. Let me tell you right now, we will fight. Then the show went on and we talked about J.D. Vance's speech. Finally, we talked about a little preview of what's coming up tonight with Trump and just reflected, really what we did is we reflected on how close he was to dying.
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I don't think we can reflect on that enough, how unbelievable it is and how every time Trump does anything, anytime you ever see Trump it's just gravy it's just extra it's he wasn't he's not supposed to be here and he even said he said God was with me he said this two days ago at some event he said God was with me he said it changes your attitude and your viewpoint on life and you appreciate God even more here was one of our callers from this morning I'm doing fine how are
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you doing this morning I do doing really good what do you think of what do you think of JD? Well,
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I'll be completely honest. In 2020, you know, he made some statements about Donald Trump and you know, and he was he was not my guy. You know, I voted for him because he was a Republican. I kind of held my nose when I did it. I didn't I wouldn't donate to his campaign. But I will say, after last night, he kind of changed my mind, because I grew up with J.D. Vance. I went to high school with J.D. Vance, not him particularly, but guys just like him, who came from dirt-poor and struggled and made something out of their life.
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And, you know, and the one thing I know is that you got to forgive people when they make mistakes, because I've made mistakes. I continue to make mistakes. But God said if we don't forgive, He can't forgive us. And so, J.D. Vance is my man now. Was there anything Bill, very well said, was there anything in particular last night that stood out to you? Well, the thing that the thing that stood out to me probably
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the most was the 98 year old Second World War veteran. That's for sure. I mean, because I sat there with tears rolling down my eyes because of what those men gave. And I look at this country and I'm sick of every blue-haired, purple-haired, overweight, gender studies major that's running around trying to tell us how to live our lives. I'm sick of it. And they're completely disrespectful of men like that. And I'm tired of it. I'm just tired of it. As an American,
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I'm 71 years old. I've lost both of my brothers here in the last couple of years. They both fought in Vietnam. And I'm just tired of people disrespecting them. I really am. Disrespecting what? Disrespecting their memory. Disrespecting the sacrifice that people have given to make this country, to give them the opportunity to do the garbage they do every day. Yes. You know, I had a friend of mine who played basketball, went in high school. He always told me, he said, Billy, he said, the same thing that makes you laugh will make
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you cry. And that's our American freedom. Because if I'm free, everybody's got to be free.
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Yeah. Yeah.
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They don't even know what they have.
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No, they don't. They oppose themselves. And that's why I pray for them every morning, Mike, is that these people, they oppose themselves. And I just pray that God would drag them into the valley of decision and meet them face to face. And so that they could make at least make an informed decision.
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Let me ask you one more question, Bill. You're in Ohio. You grew up with JDs. I bet you got a lot of JD in your life as well, too.
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Well, you know, I'm an American that just happens to be black. I'm so sick of African American, I don't know what to say about that. But I grew up in a high school with 60% white, 40% black, you know, and you know, I played football, basketball, and our teams were made and nobody nobody cared, Mike. Nobody cared. All we cared is, cared about is did he make the block, did he make the shot, you know. You know what?
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The one thing I love so much about the the Gold Star families is what a cross section it was. Like all the last names were very different. Very different. And that's good, that's a good thing. They're Americans, man, they're just Americans.
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What? They did it the right way, they came here the right way. You know, they worked hard, and their children made them proud, and they lost them because of an idiot who's so arrogant and has been stupid for over 50 years.
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What's one...
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He's just not a smart man.
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My last question, Bill, what's one characteristic of the town you grew up in or the people you grew up around that you're proud of that is good, that we need to get back to in this country.
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You know, I you know, I think I grew up in in the city of Columbus and you know, I relate a lot of stuff to sports. I mean, like that, you know, we you know, a lot of you know, guys went to different high schools around the city and we we played we played hard and we wanted to win and we would do just about everything short of ice
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pick you to win the game. When it was all over, when it was all over, we were all still friends. We could all still hang out together. We could all still go to the same house party. And, you know, if somebody needed help, we'd all pull up, you know, we'd all pull together and help them.
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I mean, and that's the thing that seems to be, that we seem to have lost in this country. You can fight hard and compete hard, but at the end of the day, you're still all on the same team.
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Bill, you are a good man. I'm so glad you called in.
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I'm sorry you lost your brothers recently, Bill.
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Well, you know, they were my heroes. And can I tell you a real quick story?
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It doesn't have to be real quick.
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I took a test for officers candidate school. And I did, I guess I did amazingly well on the pilot part of the test. And I was gonna try to go an officer's candidate school in the Navy and be a pilot. And, you know, long story short, I got turned down. And the guy told me, he said, well, you know, you can enlist and you can get where you want to go with a different
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route. About a week later, I got a letter from my brother who was in Vietnam at the time in the Navy. He told me, he said, you spent four years of your life getting a degree. He said, if you go into the Navy in any other way other than as an officer, he said, I will go AWOL, whip your behind. Because you're not doing it. I mean, both of them are in Vietnam.
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He said, you're not doing it. He was always taking care of his little brother.
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Yes, that's great.
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You know, I mean, that's where I grew up, Mike. That's America to me. Your home. That's what it is to me. Yes, it's my home.
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Bill, an honor to talk to you, sir.
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Thank you for your service. Thank you.
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All right, take care. Thank you, brother. Oh, goodness, there's many things wonderful about Bill's phone call there. I'm moved about many things he said, but I want to just take a minute and talk about righteous anger. We need to be, we need to know about this. We need to be more advanced, if you will. Hebrews 5 14 says,
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Everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are full of age, that is those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. I heard someone the other day say it's not worse than being a 10-year-old baby Christian. We need to grow in our faith and understanding and discernment. So what's the difference between anger, a sinful anger, and a righteous anger?
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A couple of points, I'm stealing these from John Bloom. He says, first, we should grieve over our own sins before anyone else's, and we should have a righteous anger towards our own sins first. He says, righteous anger is not merely infuriated, but grieved. Jesus didn't just flip tables in the temple. He was deeply grieved over the sin that made it necessary.
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It ties in a bit to what we did last week about Jesus weeping. He was weeping at the consequences of death and what happened when evil now entered the world and the wages of sin are death. And he's weeping at that reality. And similar here too, we should be angry at the sin
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and grieving at the sin that is causing the wickedness around us. He said, righteous anger acts swiftly when necessary. Some forms of evil requires to be quick to speed and quick to act. Proverbs 24, 11 says, Rescue those who are being taken away to death. Hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. I don't want to get all into the assassination attempt, but it just seemed like there was
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a lot of hesitation, indecisiveness. I'll be very generous here. A lot of hesitation and indecisiveness. We'll save that for another day. I think my big point I want to make here is that it's okay to be angry. Ephesians 4, 26 says, do not let the sun go down on your anger.
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Give no opportunity to the devil. But it doesn't say don't be angry. The word for anger here, it's not the Greek word. It's not a momentary rage or even a deep felt resentment that builds over time. It's a deep-seated, it's anger based off of a deep-seated, determined, and settled conviction. It's an anger that you feel when evil is done against God or people of God
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or something from God, things that are good, beautiful, and true. James 119 says, Know this, my beloved brother, let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Again, it doesn't say don't ever be angry. Be slow to anger. You should be angry at sin and evil and the devil and the things that are destroying our
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society and our home. So I think the key is does this anger, what comes from it, does it bring you closer to God and does it bring other people closer to God? Anger that is self-defensive and self-serving, that's no good. But anger selfish and based on the love for God and concern for others it's commanded John MacArthur says genuine love cannot help being angered at that which injures the object of that love that Ephesians 426 that we quoted a second ago the
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Prothesis do not let your son go down in your anger do not let us then go down in your anger and give no opportunity to the devil. The first part of that clause says be angry and do not sin. It's okay to be angry. It's good to be angry. There's no way God would want us to be apathetic in the face of evil, is there? So let's be angry at sin. Let's be angry at injustice.
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Let's be angry about the evil that has led our country and people we love down an ungodly path. As long as that anger brings us closer to God. MikeSlater.Locals.com is the website. We put the podcast there with the transcript and no commercials. We put the podcast there with the transcript and no commercials. MikeSlater.Locals.com
