It seems a pastor was calling for violence against Elon for "stealing your Social Security check." He justified violence by quoting Jesus in Matthew 11:12, "...the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force." What does this scripture actually mean?

Welcome to Politics by Faith.

I want to talk about this pastor in Chattanooga, who it seems is calling for violence against Ceylon and Doge and the whole conservative movement. We'll play the clip and maybe give him the benefit of the doubt. But I definitely want to take the opportunity to dive deeper into the scripture that I believe he takes very much out of context. We have a little background here.

We've been talking a ton about Doge and Elon on the Sirius XM show, because this is the conservative movement's fiscal dreams come true. We've been fighting for this, arguing for this for decades, and nothing's ever happened. We've had like Paul Ryan, like all the hope we had for Paul Ryan. And he didn't do squat and here it is finally happening all these cuts are

finally happening it's happening from Trump and Elon and it's absolutely incredible so part of me is like oh you know maybe we're talking a little bit too much about you know it's like no we cannot talk enough about doge and Elon and everything they're doing it's incredible now a lot of this still has to go through the legislative branch has to go through the house and then the Senate it's a little harder to get through the House.

It's amazing through the executive branch, and they can do a ton. It's still hard to get through the House right now. Everyone likes their own pet projects. A lot of this is gonna be really difficult to get through the Senate.

We still need, in a lot of these things, we need seven Democrats to vote for. But I have great hope that the negotiating tactics and power of President Trump and Elon, getting this stuff out to the American people and the pressure can be applied to these

Democratic senators to do the right thing. Is Slater calling for violence? No, no, no. Appropriate pressure, dealing with reason and common sense. Like maybe we shouldn't have $100 billion of fraud in our social security system.

I don't know, maybe if Elon roots out

and finds $100 billion of fraudulent social security payments, if you want to continue the social security system, if you want it to remain solvent this would be a good thing to root out that $100 billion of fraud. Wouldn't it? Doesn't everyone want to be on that team? Maybe not.

And this is it, this is the time. Elon said, this administration has one chance for major reform that may never come again. It's now or never. And he later said in another tweet, it's now or never. We are at a fork in the road of destiny. That's the mentality of Doge and Trump.

Trump got shot in the head the other day. If you remember that, it's now or never. There is a fervor. There is a zeal. There is a passion for doing what is right right now from Trump and his entire team.

So when a program is put in front of Elon and Trump, should we keep it or should we cut it? If there is any doubt, it's gone because it's now or never. And as we've said many times before, Elon, his entire mentality with business,

is you cut, cut, cut, and you know you cut enough when you have to add 10% back. That's the mentality they're gonna bring to government. We're gonna cut and cut and cut. When in doubt, cut, and if later you need to bring it back, great, you bring it back.

But you have to cut it now because it is now or never. Now, as they keep doing this, and they keep uncovering not only the waste, but more fraud and ultimately criminal behavior here shortly, soon, they're gonna face more and more resistance ultimately leading to Violence at first it was you know, they're young

Like the doge people to do guys are young. Who cares? James Monroe in 1776 was 18 Aaron Burr was 20 Alexander Hamilton was 21 James Madison who wrote the Constitution was 35 Thomas Jefferson was 33 John Adams was the ancient one in the group, he was 40. Or George Washington, he was the elder statesman, he was 44. Benjamin Rush, who was the doctor of the founding fathers,

the doctor, was 30. All right, he wouldn't even be out of med school today. So, young, whatever. The Manhattan Project guys, they were all in their 30s, a couple were in their 40s. Richard Feynman was 24.

Oh, let me see if I can find this quick.

Let's see, this is Elon, who started this. Okay, so, some guy, I don't know who this person is. Must commandos include guys who are 21, 23, 24, 25. One is 19 years old, his job title is, quote, expert. When you were 19, what were you an expert at? And Michael Dell said,

I started a company when I was 19. It's worked out pretty well so far. Founder of Dell Computers.

Great.

So the first thing, you're too young. Second thing is you don't have the experience. I love that one, experience. Where's experience gotten us? Not having government experience is the best thing about them.

Hillary Clinton tried that line, she wrote against the to the Secretary of Transportation. She said they have no relevant experience. Most of them aren't old enough to rent a car. Are you gonna let them mess with airline safety that's already deteriorated under your watch? I love under your watch. He's been the Secretary of Transportation for like a week. And he wrote back, Sean Duffy, he said, Madam Secretary, with all due respect, experienced Washington

bureaucrats are the reason that our nation's infrastructure is crumbling. You need to sit this one out. Then they tried unelected. Oh, Elon, he's unelected. Elon is the most elected non-elected government employee ever. So first of all, everyone in the executive branch is unelected,

except for the president and vice president. The secretary of defense is unelected. Like whatever, it doesn't mean anything. Trump, we elected Trump, Trump put his people in power to do his will, the will of the American people. End of story, that's the end of it.

But Elon was a package deal and everyone knew that Elon was a package deal with Trump. You voted for Trump, you knew you were getting Elon. So that's a ridiculous argument. Then they said, well, Elon's gonna steal my social security number?

We had a guy, Sean, from South Carolina call in the other day who literally said this. He said, I don't want Elon looking at my mother's Social Security number. I'm like, what do you think he's gonna do? What do you think he's gonna open up a checking account

in your mother's name or something? What are you talking about? So that's the concern. So none of this is going anywhere for them. So ultimately, it very well could resort to violence. Elon tweeted out a bunch of messages

that people put on the internet. We've got to kill these people, and we know where they live, and we know their names, and all this stuff. Ed Martin, chief of staff of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote a letter to Elon saying that we will protect all Doge work and all Doge employees.

Quote, we will not act like the previous administration and look the other way, as the Antifa and BLM rioters as well as thugs with guns trashed our capital city. We will protect those and other workers no matter what. This right here is the most official call for violence that I've ever seen. There's some Congress people who are out there saying like we got to take to the streets stuff like that. I think this one is in the lead so

so far. This is Dr. Steve Caudill, CAUDLE from the Greater Second Missionary Baptist Church

in Chattanooga, Tennessee. And from the pulpit. In this nation, I'm worried that we are on the verge of bloodshed. This is a an attempt to take us back to a day that we do not want to go and we So therefore, there will be conflict. I pray that the peace of God will win out and overcome the madness that is attempting to take over this nation. And I will say to you, beloved, no one likes violence, but sometimes violence is necessary.

When Elon Musk forces his way into the United States Treasury and threatens to steal your personal information and your Social Security check, there is a possibility of violence.

Okay, all right, all right. We got to go. We got to go back. We had a guy call in last week who said, so we're on channel 125 on SiriusXM. 126 is Urban View. So we had a guy call and he said that every once in a while, turn over to Urban View and just see what's going on over there. He said, it's crazy. They're absolutely freaking out and it's insane what they're worried about. Maybe this is what they're saying,

this is what people think.

So let's start, when Elon forces his way into the United States Treasury, what do you mean forces? Trump won the election, put Scott Besant in charge of the Treasury Department. Scott said, hey Elon, come on in.

There's no force, threatens to steal your personal information. Who's stealing your personal information? And stealing your social security check? What do you think, the richest man in the world wants your, you know, thousand dollar check or something? I don't even know what, what are you talking about?

So like, all of that is wrong. All of that is wrong. Okay. But, but then that leads to what?

And your social security check? There is a possibility of violence. Sometimes the devil will act so ugly that you have no other choice but to get violent and fight. Well someone might say, now Reverend, you know you shouldn't be talking about violence. This is the Christian thing to do. Well I will say, why not talk this way? Because Jesus did. Jesus said in this key verse, didn't He? The kingdom of heaven suffers what? Violence. And the who? The violent take it by force.

The kingdom of God is a war zone. It is a battlefield. You did know this, right?

Okay. So, let's chat about this. Let's do benefit of the doubt first. Would you get benefit of the doubt? thinks Elon is committing violence by stealing your social security check. And you, people in this church, you are going to be the victims of it because Elon is violent and violent people will steal your social security checks.

Maybe. Maybe that's what he meant.

I'm trying my best.

So I wanted to see if there's any more context here. I wanted to see if he's given any statements. So I searched up his church and I looked at his Facebook page. I thought maybe this church would have a nice Facebook page and they would say something.

So the first one I clicked on, it says, it's come to our attention that a message delivered on this time, blah, blah, blah, has led to misinterpretations and strong reactions from individuals across the country. And it's like, oh, I found it, found the church.

While we respect all houses of faith, we want to clarify that Second Missionary Baptist Church is a separate congregation and we're not affiliated with Greater Second Missionary Baptist Church. They're like, oh, okay, wait, wrong church. Wrong church. Okay, alright. So this is the Second Missionary Baptist Church and we're looking for the Greater Second Missionary Baptist Church in Chattanooga,

Tennessee. My bad, it's down the street. Okay, so they don't have a Facebook page. I didn't see any statement, but the local Chattanooga News did an interview with him, and in no way throughout the entire interview did he in any way say, oh, that was taken out of context. Here's what I really said.

We're a people of peace. I would never condone violence against Elon and Trump and conservatives. And in fact, I was saying that they're violent. Nothing, he didn't explain it in any way. He doubled down on everything he said. Okay. So let's take

this as an opportunity to talk about this verse and what this verse really means, what Jesus is really talking about. It's Matthew 11 12. From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence and the violent take it by force. What does that mean from Jesus? What is Jesus saying? We actually talked about this verse a bit the other day. We referenced it the other day because it ends with,

He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Anyway, the word violent here in Greek means strong and forceful and energetic. If you look at the original Greek, strong, forceful, and energetic. This is a tricky scripture so I went to a lot of commentaries to learn how this has been analyzed over the centuries. This is Myers New Testament

commentary from 1832. In this way is described that eager, irresistible, striving, and struggling after the approaching messianic kingdom. It is as though it were being taken by storm. That's not like a violent storm, right? Strong, forceful, energetic. Those of whom, the, and then the Greek word for violence, holds true, achieve a speedy success. And that while they press forward to join the ranks of my followers, they clutch at the approaching kingdom as though they were seizing spoils and make it their own. So eager and energetic no longer calm expectant is the interest in regard to the kingdom

the Greek word here is be a states it is translated as one who is forceful in eager pursuit in Jewish culture it was a zeal for God's law back to Myers New Testament commentary he says the be a states those who are forceful in their zeal, are believers struggling hard for its possession. Matthew Henry, 1706, his commentary, it shows us what fervency and zeal are required of all.

Self must be denied. The bent, the frame and temper of the mind must be altered. Those who have an interest in the great salvation will have it upon any terms, and not think them hard, nor quit their hold without a blessing." So I will do whatever it takes, and I'm not going to complain about it.

It won't be difficult because it's obvious that this is what I'm going to do. That's the forcefulness that I have, the zeal. Barnes' commentary from 1830. He says there was, this is Jesus, "'Was a great rush or a crowd

pressing to hear John the Baptist. Multitudes went out to hear him, as if they were about to take the kingdom of heaven by force. Jesus says that since the kingdom of heaven or the gospel has been preached there's been a rush to it. People have been earnest about it. They've come pressing to obtain the blessing as if they would take it by violence.

There's an allusion here to the manner in which cities were taken. Besiegers pressed upon them with violence and demolished the walls. With such earnestness and violence, he says, people had pressed around him and John since they began to preach. Vincent's Word Studies says this word means overpowered, taken by storm. Christ thus graphically portrays the intense excitement which followed John's ministry. The eager waiting, striving, and struggling of the multitude for the promised king. Real quick, just to be clear, this does not say that we should go kill Elon Musk because he's taken

away our Social Security check.

Pastor!

The word take by force means literally to snatch away, carry off. It's often used in the classics of plundering. Those who use violent efforts drag it to themselves. They that make violence pull it unto them. Christ speaks of believers, they seize upon the kingdom and make it their own." I love this ancient idea. The passage recalls the old Greek proverb quoted by Plato against the sophists who had

corrupted the Athenian youth by promising the easy attainment of wisdom. It was Plato and this old Greek proverb, good things are hard. Dante seized the idea. I'll translate this. This is one of Dante's poems. He said, this is the more modern translation, the kingdom of heaven is taken by storm, not through force, but through passionate love and a living hope so strong and aligns with God's will. It's not like how people overpower each other, but instead it triumphs because it wants to be won over. And in being one, it wins through

kindness and grace. John 6 15, perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself. That's the same idea by force like that shows the fervor that people had and it's the fervor we need again for Jesus and for the gospel not fervor against Elon finding a hundred billion dollars in the social security payments that are fraudulent like he has fervor for that. Elon that's good. Like Elon you go have a zeal for

that. We are called to have a zeal for Jesus and that pastor if I may should well pray about him. Let me end with Charles Spurgeon. He wrote frequently complaints are made and surprise expressed by individuals who have never found a blessing rest upon anything they have attempted to do in the service of God. They'll say, I have been a Sunday school teacher for years and I've never seen any of my girls or boys converted.

No, and the reason most likely is that you have never been violent about it. You have never been compelled by the divine spirit to make up your mind that converted they should be, and no stone should be left unturned until they were. You've never been brought by the Spirit to such a passion that you've said, I cannot live unless God bless me. I cannot exist unless I see some of these children saved. Then falling on your knees in agony of prayer and putting forth afterwards your trust with

the same intensity towards heaven, you would have never been disappointed, for the violent take it by force." That is what that scripture actually means. Mike Slater, dot locals dot com. Transcript and commercial free on the website Mike Slater Mike Slater, dot locals dot com. Transcript and commercial free on the website Mike Slater dot locals dot com.

Remember when people said you can't vote for Trump because he's not REALLY a Christian? Or, you can't vote for Trump because he's not REALLY Pro-Life? Name a president who has done more for the pro-life cause than Trump.

Welcome to Politics by Faith. Thanks for being here. Sorry I have not done any episodes this week. I think I have a good excuse. My wife, it's not a great way to start, an excuse. It's her fault.

I couldn't do the, my wife got invited to New York Fashion Week in New York City. Pretty cool, right? So we were like, hey, let's all just go. And the logistics just didn't work out. Traveling with four kids, six people in a hotel room, like no hotel will let you stay.

You violate a fire code. So you have to get two hotel rooms, and hotels in New York City are ridiculously expensive. We went to Airbnb, and we found a cool room, it was two bedrooms and like a living room area in New York City, like this is great.

You know what it was? Trump Tower. I was like, oh great, we'll stay in Trump Tower. It's three days, Trump Tower, $5,000. We're like, alright, well, can you go by yourself, honey?

So she found a couple of girls that were also going, and they all met up at the airport and were able to travel together, and she had a great time. But, so she's been gone since Tuesday. The one hour in question that made it all tricky

was the kids wake up at seven, particularly the two-year-old, we have two, four, six, eight. The two-year-old wakes up at seven, but my morning radio show goes till 8. So we had one hour where our six-year-old, Grace, little mama, had to step up and really take care of Jamie,

and she's amazing at that. And she was great for Tuesday and Wednesday, but then she got the flu. So, and then everyone else got like a little sick. She's pretty sick right now though. So anyway, we've been in like survival mode around here and mama comes back any minute

now. She'll be here in like an hour. So we can't wait for that. So that's why this is, this was the first to go. Sorry, but we're back now. And wife had an amazing trip, which is great.

So let's talk about this eradicating anti-Christian bias executive order. Just a soft rebuke of people, perhaps, if they said during the campaign, oh I'm not gonna vote for Trump because he's not really a Christian. Okay. Or a lot of people said, oh I'm not gonna vote for Trump, you know, he's not really pro-life. There has never been a more pro-life president than Donald J. Trump. What did the evangelical George W. Bush do when it came to abortion? What did he do?

He couldn't even muster speaking at the March for Life in DC, any of the eight years he was there. Trump comes in and pardons people who the Biden administration put in jail because of the FACE Act, anti-abortion activists, and then Trump signs his executive order.

Here's what it does.

Purpose and policy. It is the policy of the United States and the purpose of this order to protect the religious freedoms of Americans and to end the anti-Christian weaponization of government. The founders established a nation in which people were free to practice their faith without fear of discrimination or retaliation by their government. The previous administration engaged in an egregious pattern of targeting peaceful Christians

while ignoring violent anti-Christian offenses. The Biden Department of Justice sought to squelch faith in the public square by bringing federal criminal charges and obtaining in numerous cases multi-year prison sentences against nearly two dozen peaceful pro-life Christians for praying and demonstrating outside abortion facilities. These convicted include a Catholic priest, a 75-year-old grandmother, as well as an 87-year-old

woman and a father of 11 children who were arrested 18 months after after praying and singing hymns outside an abortion facility in Tennessee. 18 months after, and we've talked about this many times, local authorities were like, hey, guys, go go home, break it up. No big deal. 18 months later, the feds come in banging on the door, knocking on the door, guns drawn to arrest these people. I rectified this injustice by issuing pardons in these cases. Then in 2023, an FBI memorandum

asserted that radical traditionalist Catholics were domestic terrorism threats and suggested infiltrating Catholic churches as threat mitigation. The Biden Department of Education sought to repeal religious liberty protections for faith based organizations on college campuses. The Biden Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

sought to force Christians to affirm radical transgender ideology against their faith. By the way, the USAID money. We don't have time to go into that now. USAID money, in many cases, many cases, we would go, the government or USAID would go to different groups in different parts of the world and say, hey, you want this money?

Great. Church, you want this money? Great. No problem. You just have to preach now in favor of transgenderism and LGBTQ rights. And churches would do it.

They would take the money. Many places would do it. Towns, churches, organizations would do it and violate their faith. Back to this executive order. And the Biden Department of Health and Human Services sought to drive Christians who do not conform to certain beliefs on sexual orientation and gender identity

out of the foster care system. Half of the biggest foster care provider caved on that. They were a Christian organization. They caved. Now they give kids to gay couples. The Biden administration also declared Easter Sunday a transgender day of visibility.

Do you remember, this is Obama, Little Sisters of the Poor, do you remember this? It was the health care act, Obamacare, and it said that your health care has to provide contraception and abortion services for people. And Little Sisters of the Poor, these nuns, this group of nuns, said we don't want to. And the Obama administration said, no, you must. And it went all the way up to the Supreme Court. Little Sisters of the Poor was the name of the group. And Obama with Vice President Joe Biden said, no, you must provide abortion services at contraception.

Little Sisters of the Poor. So this executive order sets a declaration that this will be a pro-Christian administration and then goes on and makes this big task force to make sure that there's no more anti-Christian bigotry in any aspect of the federal government. It's great. So, wonderful first step. This is not everything.

This is not the end all be all. It's just an executive order. I don't mean just, like that's a big deal, but I should say just as in terms of it's one step of many steps that we need to keep going in this country. We need a revival in America. Rooted out of the federal government, that's great,

but we need a true revival in this country in so many ways. I'll end with this quote from T.S. Eliot. Years ago, he said, "'The world is trying the experiment "'of attempting to form a civilized "'but non-Christian mentality.

"'The experiment will fail, but we must be very patient in awaiting its collapse, meanwhile, redeeming the time so that the faith may be preserved alive through the dark ages before us to renew and rebuild civilization and save the world from suicide. We have been very patient in our nation's collapse, far too patient for far too long. And I praise God that we didn't need to wait for a full-on collapse. God saved us before it got much worse.

Praise God. But this is the time to step up. This is the time to be bold. You must be bold in your faith and confident that if we want a civilized nation, again, we have to have a Christian mentality. This is the answer the answer is not an executive

orders or even legislation we need those things is great let's do those things awesome but the answer is in the word and the answer is in salvation of souls we must be bold this is our time and the answer is in salvation of souls we must be bold this is our time Mike Slater dot locals dot com transcript commercial free mike slater dot locals dot com

The secular world has the "red pill", but we have something even better: eyes that see and ears that hear. 

Welcome to Politics by Faith. Thanks for being here. Someone on SiriusXM's show today called in. We were talking about Maha, Make America Healthy Again. And this wonderful woman called in and at the end of her comment she said something like, when will people just wake up? Something about waking up.

And I said, ah ha! Actually we were just talking on my podcast about that very theme right now. I once was blind and now I see. We were just talking in the middle of this two-part episode about being blind and now seeing even the story of God intentionally blinding people spiritually because that's what they wanted. They wanted to be blind and God made it so. But as Romans 13 says, now is

high time to awake out of sleep. When will people wake up? This idea of waking up of scales falling from our eyes the imagery today in secular culture is the red pill it's from the movie the Matrix and the other guy in charge been forever since I seen it but the guy in charge of the Matrix whatever is he Morpheus is his name I don't know if he's in charge of the matrix whatever but he tells Neo who's Keanu Reeves he says take the blue pill and the story ends and you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe.

You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. So the point is the blue pill, you go back into the matrix. You live in ignorance once again, but it's happy and it's comfortable and it's safe. That's the blue pill. The red pill causes you to wake up and the scales to fall from your eyes and you see reality. If I remember, it's been forever since I've seen the movie, but there's one character

in the movie, I think he has a funny mustache, and he chooses, I think he betrays the good guys and he chooses comfort over the truth. and being really sad because he happily chose ignorance. I think he even said ignorance is bliss. And you're like, oh man. And as sad as that scene in the movie made me,

I should be way sadder when I choose ignorance over the truth. And my point of bringing that up is it's this is a common imagery and it's all throughout the Bible. So let's go to Matthew 13. Jesus just told the parable of the seeds, right? You know that one of course. Some of the rocks, birds eat them up, thorns choke them out, all that right? Everyone knows that parable. But at the end of the parable, Jesus wraps up with

this. He says, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. What does that mean? It's a funny thing to say at the end of it. He who has ears to hear let him hear. Well everyone has ears. So what do you mean? But not everyone has ears to hear. Everyone has ears that can hear. Like I hear the words. But not everyone is spiritually sensitive enough to actually listen. So you may have ears, but do you have ears to hear? This is all in reference to Isaiah 6. God says, whom shall I send and who will go for us? And Isaiah says, here I am, send me. It's a famous line. But God

says, go and tell this people. This is what I want you to say. Keep on hearing, but do not understand. Keep on seeing, but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes. Lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and return and be healed." The part at the end is so wonderful because there are people who do hear with their ears,

and people who do see, and people who do understand with their heart and what happens when you do well you return to God and when you do that you're healed how wonderful is that as opposed to people who see but don't perceive and hear and don't understand and their heart is dull i don't want my heart to be dull or numb i don't want that. I want my heart to be healed. So the next line in Matthew says, And the disciples came to him and said, Why do you speak to them in parables? And Jesus answered and said to them, Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries

of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance. But whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand." Charles Spurgeon said, they have become so morally and spiritually diseased.

You know, and let me jump back to secular quick. It's the midwit meme that I love so much. Oh, JD Vance actually highlighted this perfectly. Let me pull this up here. We're gonna do this one, we're gonna talk about this next week.

JD Vance, our new vice president, made some comment about the heat map. Remember that heat map we talked about the other day about who your like ordered affections and who you prioritize your time and attention to? And he spoke about that.

And someone criticized him and said, well, we'll do this next week, but a Yale professor criticized him. And JD rebuked him and then ended with this. He said, I'll say it, I've said it before and I'll say it again.

The problem with Rory, this Yale professor, and people like him, is that he has an IQ of 110 and thinks he has an IQ of 130. This false arrogance drives so much elite failure over the last 40 years. He wrote that yesterday as vice president.

And Trump was asked at a press conference about the plane helicopter crash in DC. They're like, well, how do you know that it's DEI? How do you know the report hasn't come out yet? How do you know? And Trump said, it's common sense.

Okay. It's just common sense. These are people who have clarity. And when you have clarity, you can look at something and be like, oh yeah, well that's simple. Like, I get it.

It's the midwits in the middle, the Pharisees, all right, who are like, I don't get the story. Oh, you know, what's, but if you have clarity, you're like, yeah, I get it.

That makes sense.

I see and I perceive and I hear and I understand. Spurgeon says, to this day, marvels of creation, works of grace, deeds of providence are all as voiceless music to carnal men. They hear not their teaching, they feel not their power. So many people are, and I too often am, seared,

have lost feeling, have lost connection with God and the Holy Spirit. And that's just the worst thing. But to have ears that can hear, how incredible is that? Spurgeon says, Happy men to be chosen for such a privilege. Grace has opened our eyes and ears.

Blessed are your eyes, for they see. What wonders, treasures, revelations do they see? Eyes are blessed which gaze upon the mysteries of divine love. And blessed are your ears, for they hear. Hear something sweeter than the song of angels, even the voice of everlasting love from the heart of Jesus.

You have learned the great secret. The counsel of the Lord has been revealed to you, and you are blessed. You under the gospel are made to know what the greatest and best of men under the law could not discover. You have ears that can hear. So let's look, and let's listen, and let's go to God and have our hearts restored.

Isaiah 55, come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters. And you who have no money, come, buy and eat. Come buy—no money, who have no money—come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me and eat what is good and you will delight

in the richest affair. Come, give ear, come to me, listen that you may live." So, in conclusion, let us not be the hard-hearted Pharisees. Let us not be blinded by the world or blinded by comfort or pleasure or any other distraction. Let us listen to God and let us see His blessings. Mike Slater dot locals dot com. Transcript and commercial free on the website. Mike Slater dot locals dot com. Transcript and commercial free on the website. Mike Slater dot locals dot com.