MikeSlater
Politics • Spirituality/Belief • Culture
Facts DO Care About Your Feelings
Politics By Faith, August 23, 2024
August 23, 2024

A famous line from Ben Sharpio is "Facts don't care about your feelings." I disagree. I wish it were that easy to convince people of the truth. If only we could just share the facts and voila, we win. The reality is; feelings matter. And this is fine. We can use emotion to help people see the truth just as much as they can use feelings to convince people of lies. We just can't get frustrated. 


I don't know if this message will be well received, but I'll go for it anyway. This is my defense mechanism. Maybe it's just that. Maybe I'm off. I don't know.

I do know that the Bible says you have to forgive people because God forgave you. And whenever I think of someone who did something wrong or that annoys me or whatever, I just think of all the mistakes I've ever made and it deflates a lot of anger. Now, of course, you shouldn't be passive and get walked over and you need standards and expectations and righteous anger is good, all that. But whenever someone's rude or something, I just think of all the times I've been rude or just as thoughtless or just as ignorant or, that's funny, all the things I just listed there are all still kind of passive things like well I would never be actively cruel but sure maybe I've been accidentally rude in the past I'll admit I've been worse than surely. So let's have mercy on other people. No, but their sin is way worse. Why do I bring this up? A dominant theme on the show this week has been how do I talk to people? Started with a gentleman I believe on Tuesday. I said how do I

0:01:29
spread the word? How do I start conversations with people about politics. And then we had a call in today that say, okay, I get it's later everything we've been talking about this week, but how do you talk to someone who is tied up with this political stuff so emotionally? If someone only believes emotional arguments, if it's true, as you've been saying, that this is the Barbie election.

0:01:55
Actually, let me pull this clip up real quick. One second, I'm going to press pause. I'll be right back. All right, here it is. Here's a clip from the Barbie movie. This is President Barbie talking to Journalist Barbie.

0:02:05
Everybody, turn to the Barbie next to you. Tell her how much you love her. Compliment her. Reporter Barbie, you can ask me any question you want.

0:02:11
How come you're so amazing?

0:02:12
No comment.

0:02:13
Ah! No, seriously, no comment. Ah, I love you guys.

0:02:20
Isn't that way too spot on? Way too spot on. And then the newspaper spins in the movie, you know, the newspaper spins on the screen and it says, journalist Barbie wins Nobel Prize for that interview. And that's it. That's like way too close to our election where if the media does ever ask a question

0:02:41
to Kamala, they say, why are you so wonderful? And she says, no comment. And they laugh and they think it's great. So that's an emotional connection that people have to Kamala right now. There's no substance of course. So how do you talk to someone about this who's so emotionally tied up? And my argument is to use emotion. Ben Shapiro, one of his famous lines, Ben Shapiro is

0:03:04
facts don't care about your feelings. Maybe we wish this weren't the case, but it is. We feel a lot, human beings feel, and we feel first. It's the way it is. I wish we could just deal with hard facts, but that's not how people operate. In fact, we go to great lengths to avoid difficult conversations

0:03:34
and difficult facts because they make us feel bad. People will do remarkable things in order to avoid facts. Fascinating part of human nature. Just at the very least the way we distract ourselves every waking second of in-between time or potential boredom time all the way to what we do as we're falling asleep. We will fill the time with something to distract us. TV show, Fruit Ninja, whatever, Farmville. We try to fill all the time because the last thing we want

0:04:07
is to be with our thoughts and to be with our conscience. The last thing we want is to deal with facts. I'd rather just feel, even if the feeling is to numb out. So feelings matter. I think conservatives for a long time have ignored people's feelings at our own peril. If you're talking to

0:04:30
someone who's had an abortion and they have obviously an emotional connection to this issue and you're trying to change their mind, you can throw as many statistics as you want at them. It's not going to do anything. So my advice would be if you're talking to someone who has an emotional connection to something. Meet their emotion. Maybe even affirm it. I think affirm it because emotions are real. Feelings are real. They may be irrational or whatever but there's no real. They still have the feeling. And

0:05:03
then use emotion. So once you're connected to that, then use emotion and facts to get them to a place of truth or at least in that direction. Give you an example. Rachel Marin, her daughter, was, or excuse me, no, Rachel was raped and murdered by an illegal alien from El Salvador, from Maryland.

0:05:26
Her mom spoke at a rally, not a rally, an event that Trump had at the border yesterday. And she spoke for four minutes and it was amazing. Incredibly emotional. It's not emotional manipulation by the way because it's real. And she told her story and then talked about how we need to change our policy at the border. If you... should I play that here? I think I should play it. I'm not going to ask you to go do extra work.

0:06:07
Let's just play it right here so we can be on the same page. And think of this story and think about if you're talking to someone about the border, how you can use the reality of it, the reality of this, the facts of this, and also the emotion of this to change their minds.

0:06:23
Thank you.

0:06:25
Thank you.

0:06:26
Take care of yourself.

0:06:27
Absolutely.

0:06:28
We don't want to have to, we don't want it to happen to other people.

0:06:29
That's all. No. Yeah.

0:06:32
Hi, I was just thanking President Trump for the invitation to come and to share Rachel's story. Rachel was 37 years old. She had five children. She worked, she owned a small business, she worked very hard to support her family, and the trail that Rachel ran daily was a trail that we as a family would walk over the last 25 years that we've lived in Maryland. It's a very safe, small trail, very public, very open. Moms with baby carriages go down this trail. It's very safe. I was in Kentucky. We had a grandbaby

0:07:21
that had passed away. When I got a phone call from my son, and he said, Mom, there's somebody here that would like to speak to you. And when I said hello, the person on the other Mrs. Moran, this is Detective so-and-so. I'm the lead detective on this case. There's no easy way to tell you this. But we found your daughter's body. And if they find the body, you know that she was brutally beaten, raped, and then stuffed into a drain pipe. from the border. And because of this open border, we've had not just my daughter, but

0:08:26
we've actually had two in the same county that we're from where illegal immigrants have come in and have caused rape and murder of our citizens. And I don't, I really, the reason why I came here today and I accepted the invitation is because I really want our words to be heard and I really want you to take to heart what we're saying. We're not here for a political stand, although we are. We're here because we're losing our moms, our daughters, our children to criminals and And that shouldn't happen.

0:09:10
We should be taking care of our country, our people. And the only way I believe that's going to happen is if President Trump is reelected as president and we close up this border and we put policies back into place that were there before instead of this open border thing. We're just going to, we're going to end up being a third world country if it continues this way. And I hope, truly I hope that you will just take my words to heart because it's devastating to lose a

0:09:48
child but even more devastating when you see the pictures or you see the body and you really understand what's happened to that person. So please take to heart, this is a very, very important issue. And it's one that's either going to make or break our country. It's not so much, it's about America. It's about Americans. It's about us taking and protecting ourselves

0:10:16
and looking out for each other. It's about protecting our families.

0:10:20
So, thank you.

0:10:21
Thank you, Helen.

0:10:22
So good. Thank you.

0:10:23
Thank you very much.

0:10:25
That's an incredibly emotional story, obviously, and true. And you can use that to help people see the truth. Don't ignore the emotions of that. Let's use it. I totally understand the frustration. Why don't these idiots just get it?

0:10:46
I've been that idiot many times. I remember before I was a Christian on the radio in Tennessee. I was taking the, I thought I was very smart, I was taking, I was very clever, I took the libertarian approach to gay marriage, which is that the state should have nothing to do with marriage at all. And I can re-articulate that argument, but I was very wrong, I was wrong.

0:11:01
I remember people calling in and telling me I was wrong, but I was certain I was right. So I'm sure a lot of people were frustrated with me as well. Just to turn it to the Bible here, the frustration you feel at other people, these other idiots out there, it's nothing compared to God and the patience that he's had with you. Numbers 14 11, Then the Lord said to Moses, How long will these people reject me? How long will they not believe me? With all

0:11:29
the signs which I performed among them, I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they." God wasn't even talking to the people of Israel anymore. They so ignored him that he's like, why? So he spoke directly to Moses and then Moses made a good counter offer. But I like this line he said, it's from Moses, is, Now I pray, let the power of my Lord be great, just as you have spoken, saying,

0:11:58
The Lord is long-suffering and abundant in mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression. Pardon the iniquity of this people, I pray, according to the greatness of your mercy, just as you have forgiven the people from Egypt even until now. Let's forgive the people who are blind to their sins and blind to the facts of political realities. Because we've been there too. In many cases, we still are.

0:12:31
We're not right about everything. I'm not right about everything. We need to give mercy and be long-suffering. Of course, that doesn't mean stop

0:12:39
trying to spread the word.

0:12:40
Stop trying to convince people what is true, what you believe to be true. Never stop that. But let's not just get frustrated about people's ignorance. Just imagine how God felt about you before you were born again. 2 Peter 3 9, He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. Mike Slater at Outlocals.com. Transcript on the website. You get an email every day when we publish this, actually before we publish it, on every other podcast platform. And transcript, oh, no commercials. They're the benefit. They're the benefit. If you go to the website, mikeslater.locals.com.

 

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Fox & Friends

We were on Fox & Friends talking about all of the train robberies in CA. It's so bad the train company says they may have to ride right THROUGH Los Angeles entirely and never slow down lol. What a joke this state it.

https://archive.org/details/FOXNEWSW_20220122_110000_FOX_and_Friends_Saturday/start/5640/end/5700

That link is a bit odd, I've attached a short video to get the gist.

In short, The rich get richer, the poor get the handouts and the middle class gets out of town.

This causes these progressive politicians to get even more entrenched.

We haven't hit rock bottom yet.

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Boys to men, girls to women

How do you do it? Advice please!

Dean Abbott,
"Why contemporary relations between the sexes are so messed up. The problem starts with men because men lead, the masculine pursues and initiates, and problems always start at the level of leadership.

Most men aren't taught that a relationship with a woman means accepting responsibility. No one tells us that a woman represents not only pleasure, but obligation.
The fact that having a relationship with a woman means responsibility and obligation never enters many men's minds.

When these men enter into a relationship with a woman, they are overwhelmed by her needs, her feminine communication style, and her emotions.
Moreover, he unconsciously resents her for having needs at all since he has been conditioned to see her solely as a source of pleasure.
When her anger and disappointment over his irresponsibility gets intense enough, he splits in search of another woman.
He mistakenly believes the problem wasn't his attitude nor that it is a ...

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Surly this will be kicked off twitter eventually
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Morning Motivation, April 21, 2023

I found a way to easily transcribe the podcasts, so I will post them here first before they go out to iTunes and the rest.

Good morning. Welcome to The Morning Motivation, brought to you by Public Square and Patriot Gold Group. I'm grateful you're here. I was reading a sermon by the great Puritan preacher John Owen in the mid-1600s. I'm so fascinated by this time period, 1600s, early 1700s. We focus a lot on our founding fathers. I think that the Tea Party movement and just conservatism in general has focused a lot on the founding fathers, and that's amazing, but I'm very fascinated by our founding grandfathers or great-grandfathers, the people who created the culture that our founding fathers were raised in.

0:00:44
Isn't that a fascinating era? We got like 1776, like that's great, I love it, I want to know more, I don't know nearly enough. But what about the 1720s? What was going on there? Or the late 1600s? What was going on in America at that time? And you know, we've all heard of the Puritans, but you ...

Morning Motivation, April 21, 2023
Inflation and ANGER

I am angry and frustrated. With our Rulers. For getting us in this terrible economy. It doesn't have to be this way.

How could they never learn from past mistakes! This is ANCIENT history, stop printing money...yet, after COVID, we never printed more. Amazing.

Please leave a 5-star review on Itunes. We have a ton of momentum, this is about to break through! Thank you!

Also, I haven't done any lives anywhere becauase we're hosting a daily TV show "Road to Misterms" on thefirsttv.com, and it's taken all of my extra time. And my wife is giving birth any day now, so...it's been a lot around here. But after the midterms, time will free up.

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Politics by Faith: Parkland and the Death Penalty

I've gone back and forth on the death penalty many times over the years. I've recently come down on the other side.

Should the Parkland murderer have gotten the death penalty or life in prison?

Please leave a review on iTunes! We need to get to 1k :-)
www.thefirsttv.com/mikeslater

Btw, we're getting the momentum we need, more downloads every day, THANK YOU!

Politics by Faith: Parkland and the Death Penalty
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Baptized Brethren contest with each other AND against The Church, calling “Lord, Lord” (Mt 7:21-22, 25:11; Lk 6:46), in the Devil’s disunity, whilst the enemy has breached the Gates and is welcomed at and obliged at the most august Court. “Lord, Lord.”

Faith of our Fathers. Jer 6:16; Mal 3:6; Heb 13:7-9; Jam 1:17; Gal 1:6-12; Jude 3; 1 Pet 5:5

THE CODE OF CATHOLIC CHIVALRY

The knight receives as his law the knightly Code of Honor, which is the expression of his absolute fidelity to God:

I. The Knight battles for Christ and His Reign.
II. The Knight serves his Lady the Blessed Virgin Mary.
III. The Knight defends The Holy Church unto blood.
IV. The Knight maintains the Tradition of his Fathers.
V. The Knight fights for Justice, Christian Order and Peace.
VI. The Knight wages war without truce or mercy against the World and its Prince.
VII. The Knight honors and protects the poor, the weak and the needy.
VIII. The Knight despises money and the powers of this world.
IX. The Knight is humble, magnanimous ...

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You were terse and dismissive in this morning's 7:25 Eastern time call with the Man with four step children applying for Naturalization from his Naturalized U.S. Wife of Philippine descent. You should be more considerate of history about America's relationship such as with the Philippine People, which is quite notable with intrinsic factors which should have favorable weight in consideration the Filipino propensity to immigrate and become American Citizens.

"The Resident Commissioner of the Philippines was a non-voting member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1907 until the Philippines gained independence in 1946. This role was established under the Philippine Organic Act of 1902, allowing the Philippines to have representation in Congress, similar to current non-voting members from U.S. territories."

Don't be so apparently xenophobic and stop misrepresenting American (and Christian while you're at it) History in omission through culpable ignorance.

The Philippines, 1898–1946
...

post photo preview
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Happy Veterans' Day.
Support our Troops. Before. During. After.

St. Martin, Bishop of Tours, Confessor, Soldier of the State, Soldier of Christ
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https://www.bartleby.com/lit-hub/lives-of-the-saints/volume-xi-november/st-martin-bishop-of-tours-confessor

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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. 

Now, if you asked me two years ago, have I ever seen It's a Wonderful Life? I would have said, yeah, like twice. Most of it, probably, I've seen bits and pieces, so yeah, I get the gist of it. Belle, Angel Wings, I get it, yeah. That was two years ago. Last year was the first year my wife and I sat down and watched the whole thing. 

I loved every second of it. So we just watched it again the other day with the kids this time, and it's amazing. The whole movie is perfect. Now, if you're gonna watch it with your kids, a warning, there's a lot of drinking in it, and there's a couple sexually inappropriate kind of things, but it's like 1940, so it's okay. There's a scene where Violet is wearing a dress and all the men are oogling. And they say, nice dress. 

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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