RFJ Jr's dad implored him to read The Plague by Albert Camus. This book motivated RFK Jr to continue on his mission, despite his family's objections. We can be inspired by that, but no one is better than Paul when he said “None of these things move me.”
Welcome to Politics by Faith, brought to you by the Patriot Gold Group. RFK Jr. has dropped out of the presidential race or suspended his campaign and endorsed Donald Trump. This is great news for Donald Trump. RFK's been polling like 5 or 6% nationwide, probably about the same in the different swing states.
So if a certain percentage of those, you know, 2% goes to Trump, then obviously that's a good. I don't know much about RFK, to be honest, but I do remember a story that he told years ago on Joe Rogan's podcast. He was asked what he does and what he thinks about his family, who always speaks out against him. They always say what a horrible person he is, and they can't believe he's betraying the family.
They did it just the other day. Same thing. His wife, Cheryl Hines is her name, she's Larry David's TV wife on Curb Your Enthusiasm. She wrote, let me pull this up here. I don't, I distinctly remember this.
Here it is, here it is. She said, my husband's reference to Anne Frank at a mandate rally in DC, she's throwing her own husband under the bus, was reprehensible and insensitive. His own wife, the atrocities that millions endured during the Holocaust should never be compared to anyone or anything.
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His opinions are not a reflection of my own. Publicly threw his own, her own husband under the bus. And what did he say? It was the most benign, obvious, simple comment. He said that every dictator in the past would have loved to have the technology the government has access to today. And he said, you know, if the Nazis had the technology we have today, then Anne Frank wouldn't have been
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able to hide. And that's it. Like that was, that was the, oh, reprehensible. And he told a story about his dad, RFK. And when his uncle, JFK, was killed, RFK went on a bit of a spiritual journey. And he came across this book and he told his son to read it. And then when RFK died, RFK Jr. read it three times, trying to figure out why my dad wanted me to read this book so badly why he kept emphasizing this book over and over I read three times trying to find what message out of it he wanted me to get the book is called the
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plague by Albert Albert Camus he's got won a Nobel Prize for literature at the age of 44 second youngest ever to win Albert Camus C-A-M-U-S and the book is set in town in Algeria North Africa and everything's going great, and then they're hit by a plague. And people dismiss it at first, and then it gets more and more serious,
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and everyone's dying, and the social fabric of the town breaks down, and it's awful. And the book is about a doctor who lives there, and he's the one describing what's happening. And the doctor's trying to figure out for himself,
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what do I do? Do I go out and I help? Do I help these people? I don't even know what to do. No one knows what this thing is. They didn't have the technology that we do today. So we don't know what this is. We certainly don't know how to treat it. And anyone that goes out there just dies. So what's the point? Why would I go out there if I know I'm just gonna die?
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And he ends up, he decides to go and comfort people the best he can. And that's what R. F. K. Jr. got out of this book, is that it was this doctor's duty to do what he could, even at a great sacrifice to himself. It was his job to bring order to the chaos that was the plague. And that is wonderfully admirable when people do that. And then R. F. K. Jr. started talking about Sisyphus, because Albert Camus also wrote about Sisyphus a lot.
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We've all heard this story before, but I never heard the beginning of the story, and I never heard the end of the story. If you search for Camus, C-A-M-U-S, and Sisyphus, you'll find this essay that he wrote about Sisyphus. But we've all heard the story of this man that angered the gods and he was sentenced to roll this giant boulder up a giant hill and every time he got to the top the boulder rolled back down and he had to go and roll it back up forever and ever and ever. We've heard that story before. And it's always like a downer of a story. Like, oh man, that stinks to be that guy.
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That's awful. What a terrible punishment. But I've never asked, why did he get that punishment? Why did the gods do that? And then, how did he feel about it? I've always just said well that sounds awful and that was the end of it. The Camus had a different take. So so the beginning of the story is that Sisyphus was the king and he loved his people so much that he tied up death so that death would never overtake any of
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his people and then death was able to escape and it came for Sisyphus but then he escaped he was gonna live forever but the gods decided that he must die and then they gave him this punishment forever. So that's the beginning of the story. I didn't know that Sisyphus was a king and he's a good noble man. That's the point of that.
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And then at the end, Camus comes in and at the end of the essay he says, One must imagine Sisyphus happy. You're like, hold on, every time I've ever thought of this Greek story, it's terrible, it's awful, it's horrible, misery upon misery, forever, just putting this rock on the hill. So how could I imagine Sisyphus happy? Because, Camus said, the struggle itself, towards the heights, is enough to fill a man's heart. The struggle itself towards the
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heights is enough to fill a man's heart. So I did a segment like this on the radio, on the secular radio, Sirius XM Patriot, and it was dedicated to everyone who is going to work this morning and doesn't really want to go to work. We had our gratitude segment and someone called in and was grateful for their job. Not everyone's grateful for the job. Maybe you're grateful to have a job, but you're not grateful for the job or you don't like
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the job. But as my dad used to say, that's why they call it a work. So the story of Sisyphus, you know, put your body on the rock and push it up the hill and keep going. And then when you get to the top, the rock's going to roll back down and then you just got to go back to the bottom of the hill and push it up again.
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And you just do it because that's what life is and You find joy in that struggle
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And we ended it there I actually played this clip of
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RFK I could play it right here. It's a nice little finale and then I'll and then we'll do the scriptural point here Let's see. I played it right about here all living in a kind of chaotic universe.
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For me to have kind of a concrete task that I know is right, and I'm open to criticism, I have a critical mind. If somebody shows me where I got it wrong, I'll change. I'm not dug in. I'm not hard-headed in that sense. But until somebody shows me that, I'm going to try to help these children.
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I feel like it's a gift. So and the more people he abuse on me, the more the bigger the gift is in some way.
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All very nice right? Now let's bring in the Bible. Just this morning I was reading Acts 20. This always happens. I'm reading something and it's relevant to the news and whatever's happening. So Acts 20 and my one of my takeaways is that Paul is all over the place. This is Acts 20 verse 13. Then he went ahead to the ship and sailed to Assos. There, intended to take Paul on board, for he had given orders, intending himself to go on foot.
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And when he met us at Assos, we took him on board and came to Mithilene. We sailed from there, and the next day came opposite Chios. The following day we arrived at Samos and stayed at Trogoleum. I'm mispronouncing all of these, but the point is to be overwhelmed by the number of places. The next day we came to Miletus, for Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus so that he would not have to spend time in Asia, for he was hurrying to bring Jerusalem, if possible, on the day of Pentecost.
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From Miletus, he sent to Ephesus and called for the elders of the church. That travel schedule makes me anxious and tired just thinking about it, even with our modern amenities, not like what Paul was traveling with. But here's the key that I love so much. And see, now I go bound in the Spirit to Jerusalem, not knowing the things that will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies in every city, saying that chains and tribulations await me, but none of these things move me, nor do I count my
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life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I receive from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of God." Paul did not know what was ahead of him, but he knew it would be bad. Didn't care. Or I shouldn't say didn't care. It didn't bother Him. It didn't affect Him.
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None of these things moved me. He had no idea what would happen to Him in these places He was going. But it didn't change His mind. Why? Because Psalm 16.8, I have set the Lord always before me, because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. His God's right there. I did not count my life dear to myself.
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Spurgeon said,
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There was once in the church a gospel which believers hugged to their hearts as if it were their soul's life. Tens of thousands have met together to hear this gospel at peril of their lives. Men to the teeth of tyrants have proclaimed it, and have suffered the loss of all things, and gone to prison and to death for it, singing psalms all the while. Is there not such a gospel remaining?" And then at the end of all this, Paul said, I will finish my race with joy. I put those two together because that's, to
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me, a biblical version of the Sisyphus story. Sisyphus doing the work, putting his body to the rock, pushing it up the hill, and being happy while doing it, at least from Camus' interpretation. Now that's a fake story. What Paul did is real. He went anywhere to spread the gospel, endured everything imaginable, nothing, no trial or tribulation would move him away from his life's purpose. Maybe we can find a secular purpose like RFK grabbed onto the secular purpose mission statement in life and that's very nice and you can
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feel passionately about it and be brave for it. But there's nothing compared to the gospel and there's nothing more important than spreading God's Word and in eternity you won't be pushing a rock up a hill. It'll be much more glorious than that. Mike Slater dot locals dot com. Transcript and commercial frees on the website. Transcript and commercial frees on the website. Mike Slater dot locals dot com.
