To us, nothing should be shocking. We shouldn't be surprised at the depravity of man. Everything is always on the table. How we respond is what matters.

Hey, welcome to Politics by Faith, brought to you by the Patriot Gold Group. I'm doing the show live from Dallas, Texas today, which is why the microphone's unbearable. Sirius XM gave me this microphone to travel with, and it's no good. It's not processed well, and I think it's not awful, and I don't know how to process it right. So it's what we're all stuck with for the next two days. Hopefully this content was so engaging that you can power through a terrible sounding microphone. So Donald Trump survived his second assassination attempt. Oh I forgot to take this call someone was on SiriusXM today and they wanted to make the joke that Trump has seen has had more combat experience than Tim Walz these last couple months. Second assassination attempt in two months. This should not be a surprise.

No one should be shocked. I think the most striking and important difference between a biblical worldview and the progressive utopian worldview, which many conservatives have fallen for, by the way, is the difference between those who think man is born good versus those who understand that everyone is sinful by nature. I love this topic. I could talk about it all day. Barack Obama at the Democratic Convention the other day said, you know, can you believe those conservatives? They believe that the government is inherently corrupt. Yeah, you nailed it.

Maybe the one thing you got right in that entire speech. I'll give you an example. The left, people in academia, they like to talk about and study the root causes of poverty. No. Poverty is the natural state of man. There is no root cause of poverty. That's the norm. I'm way more interested, and it's far more important, to study the root cause of prosperity, because that's the unnatural thing. Left likes to study the root causes of crime. No, I'm more interested in the root cause of morality. The left likes to focus on the root causes of war. No, no, war is the natural state of man. We need to be studying the root causes of peace. See how they have a backwards. But that's what happens when your worldview is backwards.

Everything is backwards. And the same can be applied here. Oh, I'm so shocked that Trump, there was an assassination attempt. What? What are you talking about? We should be shocked that there's not more assassination attempts in America. One of the themes of this podcast is there's nothing new under the sun. Leaders have been assassinated for always. We happen to have lived through a time of relative peace when it comes to assassinating high-profile people. But let us not forget that this is the norm in just our history, our very short history in America. By the way, Constitution Day is tomorrow, 237 years. We've had four US presidents assassinated and killed. Many others have been shot and plots on almost all of them, but four have been killed. That's 9% of the presidents.

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I think that's pretty high. To say that 9% of our presidents have been murdered while in office, that's a lot. But it's been true forever. So I found this paper written by Aytan Birnbaum. The paper is called Political Assassination in Biblical Israel. Let me just read a little bit here. Political assassination escalates after Solomon's death and the division of the kingdom. In Judah, King Jehoram murders his brothers and some officers, 2nd Chronicles 21. King Azariah and his relatives are slain by Jehu while visiting Jezebel in Israel, 2nd Kings 2 27. Azahiah's mother then becomes queen and does away with potential claimants to the throne. 2 Kings 11 1. She's eventually killed by order of Jehoiada, the priest, who crowns Prince Jehoash in her stead. 2 Kings 11 4-16. Later, Jehoshah, Jehoash has Jehoada's righteous son, Zechariah, stoned to death. 2 Chronicles 24 20, and is assassinated by rebels avenging that murder, 2 Kings 12 21. His son, King Amaziah, executes the killers, 2 Kings 14, but he too is slain by other conspirators, 2 Kings 14 18. King Amon is later murdered by courtiers whom the people execute, 2 Kings 21. Finally, Gedaliah, were assassinated. Six in all of 21. That's 29%. Seven Judean monarchs are documented murderers, at least five of them having disposed political opponents. And however bad this may sound, the situation in the northern kingdom of Israel was much worse.

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At the outbreak of Jeroboam's insurrection, the chief tax official stoned to death, and King Rehoboam barely escapes with his life. First Kings 12. King Nadab, son of Jeroboam, is assassinated by Basha, who wipes out Jeroboam's entire family. First Kings 15-27. Basha's son, King Elah, is murdered by Zimri, a high-ranking army officer, who, facing defeat one week later, burns down the palace over himself. 1 Kings 16 King Ahab's Phoenician wife Jezebel has many of the Lord's prophets slaughtered.

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1 Kings 18-13 Ahab's son, King Joram, along with Judah's king Ahaziah, Ahab's family and widow, Queen Jezebel, as well as the prophets of Baal, are all put to death by Jehu. 2 Kings 9 Later, King Zechariah is publicly assassinated by Shalom. 2 Kings 15, who is in turn killed by Menahem, 2 Kings 15. And Menahem's son, Pecahiah, is murdered by Pecah, 2 Kings 15, who is assassinated by Hosea, 2 Kings 1530, during whose reign the ten tribes are exiled. Although it lasted for a much shorter time than the Kingdom of Judah, Israel offers more instances of regicide, killing of a king.

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Four of five consecutive monarchs are assassinated in a mere 15 years. Second Kings 15, 10 through 30, as the kingdom of Israel heads for destruction. In short, no less than eight of 19 kings are assassinated, 42% each murdered by his successor, while 13, that's 68%, either assassinate others, or themselves assassinated, or both. Now, I read through that very quickly on purpose. The point was to overwhelm you. The point was to be like, wait, why, who did what? Everyone's killing everyone, is what I wanted. Now, I gave the scriptures there if you want to go further detail into any of them as well.

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So, you know, it's true, but the point of that was to overwhelm you and to drive home the point that this is the normal state of man. Like, what have we done in America where only 9% of our presidents have been assassinated. We're doing a lot better than the Kingdom of Israel was doing. It's a miracle there's not more assassinations in America, considering how many guns we have and how many nuts we have, and also how much people hate Trump. Put those three things together, well, they've got 49 more days to get the job done. So what do we do in the meantime? Well, we must never stop doing what's right, no matter what, no matter how hard, crazy, insane things get.

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We must never stop doing what's right. This is a sermon from C.S. Lewis. It's entitled, Learning in Wartime. And he's speaking to students at a university. And the question was, how can we sit around here and learn things when there's a war being fought, when there's a war going on and life is so hard for so many people, we're just supposed to sit around here and read books and talk about ideas and study?

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Are we not fiddling when Rome burns? That's what C.S. Lewis was answering to. This is a good part. He says, I think it's important to try to see the present calamity in a true perspective. That would be World War II. The war creates no absolutely new situation. That was the mindset, right? Anytime there's a war or anything, people are like, oh, what do we do? This is so unique and new. No, it's not.

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And neither was World War II. It simply aggravates the permanent human condition so that we can no longer ignore it. Human life has always been lived on the edge of precipice. Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself. If men had postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure, then the search would never have begun. We are mistaken when we compare war with normal life. Life has never been normal. Or I would add the war is normal. Even those periods which we think tranquil, like the 19th century, turn out on closer inspection to be full of crises, alarms, difficulties, emergencies. Plausible reasons have never been lacking for putting off all merely cultural activities until some imminent danger has been averted or some crying injustice put right. But humanity long ago chose to neglect those plausible reasons. They wanted knowledge and beauty now and would not wait for the suitable moment that never comes. We must do the same. Now is the time for all good things in life. Now is the time for art and beauty and friends and family and everything else that matters in this world, no matter what. Now is the time to do what's right. Deceived people will say, well, times are so tough, so now it's okay to do the things that normally wouldn't be allowed when times are good.

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It's like, no, no. If anything, the opposite is true. Because times are so tough, now more than ever is the time to do what's right. We'll take care of the election. 49 days. We'll make it too big to rig. We'll win beyond the measure of cheat. But in the meantime, in all times, let's not let anything surprise us. Any depravity catches off guard.

Any chaos cause us to be all flustered. No, no, no, this fallenness is the natural state of man. And it requires us to rise above. Mike Slater.locals.com, that's the transcript and commercial free on the website MikeSlater.Locals.com.

God's laugh should bring us comfort. As crazy as things get, as much as it looks like the wicked are winning, God is laughing. And so should we.

Welcome to Politics by Faith, brought to you by the Patriot Gold Group. Yesterday's episode, we did the first half of Psalm 2. So if you didn't hear yesterday's episode, just hit the back button and listen to that one first. The point is that God is in control of all things. You can plot against him, and it might look like your plots are working, you're scheming and conniving, but they won't work, and it won't end well for you. God laughs. You want to make God laugh? There's a couple ways to do it. First, make plans that are contrary to his will. God will laugh. That's what it says in Psalm 2 verse 4. He who sits in the heavens shall laugh. He also laughs when the wicked think that their plans are working. Psalm 37, 12 says, The wicked plots against the righteous and gnashes his teeth at them.

But the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he sees that his day is coming. So, don't get frustrated when it looks like the wicked are winning. They think they're winning, but we don't need to think that they are, because God's laughing. We should have confidence that God has it. He has so much confidence, He's laughing at them. The wicked have no idea what they're up against.

Psalm 59 says, Deliver me from my enemies, O my God, defend me from those who rise against me, deliver me from the workers of iniquity, and save me from bloodthirsty men. Awake to punish all the nations,

do not be merciful to any wicked transgressors. But you, O Lord, shall laugh at them. So it's not going well for me. A lot of people rising up against me. But you, Lord, you laugh at them. So, what do we do if we're not supposed to be

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anxious about the plots of the wicked and how it looks like they're working. God's laughing at it. What do we do? Let's pick up Psalm 2, verse 10. Now therefore, be wise, O kings, be instructed, you judges of the earth, serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way

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when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put their trust in him. So the first part of the psalm was about kings who plot against God. So now he's saying, kings, knock it off in your effort to defy God. Surrender to God. Serve him and rejoice. Blessed are those who put their trust in him.

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To bring this back to the laughing, a fool can laugh. Proverbs 29 says, If a wise man has an argument with a fool, the fool only rages and laughs. There is no quiet. So fools laugh, but our job is to laugh out of confidence. Psalm 52, six says, "'The righteous shall see and fear and shall laugh at him, "'saying, see the man who would not make God his refuge,

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"'but trusted in the abundance of his riches "'and sought refuge in his own destruction.'" So we have confidence. The righteous shall also laugh.

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So how do we relate this today?

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Things are nuts, things are crazy. What in the world is going on? We told, gosh, we tell so many horrible stories, but like stories that make you like, what? I'm not going to, I mean, well, I guess again, the VMAs, I saw a clip of Katy Perry at the

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VMAs.

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Let's just say you can't watch the clip at work. It's horrific. It's wildly pornographic and gross. It's absolutely disgusting in every way. And you're like, wow, how much worse could it get? Then we told a story of an illegal alien from,

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I believe, El Salvador, who had a rap sheet in El Salvador, came to America, illegally, and strangled, raped, and murdered a 20-year-old girl. And then, and here's, as if that's not bad enough, here's the extra crazy cherry on top of the whole story. This was in July of 2023, police had video of them there, had audio

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recording of them there. But they needed DNA evidence. So they gave him his Miranda rights, but they let him go because they needed the DNA evidence. So they sent the DNA off to be analyzed. How long do you think it takes to analyze DNA? Like an hour? I have no idea. Two hours maybe. Maybe they sent it off on a Friday,

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and like a holiday weekend, so I don't know. Four days, let's say it took four days max. That didn't happen on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and then Monday was a holiday, they came back on Tuesday and did it. Took six months.

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In the meantime, this illegal alien enrolled at the local high school, and went to school with 1,400 other kids in the high school. And then he was ultimately arrested. Once the DNA evidence came back, six months later, he was arrested and sentenced to 70 years in prison.

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But in the meantime, he was just hanging around the school. Just outside Baltimore. It's unbelievable. That's just one example of things are crazy. Trump said, the world is laughing at us.

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I had to debate the other day.

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He said, the whole world is laughing at us. It's how stupid we are. It looks like Satan is winning. People lost their minds. If people knew really how bad things were, we'd live in a much more serious country.

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But God laughs, not at our discomfort, never. He laughs at the plans of the wicked. And that laughter should give us comfort. I heard it once, God laughs to dispel our fears. That's the theme of this podcast, is we have so much anxiety about

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politics and I want to alleviate that anxiety and knowing that God is laughing at the people who are trying to cause you harm should give us comfort. God laughs to remind us that no purpose of his can be thwarted and those who oppose God now they don't hear him laugh but one day they'll hear him, and they won't be comforted like we are. They'll be terrified at his fury. That's Psalm 2, verse 5.

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The psalm ends with, kiss the sun. Now this is about kings. So this is about the inferior giving honor to their superiors. So the kings of the earth kiss the sun. realize that you are inferior to God. For us, Jesus is the Son of God.

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John 14, 6, Jesus said, I'm the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Do not be stressed about wicked plans of wicked people. Do not be stressed about wicked plans of wicked people. God laughs and we should be comforted.

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.