Psalm 2 gives me the perspective I need. It highlights the truest thing I could ever say, and a truth we need to rely on the next 55 days and beyond.

Hey, welcome to Politics by Faith, brought to you by the Patriot Gold Group. The debate. I was discouraged. When it was happening, I was discouraged, went to bed discouraged and annoyed, frustrated. And then I woke up thinking, you know, maybe it wasn't that bad. Actually it probably wasn't.

Trump actually did have some good moments. And then as the day went on, I got more disappointed, discouraged, and angry. There are just so many missed opportunities. So many missed opportunities. I like, as an example, I was just walking in the hallway and I thought, I'm a genius.

I could have pulled this off. Hey everyone, before we get started today, just a friendly reminder. Last time we had a debate, it was me versus Joe Biden. And at that same time, Kamala Harris and everyone in the media said that Joe Biden was the sharpest attack and clearly he was not. They were lying to then, they're still lying to you now.

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Also, it was six weeks ago when I got shot in the head. And I think one of the reasons why I got shot in the head is because these people are trying to scare everyone by saying I'm the biggest threat to democracy in the world and I'm a terrible, awful, horrible person. I'm not. When I was president, here are some good things that happened.

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Now that she's been vice president, here are some bad things that happened. Let's all vote accordingly." That's so easy, that's so simple, that's so clear, it's so true, and nothing like that was even close. And that's just frustrating. So I went from frustrated to not that frustrated to very frustrated, and now I'm kind of back

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to not that frustrated. This is from Reuters. Now, Reuters is as biased as David Muir. Reuters did a 10 person focus group of undecided voters, and at the end of the focus group, six said they're going to vote for Trump, three said they're voting for Kamala, still one

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undecided. And Reuters said, although the sample size was small, the responses suggest that Harris might need to provide more detailed policy proposals to win over voters who have yet to make up their minds. The people in the focus group are all saying that they still have no idea where Kamala stands,

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they can only assume it's the same thing as Joe Biden, and therefore, they're not gonna vote for her, they're gonna vote for Trump. So that was that Reuters focus group, and that is somewhat encouraging. So maybe we overanalyze is the point of that.

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Maybe people in politics all the time overanalyze, and a lot of people, the undecided people watching actually thought it went pretty good for Trump. So I don't know. I can tell you this is not true though. Frank Luntz said, I'm trying to decide if I want to go on the record and the answer is yes. I think he loses because of this debate performance. Frank, give me a break man. That assassination attempt was on July 20th. Doesn't that

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feel like it was 30 years ago? Seriously, there was like just a few weeks ago, feels about 30 years ago. There's still 54 days until election day. I don't wanna say there's a long time to go, because it's not a long time, but things fly. Things move super fast.

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There's so many things that are still going to happen in the next couple of days and weeks that everyone will have forgotten about the debate. It could have been a knockout opportunity, there's no question, and that was missed. But to say that it's over now because of the debate, come on, Frank, give me a break.

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Now here's the ultimate truth that I want to talk about. And I don't want to call this a cope because it's not a cope because it's true if my preferred candidate is doing well and if he's not doing well. And it's true if my preferred candidate is winning or losing or wins or loses. It is always still true. So it's not a coping mechanism. It is just truth.

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Even if Trump wins the election, nothing is saved. Nothing is fixed. Our country's not going to be fixed just like immediately. That's not how that works. So let's not fall into the delusion that it's as easy as that. What I go back to is Psalm 2. Let's go over the first part of it today. David said, Why do the nations rage, and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord

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and against His anointed, saying, Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us. He who sits in the heavens laughs. The Lord holds them in derision. Then he will speak to them in his wrath and terrify them in his fury, and terrify them in his fury, saying, As for me, I have set my king on Zion,

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my holy hill."

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Okay, that's just the first part of Psalm 2. So the opening is, why do stupid, wicked countries plot against God? What are they doing? It is in vain. They'll never win. All the kings can band together, work together, plot against God.

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It won't work. I love this line. This is such an, I love ancient truths. I love them. I love things that are true today and you go back and you're like, oh, that's been true for thousands of years.

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People today who don't believe in God, many of them believe that God is mean. And God imposes all these rules on me. And I don't want a religion of rules. I want to live my life how I want to live it, and I don't want all these restrictive rules. Well, the kings of the world, as is written in Psalm 2,

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they said,

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The rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed, saying, what do they say? Let us break their bonds in pieces and cast away their cords from us. So they also saw God as someone who puts his children in bondage, that Christians need to be set free from, so that they can then live how they want to live.

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But, of course, they have it backwards. Jesus liberates us from our sin. He is liberation himself. Liberation Himself. People think it happened after thousands of years, that we need to be set free from Jesus.

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But of course the truth is, Jesus is the one who sets us free. Spurgeon said, To a graceless neck, the yoke of Christ is intolerable. It must be broken. Like the kings thousands of years ago said, But to the saved sinner, that yoke is easy and light. So we judge for ourselves.

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Do we love that yoke, or do we wish to cast it from us? I love it. But here is my favorite part of this first part of the psalm. It's God's response to this. God is not surprised by the debate. We were all surprised.

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We didn't know what was going to happen. Then we watched, and we're like, Oh, that just happened. God wasn't like, Oh, I wonder what's going to happen. He knows what's going to happen on November 5th. He knows every single thing that could ever happen. I was talking to my kids the other day about how God knows

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everything and just blowing their mind about every hair on your head, every blade of grass, every star in the galaxy. Made them all, made them all, knows them all, understands them all, will know what has always happened forever in the past and will ever happen in the future. Our feeble minds can't comprehend. So he knows what's

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gonna happen with this debate, surely, and with the election. And to all the people who plot against him, what does he do? He looks at them from heaven and laughs. He who sits in the heavens laughs. Laughs at their plotting. And the Lord holds them in derision. It will not work out in the end for the people who plot against God. There was a pastor in 1867, William Plummer is his name. He said of 30 Roman emperors, governors of provinces and others in high office, who distinguished themselves by their zeal and bitterness and persecuting the early Christians. Okay, what happened to them? We had a 30 Roman high officials

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plotted against God and God's people what happened to him one became speedily deranged After some atrocious cruelty one was slain by his own son One became blind the eyes of one started out of his head One was drowned, one was strangled, one died in a miserable captivity. One fell dead in a manner that will not bear recital. One died of so loathsome a disease that several of his physicians were put to death because

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they could not abide the stench that filled his room. Two committed suicide, a third attempted it but had to call for help to finish the work. Five were assassinated by their own people or servants. Five others died, the most miserable and excruciating deaths, several of them having an untold complication of diseases, and eight were killed in battle or after being taken prisoner. Among these was Julian the Apostate.

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In the days of his posterity he is said to have pointed his dagger to heaven, defying the Son of God, whom he commonly called the Galilean. But when he was wounded in battle, he saw that all was over for him, and he gathered up his clotted blood and threw it into the air, exclaiming, Thou hast conquered, O thou Gilean!

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Wow.

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So it has been throughout history, and so it will be in the end. The Roman Emperor Diocletian, known for his persecution of early Christians. He had two monuments that he set up. Here's one, has his name Diocletian Jovian Maximum Herculeus Caesarus Augusti for having extended the Roman Empire in the East and the West and for having extinguished the name of Christians who brought the Republic to ruin. It's one. Another one is

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his name for having extended the worship of the gods. Diocletian is dead. Maybe some of you and others have heard his name before. Most have never heard of it, a footnote in history. Jesus Christ lives, and God's word is what is spread around the world. Be encouraged by this.

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Do the work. Don't get anxious about it. I've never said anything more true in my entire life. God is in control. Doesn't mean don't do anything. Do the work, always.

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But God is in control. Mike Slater dot locals dot com. I hope that's comforting.

I hope that lowers the anxiety a bit. That's the goal of this podcast, is to lower the anxiety. I hope that mission accomplished here. Mike Slater dot Locals dot com, transcript commercial free. transcript commercial free. Mike Slater dot Locals dot com.

A gentleman called in today who has lost hope that America can ever be saved. I agreed with all of his points until the very end. We have to have hope. to get it, let's look to Habbakuk

Hey, welcome to Politics by Faith, brought to you by the Patriot Gold Group. Gentleman called in today, said, Slater, people don't understand. We are in a way worse situation than we think we are. As bad as you think things are in our country, it's a thousand times worse. worse and we're past the point of no return. This gentleman was hopeless and I agreed with everything he said until the very last thing. I totally agree with him that things are a thousand times worse than you think you are. Most people. And I think it's true with our country too. Maybe some things look okay on the surface but I think we are a thousand times worse. If who works in law enforcement, a friend of mine for a long time dealt in child sex trafficking of local law enforcement.

And when you live in that world, or you live in the court system for kids, like kids who are victims, you see the depravity of man, and the depravity of our nation that we don't see all the time, living our life in a normal way. And I think that in some ways protects us from that, because it'd be hard to go on if we really knew how bad it all was. But I do think it's important to know how bad things are, and I don't think most people do. So I agree with all that. But where I disagree is we're past the point of no return. I believe in the repentance and salvation of people, no matter how bad you are, no matter what you've ever done. And I believe that's true for a nation as well, a group of people in a place.

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That's all a nation is. I think we can right this ship. I must believe that's true, otherwise I'd give up and I'm not giving up. So my message today is don't get too down. Things may look bleak, but there are, and things are bleak,

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but there are ways and opportunities to get it back. And I took this gentleman's call,

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I was right at the end of the hour,

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so I couldn't really go deep into it, but I was reminded of the book of Habakkuk. And it's a short book, you can read it in 10 minutes. It was written in 600 BC. And it's written by Habakkuk. And he's living in Israel, and it's awful.

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Things are going very poorly. And he cries out to God. He says, O Lord, how long shall I cry for help? And you will not hear. Or cry to you, violent, and you will not save.

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He said, God, why are you not saving Israel? What's going on? Why are you not fixing things? The people here are corrupt and violent, and you're doing nothing, God. Destruction and violence are before me.

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Strife and contention arise. The law is paralyzed. Justice never goes forth. The wicked surround the righteous. Come on! Are there people like that in America right now feeling the same way?

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It's like, what's going on here? And God responds. He says, I'm doing a work in your days, and you would not believe if I told. And Abacus is like, all right, try me. What are you up to? He said, well, I'm rising up the Babylonians, that bitter and hasty nation, and I'm rising

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them up to take over the world. Their horses are swifter than leopards, more fierce than the evening wolves. That's not an answer. At kings they scoff, at rulers they laugh. They laugh at every fortress and they pile up earth and take it. Then they sweep by like the wind and go on, guilty men,

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whose own might is their God. Wow, super encouraging, God. Thanks, great plan. I'm here in Israel and it's awful. Everyone here is in sin and your answer is to have the Babylonians take us over. Habakkuk says, Why do you idly look at traitors and remain silent

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when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he? Habakkuk is like, The king of Babylon is awful. He treats people like they're nothing. The analogy he uses is he treats them like fish in a net, and he drags them out of their life, and he treats them horribly as slaves, or he just kills them in a mass sacrifice

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to their fake gods all so that he can live in luxury. What do you mean? God, things are terrible. Hey, don't worry, I got a plan. Great, what's the plan? Oh, I'm gonna have to battle,

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you mean these people take us over?

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So God responds to Habakkuk.

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He says, all right, write some stuff down. Write down these five woes. And the five woes are greed, violence, arrogance, and I think the two that really stand out to me right now, I mean, they're all relevant, of course, but the two that stand out to me right now is idolatry.

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He says, woe to him who says to wood, awake, to silent stone, arise, it shall teach. So these are people worshiping rocks and false idols. And those who have a false security, those who feel they've made themselves secure from their sin and from judgment, woe to him who covets evil gain for his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the power of

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disaster. Woe to you, because you're not safe, no matter where you are. So the Babylonians looked to their own man-made gods and their own military power to give them this security, which is a false sense of security. So God again tells Habakkuk these five woes. Don't be greedy, arrogant, violent, worship other gods, or worship yourself,

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your own power. And I would say we've done all these. We've done all these. We are greedy. We are arrogant. The arrogance here is actually alcohol.

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Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbor, pressing him to your bottle, even to make him drunk, that you may look on his nakedness. It's all just sin that's pulling you down and you take other people down with you. There's a lot of that in our nation. And we worship other gods and we worship ourselves. This is us. So, those are the five woes.

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And so, what does Habakkuk do after all this? What would you do? I'd be like, alright, thanks for nothing. And then we have chapter 3. And Habakkuk says that God will bring judgment against all sinners, Babylon included. God's not going to let Babylon win in the end.

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God's judgment will happen. God will save his people. You went out for the salvation of your people, for the salvation of your anointed. Habakkuk says, I trust you God. I trust you. I hear, he's like, I hear what you're saying.

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I don't love this, but I hear and my body trembles, my lips quiver at the sound, rottenness enters into my bones, my legs tremble beneath me, yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us." I will wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us. And Habakkuk says that no matter all the bad things that may happen, though the fig leaf should not blossom or fruit be on the vine,

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the produce of the olives fail, and the fields yield no food. So we're going to starve, no matter how bad things get. The flock be cut off from the fold, there be no herd in the stalls. Yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength.

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And that's the answer to all that. It's got to be your ultimate hope. Can't be in the debate tonight. Can't be in Kamala. Can't be in Trump. Let me end with maybe a more political point. Back to chapter 1. Maybe this stood out to you when I read it the first time. They're speaking of the enemy, the Babylonians.

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They are terrible and dreadful. Their judgment and their dignity are perceived from themselves. Their horses are swifter than leopards and more fierce than evening wolves. I love the Bible so much because every word matters. Evening wolves. What are evening wolves? Because at night the wolves are hungry. They've gone all day without eating. They're more fierce and ravenous at the end of the day. Charles Spurgeon says that, first of all, this is you. This is you. A day of doubt, a day of distraction, a day of bad things happening.

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And at the end you think, where are you, God? All the greed and arrogance and idolatry of the day bottled up. Why is my life not better? And Spurgeon asks God to slay these wolves at night, slay these thoughts. He also says that the demons of hell are like a wolf at dusk, and they will attack Christians when they are at their weakest point.

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He said they will rarely attack Christians in the daylight of faith, but the Fallen Us when we're in the gloom of soul conflict. These wolves of dusk. Darkness is their element, deceit is their character, destruction is their end. We need to not be like the wolf at night. We need to be on alert for wolves who are trying to take us down when we're most vulnerable, but we shouldn't be vulnerable.

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And the way to not be vulnerable is to trust God as Habakkuk did. I will rejoice in the Lord. I will take joy in the God of my salvation. Things may look tough in our country and I've always contended we have a, we have a ways to go before we hit actual rock bottom, but we must be the people throughout this time. We cannot be the people who give up hope. We must be the people who have hope, a supernatural hope, an everlasting hope, an eternal hope. I will rejoice in the Lord. I will take joy in the God of my salvation. That has to be us. Mike Slater dot locals dot com. Transcript commercial free on the website Mike Slater dot locals dot com. Transcript commercial free on the website Mike Slater dot locals dot com.

Did you know that Kamala LOVES Doritos?! She loves them sHe Is JuSt LiKe Us omg!We need to stop wanting politicians to relate to us. There's already someone else who knows everything about you.

Welcome to Politics by Faith, brought to you by the Patriot Gold Group. This is the day before the debate. We'll do an episode tomorrow a little more debate specific, but it's been fun to see the media lay the groundwork, lay the foundations for them going gaga over Kamala's performance tomorrow. It'll be the most spectacular performance you've ever seen in your life.

Oh, this is a funny, this was, this is good. This is a Yale University historian, Timothy Snyder. He wrote this after Biden dropped out. I just shared this just because this is the amount of fawning that you're going to see after the debate. So this is Biden after he dropped out of the race.

This is a Yale University historian. What the president did last Sunday was humanly magnificent and morally extraordinary. And it was also spectacularly strategic. Years from now, historians will be searching for words to describe the Biden benediction.

Are you with me? On the glowing, oh, Biden should be on Mount Rushmore, as Pelosi said. Truly, she said he should be on Mount Rushmore. You're gonna see the same from the media after Kamala's performance.

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Cause she'll do fine, she'll memorize some lines and have a couple singers in there and it'll be all the greatest thing you've ever. You're also seeing a lot of,

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she's just like us.

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She's just like us.

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Oh, she gets us.

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ABC News, the same organization that is hosting the debate tomorrow. Bringing a story, Harris turns to favorite foods in an effort to show more private side and connect with voters. From snacking on nacho cheese Doritos to washing collard greens in the bathtub, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris is revealing more about herself as a person.

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She likes Doritos. Who calls them nacho cheese? Doritos. You see them focus grouping. What do we do? We gotta become more connected with the people. What do we do? What do people like to eat? Doritos! Great! Doritos!

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Let's say that she really really likes Doritos. Nacho cheese. This article is so great here. It is known that Harris is a foodie and likes to cook. In fact, she had just made a pancake and bacon breakfast for her niece's six and eight-year-old daughters on that morning when Biden called with the news that he was dropping out of the race.

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Oh my goodness, are you serious? She just made pancakes? Wow, she is a foodie. She is a foodie who really, really, she must love, I bet, wow, she made pancakes and bacon. I bet she has three meals a day. I bet the show that she does.

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I bet she eats three. That's a lot. I don't know. Maybe not that much. Maybe she's not that much of a foodie. From talking about nacho cheese Doritos as her snack of choice to

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washing collard greens in the bathtub, Harris aiming to connect with voters on a more personal level while learning that she likes to munch tortilla chips at snack time, likely isn't enough on its own to sway anyone to vote for her. The small and sometimes amusing details could help Harris show she can relate to people and their concerns. This is the executive director of the Pennsylvania Center for Women in Politics at Chatham University

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said she's trying to show that she is a full person beyond just her policy proposals. Sorry, that's enough of that nonsense. We did more of that on the satellite show, but let's bring it into what this podcast is. There is this strong desire, and we'll see what she can do at the debate,

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but you'll see the media do it for the next 59 days, is that she is someone who understands us. She understands us and our issues. And I just want to issue a friendly reminder that the only person who can truly do that is Jesus. Now, that's like a weirdly dramatic turn. Why would you need to do that?

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Okay, here's the deal. Politics has replaced religion as a type of religion in our culture. Religion has been pushed out of individuals lives but also the cultural space that is this country. We used to live in a Christian culture where even if you yourself weren't, you know, Jesus wasn't Lord, you still were around it.

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You were still in this culture where everyone had some biblical literacy. And now we are biblically illiterate. The example I always give is that a politician or someone could make a reference of the Bible and they wouldn't have to quote it. They wouldn't have to quote the Bible.

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Everyone would just know what they were talking about. Abraham Lincoln talked about how the Declaration of Independence is an apple of gold and the Constitution is a silver frame. He didn't say, well like it says in Proverbs 25 11, a word fitly spoken is like apples of gold and pictures of silver. He didn't have to do that. He just said apple of gold, silver frame, and everyone knew exactly what he was talking about. But now we live in a biblically illiterate time, even culturally.

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People don't even know the main stories of the Bible. So because we pushed religion out, politics has filled that void for a lot of people. And part of that filling of the void is also politicians taking the place of everything up to and including Jesus himself. She gets me. She knows me. She loves me. It's like whoa whoa hold on let's keep Kamala and Trump in that their box over there and let's make sure we keep this space just for Jesus.

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And stop looking to politicians to solve all of our problems, first of all, but also to be that sort of personal Savior that people are looking for. And it starts with the, oh, he gets me, or she gets me. No, no, that's not it at all. Only Jesus knows everything about you.

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Only Jesus knows all the struggles that you're going through. He, and He alone, is your advocate. 1 John 2, 1, My little children, I am writing these things to you, so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

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Jesus is our advocate. He is also in you. 2 Corinthians 13, 5 says, Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourself that Jesus Christ is in you? I love this Ephesians 3 for this reason I bow my knee before the Father that according to the riches of his glory He may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being

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So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith that you being rooted and grounded in love But it's in your heart Paul said I have been crucified with Christ that I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. He is the only one who knows you fully and truly. Don't even look for anyone else to do it or any other politician to be anywhere close

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to what you have and you have available to you right now with Jesus living in you. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6, 19, Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God, you are not your own.

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And then when he's in you, he gets to prune.

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This maybe is a different episode, but John 15 says, I am the true vine and the Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.

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Here's my point of all this. Maybe there's some value in having a politician who at a point in his life knew what it was like to not have money at the end of the month and to know those stresses and anxieties and someone who has filled out a tax form

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and knows how absurd it all is and someone who's had kids and understands the difficulties of... All that stuff's fine. There's some relatability that's fine. But make sure it doesn't go past those basics

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because if I may, there's no need to find that person who knows me. I'm going to find that politician who knows me deeply and profoundly. No, no, no. That's the place for Jesus to be. And Him alone.

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Mike Slater dot locals dot com. We'll do a little debate prep on tomorrow's episode. Mike Slater dot locals dot com. Transcript and commercial free on the website. Transcript and commercial free on the website. Mike Slater dot locals dot com.