We had some wonderful callers on the Sirius/XM show today who live int he disaster zone. Moments like this give people and opportunity to serve in profound ways. It's worth celebrating this.

Hey, welcome to Politics by Faith brought to you by the Patriot Gold Group. This week's episodes are going to be short and few. So apologies ahead of time. My wife's out of town for the next two days and then I'm out of town the rest of the week traveling giving some pro-life speeches, which I'm very excited about but also nervous because over the years I've created this refined, this really great presentation but both of these centers I'm speaking at I've already spoken at so that I got there to know it I can't do the same thing again and I've gone back I'd write a new speeches when we get it and I've gone back if I was like ah maybe I should do the old one it was six years ago and four years ago surely I can do it again right I'm just not very confident about what I've this new speech I've prepared, but please pray for me about that, seriously.

I think I've already complained about this once, though, so I won't mention it, I won't mention it a third time. I want to share a little bit of what happened on the Sirius XM radio show today. We always start off the week with Gratitude Monday. We have 45 segments every week on the radio, and we dedicate one to gratitude.

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So have people call in, what are you grateful for? Very simple, work out our gratitude muscles. That way we can build our virtue and then save this country truly. So that's the whole theme. So we do it every Monday and it's great.

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And this week we talked about the storms, or the storm, Helene, and how devastating it was and how awful that is. I was like, hey, is there anyone listening now who's in it, could tell us about it, what's going on, what have you seen, what have you experienced?

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A guy called in and he's a truck driver. He happened to be in Iowa but his wife is stuck, stranded in this small town in the mountains of North Carolina and he can't get to her. All the roads are washed out, he can't get there and his mother-in-law is there as well. So his wife and wife's mom, elderly, are there and there's nothing there. They can't get stuff in, they're flying stuff in and McDonald's or McDonald's, Walmart's running out of stuff and all the downtown stores

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are all washed away, it's horrible. He can't get in, can't get out, can't get to his family. So we're taking this guy's call and then as this guy's on the phone, another guy calls in from the town or from like nearby the town outside

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who's like, hey, hey, I know a way to get in. And we put them both on the radio together and he's like, hey, go up here, turn left on this road or right on 128 and take a left on 170 and that road back out and he was able to get up into town, which is super cool.

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It was like great, like small town radio was a lot of fun. So then I talked a little more with the guy who called in after, the second guy who knew of the back way. I was talking to him for a little bit. He's like, yeah, you know, I was, I know this because I was bringing some pallets of water

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to people there and blah, blah, blah. And I said, why are you bringing pallets of water to people? And he said, well, the water, the water is not working in people's homes. I said, yeah, I know, but why are you bringing water to people? And he said, well, the electricity doesn't work. There's no electricity.

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So the wells aren't pumping water. So a lot of people are on wells up here and there's no electricity, so they don't get their own water. I said, yeah, I understand. I know why water is something that is needed to be brought into the town. My question is, why are you bringing water into the town?

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And finally, he's like, oh, oh, I don't know. People need water. It was so foreign to him

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the idea of not bringing water That the idea of not bringing water never crossed his mind He couldn't not bring pallets of water wasn't even a thought He instinctually But it was not really instinct. It's it's through proper raising intentional raising of and

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And just mountain culture that he's surrounded by. But he just knew he could, so therefore he did. That's it, there was no thinking about it. There was such little thinking about it when I asked him three times,

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why are you bringing in water? It never even crossed his mind, what do you mean, why would I not bring in the water? And that's a beautiful thing. We had some great callers after that talk about rebuilding and how healthy people rebuild is what we do and I pray that this town the people that

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are healthy enough to rebound I mean physically I'm like spiritually emotionally everything healthy enough to like now we're gonna we're gonna rebuild our town no matter how much despair we might be in how overwhelming it all is how sad it all is we're just gonna fix this up one stick at a time. And that's an inspirational thing. And people come together and helping each other.

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Another caller told this really great story of how he has a generator for his well, but the generator wasn't working. So he called up the local generator fixing guy. And it was the night of the storm. And the guy's like, hey, man, it's a storm. But he was like, oh, you're Sam's daughter's husband?

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All right, I'll be right there. So that's a beautiful thing where it's a lifetime of relationship built up. Sam, who's now passed away, but he was like a staple in the town. Oh, Sam's daughter?

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Okay, all right. So he goes, the generator can't get fixed, so they both go back in his truck to the guy's shop and fix the generator or fix a different generator. They come back, hook the generator back up, and now this guy's able to provide water

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for the nine homes around him. And it's all the same thing. It's like, I don't know, what else would we do? That's how we do it around here. It's just awesome, helping people out in times like this. Of course, Matthew 25, for I was hungry and you gave me food.

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I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you came to me. Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me." This is our

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expectation as Christians and thank you God for that calling and for the roots of this being in America where there are so many religious organizations who will swoop into action immediately following a natural disaster like this. We'd be so much poorer in every way without them. We have that culture, other countries don't. It's really important that other countries don't have Christian organizations that come in and fill this void in times like this. We do. I want to share the story from 1808. There was a well-known

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preacher at the time in England and he was told of a man there. He was told there was a man who was confined by a mortification, so a decay or a gangrene in his foot, who would take particular satisfaction in any Christian conversation which my time would allow me to afford him.

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Wonderful.

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So he's like, I'll go, I'll visit. So he entered the room and there was the man, alone in the room in his bed, which he's been confined to for a long time. And the preacher wrote of this conversation in his journal. I said, how are you my friend? Very well, sir, very well. Never better in all my life. Thank God for all his mercies, replied the man, with so cheerful cheerful a tone of voice as at once surprised and delighted me.

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Very well, how so? I thought from what I heard you were in much pain and weakness. Yes, sir, that's true. But I am very well for all that, for God is so good to my soul, and He provides everything needful for my body. The people in this house are very kind, and friends come to see me and talk and pray with me, sir

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I want nothing but more grace to praise the Lord for all his goodness Can we be like that man can I be like that man in the midst of pain suffering and illness and death and illness, death, and natural disaster. Can we thank God, no matter what we're going through, for all of His mercies? And can we want nothing more than for more grace,

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so that we can then praise God even more for all of His goodness. What about that life goal? And if you have that, well, of course, you can do nothing but serve others. What else would you do?

Mike Slater dot locals dot com. Mike Slater dot locals dot com. Transcript, commercial free on the website, Mike Slater dot locals dot com.

How did we get to the point where we're told, "I can't find any good employees! We need to bring in the Haitians." What? We used to be a country with a strong work ethic. That has been intentionally eroded by the government. Then they can bring in the illegals. It's all going according to plan.

Welcome to Politics by Faith brought to you by the Patriot Gold Group. We had a wild show today and I look forward to picking up more of this on Monday. It's at SiriusXM. That was Breitbart News Daily on SiriusXM, Patriot, 6 to 9 every morning. The thesis that I've been working on, and I'm annoyed because when I went to bed last night, I had a perfect in my head and I didn't write it down. And then I woke up this morning and I had a perfect again.

I was like, this is amazing. I was like, well, let me just get ready and then I'll just get to work. And I forgot it. In the next six minutes, I forgot exactly how it worked. But this is the general idea of it is that for tens of millions of Americans, we have crisis, a lack of work ethic and a demoralization of working-aged men.

This demoralization is caused by the government and other cultural forces, which we'll talk about. This work crisis has left a void of work that needs to be done, which has led to bitterness and division and near if not already destruction of our home depending on where you live. There's a lot there and we can workshop a couple words here and there but I think you get the gist. Let's talk about the work ethic crisis.

First,there was a study done by this group called Unleash Prosperity. A couple guys from the Heritage Foundation I saw on the website, it says Steve Moore was the main person. I don't know if this is the same Steven Moore from the Wall Street Journal or Steve Moore, someone different. I don't know. But the group's called Unleash Prosperity. And they calculated all of the

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welfare benefits that someone can receive in every state. This is after COVID unemployment stuff. Remember, these are after the COVID extra benefits. It's just your regular welfare. On average, on average, an adult would need to make $80,000 a year to make the same as a family with two unemployed parents and two kids.

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$80,000 a year.

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Now every state is different. Washington's the highest. They have a lot of welfare programs, I guess. $122,000 a year. It's 58 bucks an hour. California's $71,000 a year.

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Mississippi's the lowest, 37,000 dollars a year, it's still 18 bucks an hour. So let's just do the 80,000 dollars because that's the average. So if you have a job that pays 70,000, why on earth would you take a job if the welfare pays 80,000? You know, bust your butt all day to make 70,000 when you could do nothing and make 80,000? That doesn't make any sense. Now a little perspective here.

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The national median household income is $78,000. So welfare, average welfare for this country is more than the median household income. So for half of the country, it makes no sense to work. You're better off doing nothing. Now signing up for welfare programs, it's like a full-time job in and of itself. But don't worry if you're an illegal alien, there are NGOs, non-government organizations, that will do

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it for you. And if you're here, I know like the Haitians are here under some like pseudo legal status, they're automatically eligible for every means-tested welfare program. They just gotta sign up and all these organizations will help them sign up. So we have a situation where it is, if you just look at it economically, it is rational to not work and sign up for welfare for half of the country. Half the country.

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I was talking to Rand Paul the other day. He said the labor participation rate in America is 62%. So that means 38% are not working, which is about right. It's about right, right? With the numbers that we're talking about right now. Welfare, $80,000 a year on average, right?

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We're working on average this year. But $80,000 a year, that's the median household income. So yeah, it makes sense that about half people won't work. Some people who make less than $80,000 will still work because, well, out of pride. Or they may be making less now,

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but they see themselves making more in the future, so you gotta put the years in now to make more later. So I think 38% not working sounds about right when you have welfare on average $80,000 a year. If the same share of Americans, 16 to 64, were in the labor force today as there were in 1960, there would

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be 4.8 million more men in the labor force. And then these business owners say oh we can't find anyone to work. They're there, they exist, they just won't. And some people say well they don't do it because the welfare is too high? And how much of it is just work ethic in general? Now that's the economic lay of the land right now. Now of course there's other benefits, maybe not of course, maybe a statement.

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There are other benefits to working. There are intangibles of working. There is value to working. There are the benefit of your kids seeing you get up go to work your wife respecting you for working

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There's more than just the money. There's also a biblical calling to work It's good to work. It's good for the soul Second Thessalonians 3 6 even when we were with you We would give you this command if anyone's not willing to work, let him not eat, Paul wrote. If you don't work, don't eat. But we've removed God from every aspect of our culture.

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I wonder if people, I wonder back in this, you know,

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conversation of getting God out of our culture, getting the Bible out of our culture, I wonder if anyone said, hey, here's all the reasons why this is a bad idea. And one of them is it will really hurt our work ethic. I wonder if anyone ever made that argument, because that's what happened. We have this thing we call the Protestant work ethic. It used to be the Puritan work ethic, the Protestant work ethic.

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That's not natural. It's not normal.

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It is normal for us to be lazy. Sloth is what's normal. That's our sinful nature. To work hard, that's unnatural. It requires effort requires a culture to reinforce and still as I should say it's still a young age and then Reinforces you get older because your instinct is to be lazy

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and if you don't have that culture then Everyone will be lazy. That's our natural That's the flesh But work is good. Adam and Eve were told to tend to the garden before the fall John Calvin said Christians should be intent upon their calling and Devote themselves to lawful and honorable employments without which the life of man is of a wandering nature

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The Bible often speaks against sluggards that's the word they use don't be a sluggard Again, that's the natural state of being you the Bible wouldn't have to say don't be this if people weren't naturally this but we have a government and a culture that encourages sluggishness. Through welfare programs to an education system, we have an education system that doesn't the kids can't read. The graduating can't read kids

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graduate can't think but also they're lazy bad attitudes. They're sluggards. We let people be sluggards. We have not called them higher. Proverbs 6 9 How long will you lie there you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep? Proverbs 10 26 As vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes, so are sluggards to those who send them. So that's the from the employers perspective. It's painful.

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My favorite sluggard scripture, Proverbs 19, 24, A sluggard buries his hand in the dish. He will not even bring it back to his mouth. I love that. He's like, I'm so lazy, I won't even use a fork. I won't even use a fork to carry the food to my hand, to my face.

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That's laziness. As the door turns on its hinges, so does the sluggard on his bed. Just back and forth, back and forth. Proverbs 20 verse 4, sluggards do not plow in season. So at harvest time they look but find nothing. You didn't work, you didn't put the work in.

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So of course you have nothing at the end. The Bible speaks to all this ancient wisdom. But why would you go to work when the government gives you $80,000 for not working? Here's the bottom line.

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It's very simple.

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People hate God. And one of the things God tells us to do is work. Therefore people hate work. It's a very simple equation. So we need to raise our kids to have work ethic. We must be intentional.

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We must fight against this cultural push to be a slugger. We have our natural desires to be a slugger and then we have this cultural push to be one, be a slugger. But no, we must fight against that at every turn.

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And here's the other thing.

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If you're not a slugger, if you're a slugger, I'm here, yeah, but I'm not lazy. I'm gonna work hard my whole life. Great, awesome. You can't be bitter. And I know this is the guy who's making $80,000 doing, we had a guy calling today whose neighbor

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works for the government, does next to nothing, makes $130,000 a year plus all the benefits and all the rest. And you could tell in his voice, and I would be too, I get it, I would be bitter about

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that.

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I'm busting my butt over here making less than him, he's doing nothing, I understand but we cannot become bitter. Ephesians 4, 31, let all bitterness be put away from you. It will destroy you.

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If you become bitter at what's happening, we have to change it. It's wicked and wrong and bad. We need to change it, but we can't be bitter about it. Because if we become bitter, the people who are doing this all intentionally, this is all intentional, then they truly will have won.

We'll have one. Mike Slater dot locals dot com. Transcript and commercial free. No commercials on this. You listen to this podcast on the website version. You get an email about it every day too. You get an email about it every day too. Mike Slater dot locals dot com.

There are 40 days until the election. We must proceed with the attitude Jeremiah had in the stocks and Ezra had during his dangerous journey. 

Hey, welcome to Politics by Faith, brought to you by the Patriots Gold Group. I don't have a specific political story to start off this conversation, just speaking to the general state of things. We have 41 days until the election. It's all very exciting. But then what?

Whether it goes how you want it to go or not, then what? We started a theme on the show today and I don't want to prepare it here fully because I need to hash it out more. We're talking about this town, Dayton, Ohio. It's next to Springfield. You know, Springfield where they're eating cats.

But Dayton, Ohio, this NPR article is all about how Dayton has embraced immigrants and it's made them so much better. It's made the town so much better and all their examples the only example they gave was the economy The economy is doing great. Here's this business that hired They have 300 employees 10% of them are foreign-born and business has never been better for them. They're making so much money. It's great That's the only example they give in the entire story is about the economy

I just want to really express this point that America is more than an economy your town is more than a business. It's not an LLC. It's not a shell corporation. There's more to your town than the GDP. And the only other point that they make in this NPR article is that at the very end, that 40% of the elementary school doesn't speak English. So okay, if you want to talk about the health of the town, that also has to be a metric, doesn't it? Well here, let's check in on this company.

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Oh, well it's great. I'm sure paying their foreign-born workers less money and therefore they're making more profits. It is now wonderful. Okay, well let's now check in on the elementary school. How's it going, little Johnny?

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Oh, well little Johnny's in the classroom and he's the only kid who speaks English. So it's not going well for little Johnny or the teachers or anyone else in this school actually. But that has to be a metric as well. I then made the point, a friend of mine, he's a hobby farmer, and he's got a hobby farm, and he has these beautiful vegetables, just thriving, stunningly massive, huge, like out

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of Avatar, like otherworldly, beautifully vibrant vegetables. And I asked him, I was like, what is going on? And he said, what about the bugs? And he said, there's no bugs. Or he said, bugs don't attack these plants. I said, what?

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He said, yeah, bugs don't attack these. They're too healthy.

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So it's very interesting.

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So it turns out, so because he uses the manure from the cows that he has for the flower boxes, the garden boxes, the raised vegetable beds, and his plants are super healthy. So it turns out, and I'm not a horticulturist, but in my short studying, that if a leaf of a plant is very, very healthy, it has a certain

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amount of something in it that bugs literally cannot eat. If the plant is not this healthy, then it doesn't have this thing, so bugs can't eat it. And these And his plants are so healthy they don't need any pesticide or anything. Bugs just don't eat it. And I think that's our country. I think our country, if we were a healthy country, I don't think companies would be

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hiring foreign labor firms, like recruitment firms, to bring in people to work at the factory

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Right?

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You would just have people in Dayton doing it. I don't even think if you were, if you were a healthy country, I don't even think you would be thinking this way. Like, oh, well, let's bring in the Haitians. If it weren't for the people of Haiti, I don't know if we'd survive. I just say that's, that's, we're just not a healthy place.

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I just bring all that up and I'll stop the conversation there. Although that's not a great place to stop. But I bring this up because the election is very important.

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Sure ain't everything, sure ain't the end.

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We have a long way to go, long way to go. And we need to trust on God. That's the biggest thing, always.

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And any way I can remind us of that, remind me of that,

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is a worthy use of time.

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I got two stories. First, the prophet Jeremiah. is a worthy use of time. I got two stories. First, the prophet Jeremiah, he was put in the stocks by the chief priest after he was whipped.

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So in Jeremiah 19, talking about the people of Israel worshiping other gods, and Jeremiah said, I will make, I'm speaking from God, I will make this city desolate and hissing. Everyone who passes by it will be astonished and hiss because of all its plagues.

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And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and everyone shall eat the flesh of his friend in the siege and in the desperation with which their enemies and those who seek their lives shall drive them to despair." So the enemy will come and siege the town which means surround it and people are going to eat each other. It's going to be awful.

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The point is it's going to be really, really bad because you are worshipping other gods. People are even engaging in child sacrifice. So the chief priest, Pasher, smote Jeremiah. Which means 40 lashes and then throw him in the stocks. So he's in the stocks and he's having a tough time. So here's verse 7 of chapter 20.

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Oh Lord, you induced me and I was persuaded. You are stronger than I and have prevailed. So thanks a lot. I spoke, because you made me. And now here I am. I'm in derision daily. Everyone mocks me. For when I spoke, I cried out. I shouted violence and plunder. Because the word of the Lord was made to me.

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A reproach and a derision daily. Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. So Jeremiah's like, I'm done. I'm done prophesying. Look where it got me. I don't want to talk about it anymore. I don't want to speak God's word anymore. I don't want to tell the people of Israel what's happening anymore. I don't want to say what's going to

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happen to them if they keep doing this, if they keep worshiping other gods. I'm not going to talk about it. I will not make mention of Him. God. But His word was in my heart like a burning fire Shut up in my bones. I was a weary of holding it back. I couldn't even hold it back If I heard many mocking fear on every side report

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They said and we will report it all my acquaintances watched for my stumbling saying perhaps he can be induced then we will prevail against Him and we will take our revenge on him. The point is he couldn't not speak God's Word So he didn't want to do it anymore, but it was burning in his heart like fire. It was so deeply embedded in him. It was in his bones.

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The silence that he was proposing of knowing the truth and not speaking it, that was more painful and unbearable to him than the suffering he endured for speaking the truth. Does that make sense? That's crazy. Not, not knowing the truth and not speaking it was more painful than speaking the truth and suffering for it.

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How about that? So he could not not preach God's Word. And he concludes, But the Lord is with me as a mighty awesome one.

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Therefore, my persecutors will stumble and will not prevail. They will be greatly ashamed. They will not prosper. Their everlasting confusion will not be forgotten. But O Lord of hosts, you who test the righteous and see the mind and heart, let me see your vengeance on them, for I have pleaded my cause before you." Great story. Check this one out. Ezra.

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Specifically, Ezra 8.22. So Ezra is returning to Israel, and this is at the approval of the Persian king. And he says, Then I proclaimed to fast there at the river, that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek from Him the right way for us, and all our little ones, and all our possessions. Can we please do the same?

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For I was ashamed to request of the king an escort of soldiers and horsemen to help us against the enemy on the road, because we had spoken to the king, saying, The hand of our God is upon all those for good who seek Him. And His power and His wrath are against all those who forsake Him. So we fasted and entreated our God for this, and He answered our prayers." So this is great.

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So Ezra's making the journey back, and he refused to even ask to be protected by the king and the king's men. He did not want to rely on human help to protect him. He went to the king and he said, King, you're not going to believe this God of ours is amazing anyone who loves him he'll protect those who are against them he's against oh and by the way can you give

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us a bunch of soldiers to protect us on our journey and the Persian king like what I thought you said your God so Ezra didn't even ask just prayed didn't even ask for human help from the king he just prayed and he went out on the journey with no visible protection. Yes, it's wise to use what's around us for our own good, for the objective, for achieving objectives, etc., etc. But we rely far, far too much on these human endeavors to save us and not on God. You have to, to bring it back to politics, you have to still vote. Yes. You can't sit back and be like, well, I'm not gonna do anything. You have to be a part of it. You still have to participate. But don't rely only on that. In fact, that should be like the smallest thing. It's like the bare minimum thing. Just do that, of course, knock that off the list. But the vast majority of our time, attention, and energy needs to be praying to God. So let us go forward with the attitude of Jeremiah. I have to do the right thing no matter what and with the confidence of Ezra. I'm not even gonna ask for human help. I'm gonna rely firmly, entirely, totally on God. help. I'm gonna rely firmly, entirely, totally on God. Mike Slater dot locals dot com. Transcript and commercial frees on the website Mike Slater dot locals dot com.