It's been one year since the president was shot in the head in Butler, Pennsylvania. What will it take to get people to believe that God is in control of everything?

Welcome to Politics by Faith. Yesterday was the one year anniversary of Donald Trump getting shot in the head in Butler, Pennsylvania. Incredible moment. I haven't seen this video in a couple months, but it's worth reliving.

A little bit old, that chart. That chart's a couple of months old. And if you want to really see something that's said, take a look at what happened. Move, move, move.

You ready? We're good. Shooters down. Are we good to move? We're clear. Let's move.

Let's move.

We're clear.

Let me get my shoes.

Let me get my shoes. I got you, sir. I got you, sir.

I got you, sir.

I got you, sir. Let me get my shoes.

Let me get my shoes.

Let me get my shoes.

Hold on, your head is in the body.

So we gotta move to the front.

Let me get my shoes.

Okay, my shoes down.

My shoes.

Watch out.

Wait, wait, wait, wait.

Says, wait, wait, wait. Puts his fist in the air, says, fight, fight, fight. Come on. What is that? I don't have any more insight than what I shared a year ago when this happened that in a moment like that, it's just your instinct, it's who you are.

It reveals who you are in moments like that. You can't rehearse it. It's just remarkable, the whole thing. And incredibly surreal. And you know, it turned his head at just the precise instant at just the precise angle,

otherwise that bullet was going right through his head at just the precise instant at just the precise angle. Otherwise that bullet was going right through his head. So my only conclusion, and I know this not politically, I know this because of the Bible is that God is in control of everything. And Trump has come to that conclusion too. This was him last year.

Honestly, it's a very, it changed. It changed something in me. I feel I feel even stronger. I believed in God, but I feel I feel much more strongly about it. Something happens.

So thank you.

This is him today at a White House prayer event.

Well, I believe that and I do. I believe it, that my life was saved by God to really make America great again. I really believe that. I think I have a son. He's a great shooter, like a championship shooter.

Don and Eric was a great shooter, both of them. But they said that at that distance with that gun, you didn't have a chance. And we turned the head at the right time, didn't we? We turned the head at the right time. So I don't know, some people say it was lucky and some people say something else. I say something else.

I think God helped us.

We told the story on Sirius XM this morning about George Washington. He was fighting in the French and Indian War. He was only 23 years old and he was shot four times. His life could have ended right there. George Washington was 23 and if he died then we wouldn't have known who it was. I say he was shot four times.

Four bullets went through his coat. He had two horses shot out from under him, but he was never hit. If he died there, we never would have known who he was. Maybe we never would have been a country. He wrote back home, and I believe this is true about Trump today. George Washington wrote, by the allful dispensations of providence.'"

I love the word dispensations here. Let's get an original Webster's 1828 definition. One of these moments when I only realize when I'm halfway through this that it's a podcast and I can press pause and just look it up and pretend like I knew it all along.

Webster's dictionary, 1828.com, it's a fantastic website. Here we go, dispensation. A dispensation is the dealing of God to his creatures, the distribution of good and evil, natural and moral in the divine government. So the acts of God.

By the all powerful dispensations of providence, I have been protected beyond all human probability or expectation. For I had four bullets through my coat and two horses shot under me, yet escaped unhurt. Although death was leveling my companions on every side of me." And they were targeting George Washington as well. One of the, this was the French and Indian War, so one of the Indian chiefs later met George Washington. This was in 1755, so in 1770 George was back near where the battle was and this Indian chief traveled to go see him. And the story

goes, he said, I have traveled a long and weary path that I might see the young warrior of the great battle. I've come to pay homage to the man who is the particular favorite of heaven and who can never die in battle. On Trump's point about God saved us because we have stuff to do, we have a country to save.

It reminded me of this from Horace. Horace wrote in his Odes 3.3, he said, the just man resolute in his purpose is not shaken from his firm resolve by the frenzy of citizens demanding wrong, nor by the threatening face of a tyrant or an assassin, nor by the south wind, stormy leader of the restless Adriatic, nor by the mighty hand of thundering Jove. If the shattered world should collapse upon him, its ruins would strike him unafraid. So if you're a just person who's unwavering in their good purpose, firm in their good purpose, nothing will make you cave. Nothing should make you cave. No amount

of people yelling at you, not even the king himself or an assassin, nothing in nature, nothing. Even if the whole world collapses on you, if the whole world is in ruins around you, then the just man, firm in purpose will stand fearless along the ruins. Let's go to the Bible. Elijah. Gosh, I mean, how many stories can we give about God's providence in the Bible? I mean, like, but this one stands out because the kids next week are headed off to vacation Bible school.

It's a couple hours every night. And the study is Elijah. And I love the story of Elijah so much. I thought about, we thought seriously about naming our firstborn Elijah. Fun slight of fact. The name Elijah means Yahweh is my God.

So imagine living in a land where Baal is worshiped and your name is Yahweh is my God. So God says to Elijah, it's not gonna rain for a long time, do exactly what I say, go to this brook and a raven, an unclean animal will feed you.

And he did. And then years went by. It's one of my favorite insights about the Bible is that it takes years. This story is only a few paragraphs, but it's over years, years ago by three and a half, three and a half years. And the brook finally dried up. So don't overlook the fact that for three and a half years, Elijah stayed in this place and a

bird came and fed him, kept him alive. Then verse eight, then the word of the Lord came to him saying, arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon and dwell there. He said, well, what? This is the land where Jezebel, most wicked woman ever was from. This is the land where Baal was deeply embedded in the culture. This was enemy

territory to the core. And God says, Hey, Elijah, go there. Why in the world? I've commanded a widow there to provide for you." So he goes and he sees this poor widow right where she was gonna be and then he makes his big ask and God provided with the flour and the oil just as he said he would. And it's a credible story, but what stands out here among other things is the timing of it all. And God was orchestrating everything

always. Never didn't have it under control. It's always under his control. He knew exactly where the widow would be and where Elijah would be and when they would meet up and all the miracles he would do he knew it all Elijah didn't know the widow the widow didn't know Elijah but God knows everything God was not surprised when Donald Trump got shot in the head God is all-seeing all-knowing nothing is, nothing is out of control. Matthew 10 29 says,

not one sparrow falls to the ground apart from your father's will. Isn't that amazing? That's true. It's in the Bible. Not one sparrow falls to the ground apart from your father's will. Yet it has been become popular, and I believe a majority of people in our country believe, that God has no control. If he exists at all, there is no God. And if there is, he doesn't care, doesn't know, and things are crazy. And it's like, forget God's sovereignty entirely. Romans 8, 28, we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. God works all things for his glory, for the good of those involved, even when we don't understand what's

happening, even when things are shocking to us. How comforting is that? That was the point of this podcast originally, was to decrease anxiety, a lot of anxiety when you watch the news. So I said, let's go to the Bible so we can lower it. And I just wanna make that point again, in the midst of all the chaos of the news

and everything that's going on, how comforting is it to know and to know deeply that God is in control of everything. Take that comfort and that truth with you in whatever you take in with you. Mike Slater dot locals dot com.

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So, I guess cloud seeding is a thing. It's a thing that happens in America, and we had zero conversation about it. Is this a step too far in "playing God"?

Welcome to Politics by Faith. Thanks so much for being here. So give me a little heads up on something that's going to happen here that you're going to hear. We recorded yesterday a TV special on the flooding in Texas. We had two spectacular guests. Tom Askell wrote a book about his sister who was dying.

She had six months to live. And throughout that process, he wrote letters on grieving and suffering, and he put it together in a book, and it's called Suffering with Joy. And he had some perfect insight into why bad things happen and how we should work through it and trust God, love God throughout it. Then we talked to the professor of Wittenberg University

whose son, nine-year-old son, died suddenly. He was perfectly healthy, came down with some weird disease and within 36 hours he died. And he wrote a book about that too. And we talked to these two men who've lived it and they were just perfect. But we had three guests on the show that we recorded that we will release here. Our first guest was there. He was, he was at the, or he saw the flooding was how I understood the guest.

So I was like, Oh, that'd be interesting. We'll talk to this guy about what he saw and all that. And he had some interesting points. He was a former boxer, so he had some good stuff to say about life and being tested and all that. But really early in the interview, as you'll hear soon when we release it,

he said, yeah, I was there Slater, and I saw the clouds and they were dark, and I've never seen a light these clouds. And I saw with my own eyes, I saw lasers in the clouds. And he went on and he said, I believe that this was cloud seeding. And I said, oh, gee, okay.

Now you'll see in the interview, I think I pivoted out pretty good. They get it pretty good. Pretty good. Let's I did pretty good. Pretty good. Let's move away from that point and focus on something else. He brought it up three more times.

Cloud seeding. Now a little background. When I had my three hour San Diego show and it was me, Eric, and Miles. We had a ton of fun. It was a couple years back.

Every April 1st we would have conspiracy theory day. And we'd open up the phones for three hours and anyone could call in with a conspiracy theory, but you had to really believe it. So you couldn't call in and say, Oh, I heard that some people believe in that the earth's flat. No, no. You had to call in if you believe the earth was flat. And we had people call in and it was awesome every single year we did it.

Tons of fun.

And there was always a cloud seeding guy in there with the chemtrails, right? Tucked in kind of in the same thing, but there's always a cloud seeding guy. So every year the three of us would each pick one, two, and we would do a presentation on a conspiracy theory as if we believed it. And director Eric one year picked cloud seeding. Since then, he has been actually convinced

and telling me all the time that we are cloud seeding. And I always laughed at him and it became this big joke and that was the end of it. Well, it wasn't the end of it. Color me surprised when I came across this clip on the Will Cain show when he was talking to the CEO of Rainmaker Tech Corporation.

People can listen to longer form interviews that you have done about some of the safety and research you've done on what you use to cloud seed. Now, I want you to please address a larger question, which is one that is somewhat broad and perhaps even religious. But are you playing God?

Are you messing with things that you shouldn't be messing with when it comes to the weather?

I get this question all the time, and I totally think it makes sense to ask it. My intention is to serve God. I think that in Genesis 1, 26 through 28, and then throughout the Psalms and the rest of the Bible, God tells us to take dominion over and steward creation

both for our sake, creation's itself, and then to honor him. And so if there are droughts, and we have the tools to mitigate the damage done by them for our sake and for nature itself, then we should deploy those for the sake of tending to and stewarding the world. And if we weren't to do that, if we were to ban cloud seeding wholesale, despite knowing that it's safe, despite knowing it could help alleviate these problems, we'd be abdicating

our God-given responsibility to be stewards of the world.

Okay, let's address what...

Wait, hold on, hold on, hold on. So we're actually cloud seeding? We just brushed, we just blu-ray past this? It went from crazy conspiracy theory to we're doing this? And we never had a conversation? Now surely this guy and his company that did cloud seeding in southern Texas just two days before this horrible flood, surely they had nothing to do with each other, right?

Right?

The question is whether or not Rainmaker cloud seeding on July 2nd contributed to storms that occurred on July 4th. Did it enhance? Did it intensify what we saw some 36 to 48 hours later?

Unequivocally, our cloud seeding operations on July 2nd did not impact the flooding that occurred later. And that said, my heart and prayers are still with all the people of Texas and all the families that have been affected. It was a tragedy.

But in cloud seeding on the 2nd, one, we are regulated by the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. And we have what are called suspension criteria, where if there are National Weather Service flash flood warnings or severe storm warnings, then we cannot operate in those areas per the restrictions and regulations we have.

Our meteorologists actually proactively suspended operations a day before the National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning. So we were ahead of the curve.

Huh.

Now, I am not suggesting that this guy did have anything to do, that these guys' cloud efforts had anything to do with it. I don't know. I don't think so. But I can't get past the fact yet

that we're actually doing this and never talked about it. Now we're gonna spend more time on this on my series 6 AM show tomorrow. Let me, let's get to the biblical part here. This brings up a very important question about playing God. It's an interesting expression, isn't it? Play God. It's always don't play God. No one's ever like, we should go play God. Even though people may be doing it, no one's like happy to do it. Why don't know, maybe he is.

Maybe people do, why say that? Of course, maybe people do love to play God. They think they are God. The idea of playing God means to take control over something that you shouldn't be taking control over. Or thinking you have control over something

that you actually don't have control over. And it gets out of control, at least out of your control. Frankenstein was written in 1931. All right. So Frankenstein makes this monster of all these dead body parts and brings it to life. And he's so horrified by what he created that he abandons it into the world and it goes on and creates havoc.

Of course, it's kind of where this idea came from of playing God. But I thought about it for a while. Have we played God before? Like, so we're talking about weather, you know, making it rain for drought to stop the droughts. Well, is building a canal playing God?

Is building a dam playing God? You're creating a river where there wasn't a river or you're creating a river where there wasn't a river or you're creating a lake where there wasn't a lake. How about in medicine? Is medical treatment playing God? James was in the NICU for a couple weeks when he was born. Were we playing God? Goodness, what's the line? Now Christian ethicists have thought about this.

They've come up with many different parameters. There's such thing as, when it comes to medicine, ordinary treatment versus extraordinary treatment. But even that's a blurry line. If you saw my James sitting there for weeks, you would think that's pretty extraordinary treatment to keep him alive. Let's go back to what I know, because there's so many, I don't know the answer to that.

So I got to go back to what I do know. He brought up Genesis 1, Genesis 1 26. Then God said, let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

Here's my first point, and maybe my only point for now. Just because we can do something doesn't mean we should. I've heard this argument about marijuana. I remember back in the day, we were talking about legalizing marijuana, which we shouldn't have. And I argument about marijuana. I went back in the day of time I legalized marijuana, which we shouldn't have. I think I know I know I made the argument that we should sure it'll eliminate the cartels. Man, was I wrong. But the argument, some people

potheads made the argument, uh, Hey, it, God made it. God made it. So it must be good. It's natural. Okay. But I mean, there's a lot of things that are natural, doesn't mean you shouldn't. Lust may be natural in our fallen state, doesn't mean it's good. Hedonists would say it is.

If it's natural, it's good. Just because we can seed clouds or clone humans, doesn't mean we should. I don't think it means we should any more than we have nuclear weapons, so we should use them. The word dominion, rule, to have reign over.

That's great, but God is still in control. And we have to act, just like we do with our money, like stewards over the earth. You have the money, you did things that earned the money, sure, but really it's God who's in control. And we have to have dominion over the earth, sure, but really God is in control. We're stewards of it, which doesn't mean we do what we want. We're the caretakers. We manage the earth responsibly in a way that reflects God's character.

And one aspect of God's character is wisdom. Is it wise to do this? My instinct says, no, probably not. But then I'm sure back in the day, some people said, Hey, we can move water from over there to here. If we just build a canal and some people said, oh, we can move water from over there to here if we just build a canal.

And some people said, oh, you're playing God, you can't do that, you're affecting the earth. Probably people do that. Is this just the next iteration of that? Just because we can do something doesn't mean we should. We can now put computer chips in people's brains.

Elon Musk can do that now. See the other day, Grok, the AI, Twitter's AI or X's AI. It went a bit haywire. And I got all anti-Semitic. And now they're rewriting the code, so it doesn't do that anymore. I don't know, maybe we shouldn't put computer chips

in people's brains controlled by Twitter. Like we can, we can do that. We can do it right now. It's being done, it's in people's brains. We have Elon Musk's computers are in people's brains right now.

As we speak, I don't know if you know that. They start off with people who are paralyzed and people can just think things with their brain and move the things on the computer and stuff like that and now they're gonna move on to people who are blind and they're gonna add this computer chip and people can see okay so they're doing it you can should you that's my first point just

because you can doesn't mean you should. I guess the second point is we're stewards of everything and we have to show God's character in everything we do and one of God's characteristics is wisdom. Third point, this is the comforting fact as we move into the unknown, is God is in control over everything. I told a story on the radio today, we're talking about heroes and told some stories of some men, young boys,

young men who did incredibly heroic things in water. And I just told a quick little aside. I was swimming my whole life, swimming in college and swim with the kids the other day in the deep end. And I was like,

I wonder how long I can tread water these days. And I'm out there treading. I could do this all day. I could literally tread water for 24 hours. No problem. Zero energy exertion. I could tread water all day. And then I said, I wonder if I could tread water with one of my kids. So Johnny jumps in and he's five and he grabs onto me and I was like, Oh, this is tough. This is harder. I wonder if I could do this for an hour. Could I tread water and keep both of us alive? Let's say we were in the middle of the ocean. Could we both stay alive? If a boat was coming in an hour to rescue us, could we float in the water for an hour?

That's tough. Then Jack jumped in, he's eight, and I was like, ah, nope. I had two kids. I don't think I could do it. And then of course, waves, aside, is water is powerful.

Water is a powerful force. Kathleen wrote me a note. She said, you know, God can tread water forever and walk on it too. I apply that here because God can do anything and God can protect us from it.

God can fix our mistakes and protect us from ourselves. And in all the cases that I've brought up in this episode, I pray you guys. MikeSlater.Locals.com. MikeSlater.Locals.com. Transcript, commercial free on the website. MikeSlater.Locals.com.

This is what Delilah asked Samson. I ask the same question when I talk to people like Leigh. What makes you this way? Why are you different? How can I be more like you? The Bible has the answer.

Welcome to Politics by Faith. Thank you for being here. Did you get a chance to listen to yesterday's episode? I've been thinking a lot of Lee. We also had a gentleman calling today, not about what happened in Texas with the flooding, just other political stuff, and it's just a strong man with confidence. confidence and I thought of this line in Judges 16.6, please tell me what makes you so strong. When you hear Lee you just know that she is strong. There's certain

people that call into the radio show that I can tell very immediately that you can ask them really tough questions. And they'll have an answer because they've thought about it before. Or the spirit is just speaking on their behalf. Either way. And I knew I could ask Lee some really tough ones.

And she answers them so beautifully. And I so badly want to be that person. What makes people like this so strong? I'm preparing a segment right now about, for the TV show that we're gonna record tomorrow, it'll come out on Friday, about the flood in Texas,

and why bad things happen to good people. It's an important question, it's a question that's out there all the time, and it should always be answered. And my initial rebuttal is,'s not the right question. Actually. Uh, the real question is why do good things ever happen to bad people?

And we're all sinners. Nothing good should ever happen. Just the other day I came across a Thomas Jefferson quote. He said, indeed, I tremble for my country. What I reflect that God is just and that his justice cannot sleep forever. We don't deserve any of the good things that ever come our way. God is a God of not, not of evil.

Like, oh, how could he have let this happen? No, he is a God of great mercy. Justice. He's a God of mercy, grace, and justice. Justice is getting what we deserve. Mercy is not getting what we deserve. And grace is getting what we don't deserve. Spurgeon talked about that scene with Delilah and Samson,

what makes you so strong? Samson, what's your secret? And Spurgeon said, our faith comes from the food it feeds on. What are your inputs? Do you have the right inputs? Do you have inputs that are making you stronger? The more we read, the more we're aligned with God, read the Bible. The more we're aligned with God, the more faith we'll have, the stronger we'll be. It's that simple. Spurgeon says, faith remembers that God has never failed,

never once failed any of his children. It recalls, faith recalls times of great peril when deliverance came, hours of awful need, when as the day required its strength was found. Faith cries no I will never be led to think that God can change and leave his servant now. The Lord has helped me to this point and he will still help me." Psalm 23. Joss Spurgeon wrote this about Psalm 23. He says, It has charmed more griefs to rest than all the philosophy of the world.

It has remanded to their dungeon more felon thoughts, more black doubts, more thieving sorrows than there are sands on the seashore. It has comforted the noble host of the poor. It has sung courage to noble host of the poor. It has sung courage to the army of the disappointed. It has poured balm and consolation into the hearts of the sick, of captives in dungeons, of widows in their pinching griefs, of orphans in their loneliness. Dying

soldiers have died easier as it was read to them. Ghastly hospitals have been illuminated. It has visited the prisoner and broken his chains, and like Peter's angel, led him forth in imagination and sung him back to his home again. It has made the dying Christian slave freer than his master." Man, Spurgeon. It has made the dying Christian slave freer than his master and consoled those whom dying he left behind mourning not so much that he was gone as because they were

left behind and could not go to. the Christian is dying and is mourning not that he is dying but that because everyone else is left behind and they can't go with him because where he is going where the Christian is going where we are going is such a better place. Psalm 23. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. Say it with me if you know it. He leads me besides still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for

You are with me. Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever."

No matter what happens in life, that's our ultimate goal. That's our promise. That's what we live for. To dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Mike Slater dot locals dot com transfer commercial free. Mike Slater dot locals dot com transfer commercial free. It's on the website Mike Slater dot locals dot com.