MikeSlater
Politics • Spirituality/Belief • Culture
5 Years Later: Biggest Lesson From COVID
Politics By Faith, Mach 13, 2025
March 13, 2025

COVID started 5 years ago this week. We missed a major opportunity to preach the Gospel during this time, but it's never too late to learn the most important lesson from COVID.

Hey, welcome to Politics by Faith. Thank you for being here. March 11th. So what was that? That was Tuesday. This last Tuesday was the five-year anniversary of COVID.

Why do I say March 11th? That's the day that Donald Trump had that address to the nation with the two weeks to flatten the curve stuff. It was on March 11th. I distinctly remember.

Do you remember?

Do you remember that whole time? Do you remember that period in general? So to honor, celebrate, recognize, to never forget the lessons from COVID-19, I prepared a segment that we're gonna do on tomorrow's show on SiriusXM

with 13 lessons from COVID. My 13 biggest COVID lessons. We're not gonna go over all of them here. It's going to take like an hour, but I can just run through them quick. First lesson, the power of TDS, Trump Derangement Syndrome. Number two, the lengths people will go to not admit they were wrong. It's quite astounding actually, but it's so wild. If you just do it, it'll feel so much better.

Just try it like one time, just admit you're wrong. It has this huge buildup, like no, it's going to be so painful, and then you just do it and you feel great. And then you can do it all the time and it feels way easier. The power of I'm just doing my job. Maybe no words have ever justified more evil than, well, I'm just doing my job.

Fourth lesson, no common sense ever allowed at all. Fifth lesson, and this is kind of a practical one, is lab leaks are very common. There's about one a day. We average about one in America, one lab leak, one every day or two. We have a lab leak across the country. The sixth lesson, I should probably reorder these for tomorrow's show, is political correctness

is of greater value than common sense. Political correctness is of greater value, was at least of greater value. Seventh lesson, people will hide information, hide it, rather than admit they're wrong. It's just this general lack of curiosity and lack of humility that people have. I should probably move that one over too. Lesson number eight, the elites hate you.

They think you're really stupid. Ninth lesson was the power of propaganda, whether it's Chinese or American variety. Number 10, the impulse of we have to do something. It's very strong. the bad thing. People get very comforted by doing something. Number 11 is a general questioning of government competence. This would be the

institutions that have lost their credibility. Good, they deserve to have it lost. Number 11 is the authoritarian impulse inside many people. Number 12, how fragile our culture is, especially work ethic. And just really all social relations standards that we have. It was really on a knife's edge and something shook it.

I'm gonna write that down, that's a good line. So I'm going to shook it. And a lot of people haven't recovered. COVID really broke a lot of people in a lot of ways. So those are the 12, but then I have a 13th. And this is the most important one.

And this is the one that I want to go into more detail here. And that is people are very scared of death. People are terrified of death and dying. Now we live in an atheist culture today. And this is what happens. It's one of the consequences of that.

Is that people believe this is all there is. It's just evolution anyway. We're just a bunch of chemicals. A bunch of random chemicals, and anyway, all right, so that's all that's we just randomly got here and we'll just die and that's the end of it and people are very scared of that. I just came across this from C.S. Lewis, this may be an aside but

I'll do it anyway. C.S. Lewis, this is from the case for Christianity, he said supposing there was no intelligence behind the universe, no creative mind, in that case nobody designed my brain for the purpose of thinking. It is merely that when the atoms inside my skull happen, for physical or chemical reasons, to arrange themselves in a certain way, this gives me as a by-product the sensation I call thought.

But if so, how can I trust my own thinking to be true? It's like upsetting a milk jug and hoping that the way it splashes itself will give you a map of London. But if I can't trust my own thinking, of course I can't trust the arguments leading to atheism and therefore I have no reason to be an atheist or anything else. Unless I believe in God, I cannot believe in thought. So I can never use thought to

disbelieve in God. Pretty good. But don't think about that. Just you're an atheist. We're all atheists now. There is no God and there is. I shared this story many times during COVID of Martin Luther. In 1527, there was a terrible plague in his city. And you know, these plagues back then, they killed like 50% of the town. The COVID deaths, it was like 0.2% of the population.

It wasn't like 0.2, it was 0.2% of our population. Imagine if COVID killed 50% of the population. And this plague was so deadly in Martin Luther's town in 1527, that church leadership was telling him to leave, get out of Dodge. And he wrote this letter to people. He said, you wish to know whether it's proper for a Christian to run away from a deadly plague. It's a very long letter, and there's a lot of nuance in it, but let me just quote this one line.

If it be God's will that evil come upon us and destroy us, none of our precautions will help us. Everybody must take this to heart. First of all, if he feels bound to remain where death rages in order to serve his neighbor, let him commend himself to God and say, Lord, I am in thy hands. Thou hast kept me here.

Thy will be done. I am thy lowly creature. Thou can kill me or preserve me in this pestilence in the same way as if I were in fire, water, drought, or any other danger. If a man is free, however, meaning he has no responsibilities, and he can escape, let him commend himself and say, Lord God, I am weak and fearful.

Therefore I am running away from evil, and am doing what I can to protect myself against it. I am nevertheless in thy hands in this danger, as in any other which might overtake me, I will be done. My flight alone will not succeed of itself because calamity and harm are everywhere. Moreover, the devil never sleeps.

He is a murderer from the beginning and tries everywhere to instigate murder and misfortune. I believe the church missed a massive opportunity during COVID to save a lot of souls. There's a lot of fear. People are willing to do anything

to avoid this molecule that might float and get me. And we could have alleviated a lot of fear by talking to people about the afterlife. Now, Christians, many Christians,

I think, missed this in themselves. Because a lot of this, because we live in it, well a lot of this because church doesn't really talk about important things, but many churches, but we've lost sight because we live in the atheist culture now that we're not just bodies. That's what the atheists think is we're just bodies with chemical reactions.

Some people even, like those who admit we're a soul, they still put the emphasis on the body. We're a body that happens to have a soul, but the truth is we are a soul that happens to have a body. Now if you think we're just a body, then you'll do whatever it takes to keep the body safe from harm, safe from breathing in bad air, safe from that COVID molecule, because it's all you have. But I think people learned, I hope people learned, that you can cling to something so tightly that you end up losing it.

And people cling so tightly to life, they lost the ability to live, or at least, in many cases, to live a life worth living. So people are terrified of death. And honestly, some people should be, because you're going somewhere.

But if you're a Christian, you shouldn't be terrified at all. And I wish five years ago, but now is also a good time. I wish people use this as an opportunity to get right with God, so that death is instead something you look forward to. 2 Corinthians 5, Paul said, Being always of good courage, always,

and knowing that while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. We are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord." How great is that? The verb here is to be of good cheer, to be happy. We are of good courage. For we know that if the earthly tent which

our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. We're clinging to our tent. When we have this incredible house in heaven waiting for us. We've quoted Philippians 1 a couple times recently. Paul said, For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. But if I live on in the flesh, this will mean fruit from my labor. Yet what I shall choose I cannot tell, for I am hard-pressed between the two.

Living or dying, I'm hard-pressed between the two. Having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. Nevertheless, to remain in the flesh is more needful for you." I think it would be a valuable thing in the church to focus more on our yearning for heaven. The scripture I want to talk about today, though, is in the story, is in 2 Kings 7. Pretty amazing story here.

So you have Elisha and he says from the Lord that tomorrow at this time a bit of flour is going to be like nothing. It's going to be super cheap. And the king and all the people are like, what? You're talking about how can that possibly be? Because they were surrounded by the enemy.

There was a siege on the town and the city, and everyone was starving. There was no food. Let's jump to verse 3. Now, there are four leprous men at the entrance of the gate, because they couldn't go into the city because they had leprosy. And the one said, they said to one another,

Why are we sitting here until we die? If we say we will enter the city, the famine is in the city, and we shall die there. And if we sit here, we die also. It's like, what are we doing? What are we doing just sitting here? Let's pick something. I mean we sit here and die or we can go there and like give it a go.

So the leopards say now therefore come let us surrender to the army of the Syrians. Those are the people who are surrounding the city. Let's go then. If they keep us alive we shall live and if they kill us we shall only die. If we stay here we die. If we go there the worst that can happen is we die. So they got up and they went to the camp of the Syrians. And it says they went to the outskirts of the camp,

which means they went all the way to the other side. They went through the whole camp. And to their surprise, it says here, no one was there. They left. All the enemy left. And the people in the town didn't even know it. People in the city didn't know it. Why did they leave? For the Lord had caused the army of the Syrians

to hear the noise of chariots and the noise of horses, the noise of a great army. So they said to one another, look, the king of Israel has hired against us, the kings of the Hittites and the kings of the Egyptians to attack us. Like this is like such a huge army. It's not even Israel.

Therefore they arose and fled at twilight and left the camp intact, their tents, their horses and their donkeys, and they fled for their lives. That's all terrifying.

It was.

And when these lepers came to the outskirts of the camp, they went into one tent and ate and drank, and carried from it silver and gold and clothing, and went and hid them. Then they came back and entered another tent and carried some from there also, and they went and hid it. Then they said to one another, Hold on, we are not doing right. This day is a day of good news, and we remain silent.

If we wait until morning light, some punishment will come upon us. Now therefore, come, let us go and tell the king's household." So there's a couple wonderful lessons here. First of all, they got up and they went and they tried and it worked out for them. There was a ton of food there and they were able to eat and drink to their heart's desire. And then when they started to hide things for themselves, they're like, wait, no, this is wrong.

Let's go tell the king what happened. So they had a conscience about them to do the right thing, even in this time. And the story here is about once the symbolism is once you know the gospel, you gotta go tell people about it. Go tell people the good news. And this is what Charles Spurgeon did

with this scripture here. He said, if you're not a believer right now, if you're not a Christian, if you're not saved, you're like the leper on the outside, outskirts of the city, you will die. COVID, no COVID, whatever, you're going to die.

Nothing you can do about that. You will die. Spurgeon said, if you remain where you are, you will perish forever. If you go over to Jesus, you will only die on this earth. You will die here, but then you will go to heaven and live forever. Spurgeon says you will not perish if you trust him.

On the contrary, you will find treasure far richer than you can imagine. Spurgeon actually says you will find treasure far richer than those poor lepers found in the deserted camp of the Syrians. May the Holy Spirit give you the boldness to go to Jesus immediately, and you will not believe in vain.

I just wish there was this message that was preached more during COVID. Go to Jesus immediately, you will not believe in vain. Then when you are saved yourself, share the good news with others. Don't be shy. Tell the king's household first and join in fellowship with them. Then proclaim the good news everywhere.

May the Lord save you before the sun goes down tonight. I pray for a true Holy Spirit-led revival in our churches first. Wherever it happens, one element of that, I think, would be not fearing death. Like my favorite hymn, it is well with my soul and Lord haste the day hurry up when the faith shall be sight. The clouds be rolled back as a scroll, the trump shall resound and the Lord shall descend even so it is well with my soul. I think COVID exposed a lot of things in our world exposed that things are not well with our souls. Let's get that right and one element of that would be not fearing death. I

Would love to be more articulate on this topic if you have any Insights that you can share with me. I'd love to hear it My email Slater radio at gmail.com Send me a note on I'm not fearing death and then the proper Christian perspective on that I look forward to doing some more research on it as well. But if you have any insight that can send me in the right direction, I'd love that.

Slaterradio at gmail.com. Mikeslater.locals.com is my website. We have, we put these up a little bit earlier on that website. We have, we put these up a little bit earlier on that website. Commercial free and a transcript as well.

community logo
Join the MikeSlater Community
To read more articles like this, sign up and join my community today
0
What else you may like…
Videos
Podcasts
Posts
Articles
Fox & Friends

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

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

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

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

This causes these progressive politicians to get even more entrenched.

We haven't hit rock bottom yet.

00:00:32
Boys to men, girls to women

How do you do it? Advice please!

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

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

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

00:07:55
Surly this will be kicked off twitter eventually
00:06:34
Morning Motivation, April 21, 2023

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

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

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

Morning Motivation, April 21, 2023
Inflation and ANGER

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

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

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

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

Inflation and ANGER
Politics by Faith: Parkland and the Death Penalty

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

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

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

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

Politics by Faith: Parkland and the Death Penalty
November 26, 2025

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

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

THE CODE OF CATHOLIC CHIVALRY

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

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

November 19, 2025

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

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

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

The Philippines, 1898–1946
...

post photo preview
November 11, 2025

Happy Veterans' Day.
Support our Troops. Before. During. After.

St. Martin, Bishop of Tours, Confessor, Soldier of the State, Soldier of Christ
November 11
https://www.bartleby.com/lit-hub/lives-of-the-saints/volume-xi-november/st-martin-bishop-of-tours-confessor

post photo preview
Eric Swalwell, CA Governor's Race, and Bearing Rotten Fruit
Politics By Faith, April 13, 2026

Please subscribe to our youtube version at youtube.com/@PoliticsByFaith 😀

It's been an open secret among Democrats that women should stay away from Congressman Eric Swalwell. So why are all of these accusations coming out now? And what can we learn from Numbers 17?

Welcome to Politics by Faith. This is where we take the news of the day and we bring it to the Bible so that we can all walk away with peace and perspective. There's new headlines every day, but Ecclesiastes says there's nothing new under the sun. So thanks for being here to get the true story, story of the day. Eric Swalwell thrown under the bus. Here's what happened. 

Eric Swalwell, Congressman of California, San Francisco, since 2012, first gained national prominence when he was found to be sleeping with a Chinese spy, Fang Fang. And he was kicked off, that's her name, Fang Fang. And he was kicked off the Intel Committee at the time for that. What a dope. That was in 2020 or so. More recently, he's made a name for himself as a leader of the Never Trump Movement. 

He's totally shameless and a total political hack. I don't know how full blown his TDS actually is, but he comes across as the most TDS person there can be on MSNBC and all the rest. He's a San Francisco Democrat. That's been the last couple of years. But now he's in the news because he's running for the governor of California. Now, here's the noteworthy thing that you got to understand about this situation. 

The primary for governors on November or June 2nd or 3rd. I forget. It's coming up in June. And it's an open primary, which means all the Democrats and all the Republicans run together on one big, giant primary ballot. The top two move on to the next and final round. It didn't used to be this way. 

California voters in 2010 voted for this as Prop 14. It barely passed. I was there when it happened. I don't think people knew what it was. But anyway, so that's what they do in California now for a bunch of these races. The Democrats did this and they manipulated people into voting for this because they obviously 

completely controlled the state and they were sick of having to run in general elections and spend a bunch of money so they said well let's what if we could come up with a system where no republicans make it to the general election so they said oh let's do this top two primary system where they just get two democrats to make it to the finals so whoever wins democrats win does that make sense So it used to be the Democrats have a primary and the Republicans have a primary, and then the top Republican and the top Democrat go on to the general. But now they just have all do one giant primary and then two Democrats always make it to the next round. So Democrats win already. That's it for them. It's great for them. It's been. 

But it might backfire in this governor's race. There are so many Democrats running that there is a world where each Democrat gets 12 % of the vote. And the two Republicans who are running, Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco, they each split the Republican vote and get 15 % of the vote. Now, I will grant you that this is a bit of a Republican pipe dream, but as we will share in a moment, not that much because they threw Swalwell under the bus. So you can call it a pipe dream, but it's enough that they had to get rid of Swalwell. So What if the two Republicans get about 15 % of the vote each? 

That's about 30 % overall, which makes sense. In California, if Republicans get about 30 % of the vote overall, maybe it's a little more. Maybe they get 35 % of the vote overall, right? So maybe it's like 17. They each get 17 % of the vote, something like that. They could do that, and all the other Democrats get 12, 13, 14 % of the vote, and then two Republicans make it to the top two to go into the next round. 

That background is important. That possibility is important because the Democrats need to start taking each other out now. in order to consolidate their vote because none of the Democrats are dropping out on their own. The top Democrats are Tom Steyer. He's a billionaire environmentalist guy. He's been funding tons of California stuff for decades. 

And he's like, well, I'm just going to run now. Then Congressman Katie Porter, who's a terrible person, just one of the all time worst people ever. And then Eric Swalwell, Those are the big three, but there's also the mayor of San Jose is running, also Antonio Villara Garosa, whose real name is Tony Villar, the former mayor of Los Angeles. These guys, you know, former mayors, they got enough name recognition where they are and they're gonna help split up the vote for the Democrats, and none of them are dropping them. So the Democratic machine got together and they said, all right, well, we gotta get rid of someone. And they said, well, let's get rid of Swalwell. 

So a woman came out and claimed, any kids listening, kids mourning for a moment. Woman came out and said she was... Actually, I don't even know if she used the r -word. She may have just said sexually assaulted. Just. But you know what I mean. 

By Suomo. We don't need to go over the details here. It sounds like a classic Me Too. It looks like where he got him alone and then asked him for stuff and they felt pressured to say yes because he's the superior and they're the intern and they were all very inebriated and it was all regrettable but there was a power imbalance and there's all that stuff. I don't know what happened. I wasn't there. 

But it's enough. that members of Congress, granted, even further left people, are calling for him to resign and even be expelled from Congress, get kicked out entirely because of his relations with a subordinate. They want him gone. I think four women have come forward so far, but now a bunch of other people saying that they've known this for decades, an open secret. Swalwell is on his second wife. He's been married to this woman's second wife. 

He's also now, just because they got to get rid of him. So he's also accused of violating immigration and employment laws by keeping his Brazilian, I guess, illegal alien nanny, live -in nanny, who doesn't have work authorizations. I guess that she's legal, right? And he paid her with campaign funds. So they're doing everything they can to try to get him out. By the way, that illegal alien thing, that harkens back, Meg Whitman, Meg Whitman in the 2010 governor's race, which she was doing well as a Republican. 

California wasn't completely gone then. And then it came out that she had an illegal alien housekeeper for many years. So Swalwell has an illegal alien living handy too. All right, so that's the story, right? It's a Me Too throwing them under the bus, but you understand why they're throwing them under the bus? 

Right. 

So that's that's my what's broken section for today's episode is obviously the infidelity and the sexual assault. That's horrible. But the political broken and I should say and also the political brokenness of this, because the only reason why the Democrats and the media are are turning on Fang Fang's lover is because of the California governor's race and because of the recent polling. There's no other reason. They obviously would have kept all of this going forever if there was no reason to throw him under the bus. But now they're more than happy to throw them under the bus. 

This is John Nolte, he said, this is the corporate media doing what the corporate media always does. If you want to understand how the media operate, whenever you see the media do something, anything, ask yourself one question, how does this benefit Democrats? So if they can take one of the top three out, in this case, Swalwell, divvy up his 15 points, hand them out to the other couple of Democrats, and maybe now they can take out one of the Republicans. And if they can take out one of the Republicans and just get, even if it's just one Democrat making it to the general, then of course, I shouldn't say of course, but you know, more than likely the Democrat will win the governor's race. So the chance to win this race for Republicans is now, and the Democrats know that, which is why they're throwing Swalwell under the bus. 

If Swalwell was polling at 40 % then or 30 % or even in second place, they wouldn't do this and they would continue to cover up who he was forever. But now he's a threat to the party and he's a threat to the Democrats, maybe losing the governor of California's race. So they don't care. He's dead to them. Let's get to the Bible. So quick, like what, what could the, how do we put the Bible in this? 

A quick little backstory here. When preparing for this podcast, it goes both ways. Sometimes I'll come across a news story, and in my researching it or talking about it on the radio, a Bible story will come to mind. Sometimes it goes the opposite way, where I'm reading the Bible, and then it reminds me of something that's happening in the news, and either way, it all works out. This one's a little bit different, and I thought maybe worth sharing real quick. I was in Bible class before church today, as I record this, and my pen was in my Bible, and it was very early in the Old Testament. 

It was like in the beginning of the book, and I was like, oh, I don't remember reading that recently. I wonder why my pen's there. Was I reading something there? I just put the pen there for, I don't know. So I opened it up. I was like, I wonder if I read this. 

And it was Numbers 17 about Aaron's staff blossoming. I said, no, I didn't. I haven't read that. Just random pen dropping in the Bible. So we have class and then I go and I get the kids in the hallway after their class. And Johnny walks out of his room and he hands me a piece of paper that he colored, which is about what he learned about in church, the Bible class before church. 

And it was a piece of paper. that he drew of Aaron's staff blossoming. What? So today we're gonna talk about Aaron's staff blossoming. We just gotta go with it. We're gonna keep going here. 

It's a wonderful story. Numbers 17. So God was choosing the priesthood over all the other tribes of Israel. And there was a lot of grumbling going on. So God's like, all right, we're gonna put this to bed once and for all for everyone. Check out number 16, you want to read about Korah and all the grumbling about Moses and Aaron. 

So God said, all right, everyone, take a staff, a dead stick from each tribe, write a name above it, put it in the tabernacle. OK, let me pick up from here. Verse eight. So number 17, verse eight. On the next day, Moses went into the tent of the testimony and behold, the staff of Aaron for the house of Levi had sprouted and put forth buds and produced blossoms and bore ripe almonds. Then Moses brought out all the staffs from before the Lord to all the people of Israel. 

And they looked and each man took his staff. And the Lord said to Moses, put back the staff of Aaron before the testimony tabernacle to be kept as a sign for the rebels that you may make an end of their grumblings against me, lest they die. Thus did Moses, as the Lord commanded him. So he did. So a wonderful little story. And the point of this story, one of the things that stood out to me about this was, of course, this dead stick coming to life. 

But it didn't just have a leaf. That would be enough. I've just had one little leaf sticking out of there. It had all the seasons. It had leaves. It had blossoms. 

It had ripe almonds already. And this stood out to me because I love the concept of fruit. Karpos in the Bible, in the Greek. The fruit of your actions. The fruits of the Holy Spirit. Fruit is the 

outward expression of power working inwardly. You have inwardly stuff happening. Okay, well, what's the fruit? And I came across this commentary from F . B. Meyer, maybe it was a hundred years ago. 

He said the rod, this dead stick, had spring, summer, and autumn all at once. The bud of spring, he said, there's a perennial... And this is us too, right? So we have this dead stick, which is us, And we should have all three of these seasons represented in our lives as well, is F . 

B. 

Meyer's point. So first, the bud of spring. There is a perennial freshness in the true saint, a perennial freshness, an always existing freshness in the true saint. He may be old in years, but his leaf is green with vernal tenderness. And there are always budding promises of richer and better things that he has yet attained. 

The outward man decayeth, but the inward renews his youth forever. 

like an eagle's. So we should all, no matter how we're getting, you see my beard, a gray beard, that old. I think a gray beard old, but I guess I'm four kids old. You should always have this freshness of spirit like spring. He also mentioned the blossom of early summer. He said there's an exquisite beauty in the blossom of orchard and garden. 

No painters ever yet learned God's secret of mixing his colors, such as the beauty of the character of the believer. Men will say involuntarily how attractive, how beautiful. And then the fruit of autumn. That we should bear fruit, ripe almonds, not just almonds, but ripe almonds, is the end of Christ in our redemption and discipline. We can only do it in fellowship with himself. He must bear it through us. 

From me is thy fruit found. I've chosen you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain. " That's John 15, 16. So God brought forth life from this dead stick. To be clear, we're all dead sticks, but with God's power and Jesus's resurrection and with the Holy Spirit, our lives can produce fruit. And if you are not those things, then your life will produce very different fruit. 

Fruits you don't want. 

Rotten fruit. And maybe you'll be of a political party or in a position of power or influence where other people will cover for your rotten fruit, but you will know it. Eventually it will come out. You will know it always. And God, of course, will too. I'll end with Matthew 7, 16, because we live in a culture where you're told not to judge. 

Don't ever judge. Jesus says you will recognize them by, by what? Their fruits. 

Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? 

Of course not. Let's pray for the Holy Spirit to work so that we can be people who produce good fruit always. YouTube . com slash at politics by faith. If you could subscribe over there, that'd be awesome. It's free, of course, and it helps with the algorithm and it helps us spread the word. YouTube . com slash at politics by faith.

 

Read full Article
Is Trump A War Criminal or A Coward?
Politics By Faith, April 9, 2026

Please subscripe to our podcast at youtube.com/@politicsbyfaith

If the president says he's going to bomb Iran, the left says he's a war criminal. When he doesn't bomb Iran, the left says he's a coward and always chickens out. You can't help the Trump deranged. But we can learn from 1 Samuel 15 on the importance of following God's Word completely. 


Welcome to Politics by Faith. This is where we take the news of the day and we bring it to the Bible. So you can walk away with peace and perspective. There's new headlines every day, but Ecclesiastes says there's nothing new under the sun. So thanks for being here to get the true story, the story of the day. Donald Trump chickens out. 

It's very funny if the left says that, well, let's say Trump says he wants to drop a bomb, right? Oh, he's committing a war crime. And then Trump doesn't drop the bomb. Oh, he's a chicken, a coward. You cannot win with the Trump deranged, which is fine. The very short of the story, Trump talked, he spoke loudly and carries a big stick. 

He talked a big game in a way that the people he was talking to, Muslim lunatics in Iran, would understand. They came to the negotiating table at the last minute because, again, the big stick part, he's used it. They know he will. So they negotiated and they agreed, Iran agreed to open the Strait of Hormuz. So Trump didn't attack. Great news. 

Now we'll see if they open up the Strait. That's all we want at this point is open up the Strait of Hormuz. If they do that, then we're probably done in Iran. It kind of depends who rises from the ashes. And if the people there can rise up and run their country, we'll see what they're able to do. But this is possible that we're done in Iran at this point, if they open up the Now, if you lived online when this all happened, it was a dark and weird place, even more than usual. 

People very anxious about what was going to happen by the Trump administration. very anxious or confused when it didn't happen. And then people saying we lost the war and Trump showed weakness and it was all very bizarre and weird. Now on the Iran one part, there are a lot of people. First of all, there are a lot of people on MSNBC. Apparently, I didn't even think that people really thought this never even crossed my mind. 

When Trump said there will be a civilizational erasure, people on MSNBC were thinking that Trump was going to kill 90 million people. And Iran just bombed them all. 

What? 

He's been doing this for 11 years, guys. You still don't know his MO? You don't know how this works? 

Geez. 

Now, people even afterwards said that Trump lost and Iran is winning. Iran won. Iran came out ahead. They're the ones winning. So someone said, all right, let's flip it. Let's flip the script here for a second. 

Imagine Iran killed Trump in the first five minutes of the war. established air superiority over the U . 

S. 

mainland, wiped out the entire U . 

S. 

Air Force, U . S. Navy, killed half the cabinet, flattened the U . S. military -industrial complex, then started building runways in Missouri to land Iranian troops without losing any casualties. Would you say that it was a U . 

S. victory if America managed to keep the Panama Canal closed for a couple weeks? I don't think anyone would say that that was a U . S. victory, so how on earth could you say this is an Iranian victory? Now, before we get to the biblical story of the day, I have two frustrations that I would like to share. 

Let me try to do this quick. So, number one, it's very frustrating that we are unable as a country to talk about what is good and right and proper without having to run it through the prism or framework that is the midterms. We've got the midterms coming up eight months from now. we have an election. So we can't talk about if it's good to do anything. It always has to be, well, how is it going to affect the midterms? 

Okay, well, what are these midterms? Well, this is when the people vote. On what? Gas prices. That's it. Just gas prices. 

That's the only thing people vote on, apparently, is gas prices. Okay, so what happens if gas prices are $3 .20 a gallon? They vote for Republicans. 

All right. 

What if gas is $3 .86? Oh, Democrats. Hold on. Democrats want gas to be $10 a gallon. That's what they want. And you're going to vote because gas is a little too high for your liking. 

You're going to vote for the Democrats who want it even worse. If that makes sense. And then you're like, all right, fine. The election's about gas prices. Okay. Well, who sets the gas prices? 

Oil futures markets, which is based off of what people think gas will cost later. Okay. That's not, I'm not going to analyze a thing, war in Iran, or deporting the U . S. or whatever the thing is. I'm not going to analyze that through the prism of the midterms, which is decided by voters who only care about gas prices, which are determined by future oils markets of predictions of what, like that's not happening. And Trump doesn't either. 

Trump only cares about what is right and he's going to do it now. He doesn't worry about timing. Maybe he'll worry a little bit about the timing, he'll tend to drop bombs on Fridays, but that's only because he doesn't want people in the stock market to freak out unnecessarily. Give it two days, he'll know, and people will be fine about it on Monday. But big picture timing, Trump doesn't care, just does what is right. And I am frustrated that we, every time we're faced with something like this, 

it through the midterm matrix. All right, second frustration. This perception or this opinion, I hear it a lot. Matt Walsh articulates it well. I love Matt Walsh, big fan. He said, Americans are suffering. 

It's way too expensive out there to live for most families. Our cities are not safe. Our country's being transformed every day by foreign migration. Our elections are not secure. The SAVE Act was not passed and won't be passed. Okay, I agree with all those problems. 

Then he says, it's time to end this war on Iran and focus on our country, our people, our future. Far too much of Trump's second term has been spent on foreign adventures. It has to end, turn the attention back home. Matt Walsh and I, same team, not a criticism of him at all. First of all, MAGA does not mean non -intervention. It does not mean isolationist. 

It means what's in America's best interest, and that may sometimes involve foreign adventures. That's the first thing. Second, the economy, the country doesn't work. where something only happens if Trump is staring at it, and if Trump's not staring at it, then the thing does, everything else stops. The best example I can think about this, to make this clear, is let's say the Memphis Safe Task Force. Matt Walsh talked about our cities aren't safe. 

Memphis Safe Task Force. It's not like because Trump is looking at Iran right now, at the moment, he's staring at it, that the Memphis Safe Task Force over here is just at a standstill. We can't do anything, we're stuck. Why not? 

Why can't you guys do anything? 

Well, Trump's not staring at us at the moment. We have to wait till Trump's staring. Well, can't you just do what you told you to do? No, we can't do anything. We can't. We have to stop here. 

Oh, wait, he's looking at us now. Okay, back to work, everyone. And then for like a couple hours, Trump's looking at us. at that. And then he got to stop his work. He's back on Iran. 

He tweeted about Iran. We're done. We can't do anything anymore. All these things still happen. Trump, Trump's the CEO. So he has, I don't know how many buildings he ever had, like 50 buildings. 

Maybe he doesn't. It's not like when he's working on one building, all the other buildings are like, ah, we're closed. No, you can't stay here, can't golf here. Sorry, Trump's not staring at us at the moment. No, Trump says, you go fix the thing. You're in charge of that building. 

You're in charge of that building. Go get it done. So there's just this frustration that people have about the Iran war, again, not looking at it objectively. And you could be against Iran or what Trump's doing in Iran. You could be against it. But I don't think it's a fair or wise argument to be against it because, well, we have other stuff at home to focus on. 

Like, yeah, of course we do. Those things are still being done. A couple weeks ago, we talked to a guy who's running a mine for rare earth metals in Arkansas. He's still doing that. They're still mining for rare earths in Arkansas. It's not like he's like, ah, president's not paying attention to me at the very moment. 

I guess I'll just sit at home and do nothing. Like things are still going on. Berta wrote me a note. She said, as for things not getting done, if Trump's not looking directly at them, I have a way to dumb it down. If you load your dishwasher and turn it on, you don't have to stand over for two hours while it runs. Oh, Berta, that's so good. 

It's the same with the washing machine and dryer. If you hire someone to do a job repairing a car or your house, you can go about your business while the job gets done by someone else. Trump hires competent people and delegates jobs and they usually get it done. Well done, Berta. Perfect. Okay. 

That really had nothing to do with this so much as I just wanted to get those. Alright, what's broken about the current moment? People are very anxious about war. That's what I want to talk about here. People are very anxious about war. I want to tell a story. 

1 Samuel 15. So you've got the prophet Samuel and you've got the king of Israel Saul. We'll start in verse 3. God told Samuel to tell Saul, now go and strike Amalek and devote, like a town, a city, and devote to destruction all they have. Do not spare them, God says, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey. I want to share this because people get very uneasy about the scripture. 

You often hear people who are not Christian criticize Christians for this story right here. Now I skipped over the first part. Let's go to first Samuel 15 verse two. Thus says the Lord of hosts. I have noted because you think, well, why, why, why, why, why kill everything and everyone in Amalek? What's up? 

Well, God says, I have noted what Amalek did to Israel in opposing them on the way when they came up from Egypt. This was a total judgment against the Amalekites. because of something they did centuries prior. They were the first people to attack the Israelites when they left Egypt. Bible talks about this a couple of times. Exodus 17, 14. 

Then the Lord said to Moses, write this as a memorial in a book and recite it in the ears of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. And Moses built an altar and called the name of it. The Lord is my banner saying a hand upon the throne of the Lord. The Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation. Jeez, what are the... What did they do again? 

What did the Amalekites do to the Israelites, to God's people? Here's Deuteronomy 25. on the way when you were faint and weary and cut off your tail, like the back of the caravan, those who were lagging behind. And he did not fear God. Therefore, when the Lord your God has given you rest from all your enemies around you and the land of the Lord your God has given you for the inheritance to possess, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. You shall not forget. 

" So here we are. The Israelites are, time has passed, and this is the time to do it. The Amalekites, to do what? Enact God's judgment. The Amalekites attacked the weakest of the Israelites, the youngest, for no reason. They just killed them. 

God hates it when the strong take cruel advantage over the weak. So let's go back to 1 Samuel 15, verse four. So Saul summoned the people and numbered them, 200 ,000 men on foot, 10 ,000 men in Judah. Saul came to the city of Amalek and lay in wait in the valley. Then Saul said to the Kenites, go, depart, go down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them. For you showered kindness to all the people of Israel when they came out of Egypt. 

So the Canaanites departed away from the Amalekites. So this is great. So the Canaanites, Saul says, Hey, we're not, we're not going to attack you. You go, go get out of the way. Because the Israelites, they don't want war for war's sake. And if I may, neither does Donald Trump. 

He doesn't want war. And the Israelites didn't want war here. They're like, you people go, get out of the way. Verse seven, and Saul defeated the Amalekites. And he took Agag, the king of the Amalekites, alive, and devoted to destruction all the people with the edge of the sword, but saw in the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and the fattened calves, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them. All that was despised and worthless, they devoted to destruction. 

" Uh -oh. 

Saul did not obey God. He did not destroy the Amalekites. He spared the king. I don't know why exactly, but he didn't. The armies back then were paid by plunder, but God said, destroy everything. They didn't. 

They destroyed the things they didn't want. They destroyed the useless things, the worthless things, but they kept the best of everything. They kept what they wanted. That's true for us too. We all have no problem obeying God's commands that are easy. But what about the commands that cost us something? 

That's when most fail. God said, I regret making Saul king. And because Saul did not kill all the Amalekites, they kept popping up in the Bible. They kept having to fight him over and over again. 1 Samuel 30 in your Bible might be entitled, David destroys the Amalekites. He had to fight them all over. 

And in 2 Samuel 1, this is the story of Saul's death. The man who pushed that sword in the final blow to kill King Saul was an Amalekite who Saul was supposed to take care of already, but he disobeyed God. So one point that people make here is that if you don't obey God completely, what you don't take care of will come back to haunt you. But I want to share this story here because people have a tough time with God calling on a people to wipe out an entire group of other people. It's God committing genocide. How could your good God do such a good thing? 

It's very simple because they were a wicked people. So I would advise everyone who has a tough time with this scripture to take note of what God can do to a wicked people. I don't want to follow any God who could do... Okay, but he can. That's God's judgment. You're going to question his judgment. 

I would advise you to not. Now on judgment, when Samuel did kill Agag, he said, as your sword has made women childless, so shall your mother be childless. God hates wanton killing. Now what actually is shocking is not God's wrath. That's not shocking at all. What's shocking is his love for us. 

God said the wages of sin is death. There should be no surprises there. But the fact that we can be made alive in Jesus, that's the absolute miracle. But back to the questioning of, of God's judgment. I think of Job 38, I recommend you read it all often 38, 39, 40. And the gist of it is God saying, who are you to question me, Job? 

Starts off, where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? And it just goes on beautifully to describe all these other things that prove that God is God. And it ends with, shall a fault finder contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer. Go ahead, your turn, Job. Humans have, you know, I say partial knowledge, not zero knowledge, basically. 

The faintest amount. God has complete total knowledge and authority. Who are we to question him? The story of the Amalekites and his judgment. Now today, I know war is anxiety inducing, but we must trust that God has it under control. We must pray, but know that nothing thwarts God. 

No evil will get in God's way. I'll end with Psalm 2. Why do the nations rage? So the kings all gather up. They're like, Oh, let's, let's do this against God saying, let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us. Okay. 

What's God's response? I've set my king on Zion, my holy hill. If that God is, sounds like a mean God that you, uh, I recommend you worship him. YouTube . com slash at politics by faith. YouTube . 

com slash at politics by faith. If you give us a subscribe over there, that'd be awesome. It helps with the algorithm so we can together spread the word.

 

Read full Article
Never Leave A Man Behind: Rescued Airmen and Aristarchus
Politics By Faith, April 7, 2026

It is essential that every servicemember knows that, in America, we never leave a man behind. That hasn't been the case lately. But with the rescue of these two airmen, every servicemember knows it's true once again. Let's learn from the Bible about this principle from the life of Aristarchus.

 

Read full Article
See More
Available on mobile and TV devices
google store google store app store app store
google store google store app tv store app tv store amazon store amazon store roku store roku store
Powered by Locals