The left is lying to scare our veterans. Do they really think Trump is going to take healthcare away from our veterans? We can't unify on wanting to fix the VA? One symptom of TDS is a hatred of unity. We need to focus on the most important thing to unify around.

Welcome to Politics by Faith. Nice to be here. Something's, uh, my mind a little angry right now. I just saw this article in the San Diego newspaper. Its purpose is to scare veterans. The headline is, I didn't think it would be this bad.

San Diego veterans worry that VA cuts will hurt their care. And it's a whole article about the 80,000 people at the VA who Trump, the Trump administration plans to fire. Now nowhere in the article does it give proper context that if we cut 80,000 people from the VA that leaves us with 400,000 VA employees which is the same amount of employees that the VA had in 2019. So we have to go way back to 2019 to get the same number of jobs. But of course it also assumes that more people in the VA means better care. And there's nothing in this article that

talks about what those 80,000 people do at the VA. Because the point here isn't to inform or enlighten, it is to scare. And it's to scare our veterans. And I think it's shameful and it's it's sick. Let me go ahead it starts off with this guy who has a traumatic brain injury. And let me quote this guy now. The article now, Concord and other veterans in San Diego are worried about how their benefits could be impacted by the staffing scale back and how far

the cuts will go for some. The agency has already targeted specific cuts to health care. Oh, no, specific cuts to VA health care. That's terrible. Announcing last week that it will no longer provide gender-affirming care to transgender veterans. Quote, I didn't think it would be this bad. I

didn't think Trump would brutalize the government like he is. These efforts have surpassed my darkest images. What a bunch of, what just such shameful, shameful work local paper. TDS will cause people to do terrible things. Let's just look at it logically. Do you really think that Trump the populist who got 65% of the veterans vote in the last election, I'm surprised it was only 65%, 65% okay. Do you think that guy right out of the gate, Donald Trump. Do you think he's gonna go out and hurt our veterans?

It's a top priority for Trump. So you go out and take away their care, take away their benefits, take away their treatment. You think that's Donald Trump's goal? Really, lefties? Like, that's what you think?

That's the attack you're going to Donald Trump hates our veterans? We don't have time to go into it in this show, but did you see what happened this weekend at the NCAA Wrestling Championships? It was incredible. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen in my life.

We have the heavyweight battle, the Olympic champion who wrestles for Minnesota. Olympic champion, he won the gold medal. He's from Minnesota, Apple Valley, Minnesota. You don't think you can out America the Olympic champion, Olympic gold medals. But then there's this guy from Kansas, wrestles for Oklahoma State, who's a second lieutenant in the Air Force went to the Air Force Academy and is doing his fifth year at Oklahoma State?

and it was this ridiculous upset victory in the final seconds, and he gets up and he has an American flag and Salutes his commander-in-chief standing right there And then goes over and gives him a big hug and the president says I'm so proud of you What in the world is happening here the only thing it like there's somebody that's like ridiculous images from the Trump administration and just like last seven weeks like last week a pod a capsule a capsule from space with

Abandoned stranded astronauts on it landed in the Gulf of America only to be greeted by a pod of dolphins What? What's happening? What's going on? Anyway back to the back to Trump at the wrestling championships. You think that guy? You think that Donald Trump guy is going to cut care for our veterans? Really? Come on, of course not. Stop being ridiculous activists. Trump of course only wants to improve health care for our veterans. So I'm just angry at that sick attempt to make veterans scared.

There's no need for that. A real journalist would ask questions. Is it true that Donald Trump will hurt health care? They just ask a bunch of question marks in their article. They don't actually report on anything true. They don't actually report on news. They don't actually report on anything, just fear. Those 80,000 that Trump wants to cut,

who are they? What do they do? What kind of jobs? What means is the administration taking to improve health care? The money that's saved through greater VA efficiency, how will that be used to actually increase the number of benefits and the amount of benefits for our veterans. For example, DOGE told us that the VA had a $56,000 contract to water eight plants for five years. That's $1,400 a plant per year. DOGE says the contract has been canceled and DOGE will water the plants free of charge. Okay, it's $56,000 a year. Where's that money going now?

Where will it go instead? I should say. That'd be a nice article. That'd be interesting. It wouldn't be fear-mongering. So they're not interested in it.

Anyway, I just got very angry at that. I want to get to a place in our country, and I think the only way to do it is to keep winning, honestly. Make it so obvious that you just can't deny it. But I want to get to a place of unity. But we can't even have unity on taking care of our veterans.

On the fact that obviously Trump and Doug Collins, head of the VA, want to do that. No, no unity on anything. Nothing. What a shame. I want to give a shout out to my church. I've been a member of this church for about a year.

The church has been around for a long time, coming up in 100 years. 1927 is when they were founded, coming up on a 100-year anniversary. Four people got baptized this Sunday. Isn't that wonderful? Four people. Our church is a diverse church in every way that a group of people can be diverse. It has mostly been a white congregation, black preacher, but lots of different skin colors in the pews. Something I found of great value when we first visited is all the different age ranges.

I sit next to a wonderful couple. They're about to celebrate next year their 75th wedding anniversary. 75 years. They've been married for 75 years. Lots of older people, all the way down to babies. I'm holding my two-year-old during church sitting right next to the 92 year old at every age in between. Diverse with money.

Some people have a lot of it, some people don't have as much. A lot of different cars in the parking lot. So all the different metrics that you can use and look at that show diversity, we have it. None of it matters. The only thing that matters is what we're united in. Jesus is Lord. And four more people said that on Sunday. And I get teared up every time someone gets baptized. I don't get teared up, I cry. I cry every time. Teared up is like a little thing. I cry. First of all, I think

of my kids getting baptized one day because that's all that matters in life. So I have visions of that. But I think what moves me is the unity of it. I think that's, I mean there's a couple things going on surely, but I think it's like that like me and this person, maybe we have very little less in common on the surface, but we have the most important thing in common. And we're both going to heaven now. The sermon was about Ephesians 1 and this one line in Ephesians says, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Christ Jesus to himself. Adoption. You know, every Monday on my 66M show we do a gratitude Monday. People call

them what they're grateful for. It's always great. And someone called me today and said he was grateful that he was adopted. How about that? You gotta be kidding me. What are the chances? Just talked about adoption in church on Sunday, and then you call it a Monday, grateful you're adopted. He was born in Canada, but adopted here in America. If you're a Christian, you're adopted. There's no biological connection. If you're adopted to a family, you have no biological connection to them. You have no right to anything they have or own. There's no natural connection.

And same thing with God. We were enemies to Him. Colossians 1, and you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds. In Romans, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. He was our enemy. But still, we have been adopted in Jesus and now you are a child of God and everything

that means here's a commentary from from Barclay in Roman law when the adoption was complete it was complete indeed the person who had been adopted had all the rights of a legitimate son in his new family and completely lost all rights in his old family in the eyes of the law he was a new person. So new was he that even all debts and obligations connected with his previous family were abolished as if they had never existed. That's unity.

And it's a beautiful thing. Brings me to tears. A lot more unity in our country. Unity on things like, hey, let's make the VA better. Let's make the VA more efficient. Of all the things, can we make the VA more efficient? Can we all agree on this? Can we have unity on this? Can we not be ridiculous? Can

we not have these scare tactics about the VA? Can we all get on board with this? That's good unity. But my biggest prayer, the most important, is unity on what matters, the absolute most. The absolute Lord. Jesus is Lord. Mike Slater, dot, Locals, dot com. Transcript, commercial free on the website, Mike Slater, dot, Locals, dot com.

A word came up a few times on the show today that we must bring back: Rectitude. This was front of mind in our founders and is an essential part of the American Golden Age.

Welcome to Politics by Faith. Thank you for being here. One hesitation I often have is I don't know what else you listen to of mine that I've or content that I put out. So I have a show on SiriusXM Patreon and a show on San Diego. So I don't know if you're coming from either of those two places and I do different things on each show,

so some things I may repeat on one show, but maybe you don't listen to either of those shows. This is the first time, so I don't want to skip over stuff or rush through something, thinking that you listened to it on SiriusXM. This point I made when you didn't listen,

so I never know what to do. I'm going to err on the side of assuming there's nothing else you listened to. So I want to make sure we're all on the same page so we can get to the unique finale that we have on this show,

which is to look at it always through a biblical lens. So let's do a little catch up here so we're all on the same page, talking about the ending of the Department of Education. And we talked with Linda McMahon on the SiriusXM show today about all that.

It's a wonderful thing. And it's just the very beginning. It actually gets us no step closer to a true revival in education in America, which we need, it doesn't get us any closer itself. It eliminates a major roadblock of the revolution.

But we still have to do it. We still have to do the work now that the department's gone. We played a clip earlier of a young girl, I don't know if she's in college or high school, outside of the Department of Education,

protesting to keep the Department of Education because Trump is abandoning education or some such nonsense and I made the point ask that girl a math question not to be mean but like here she is saying we need to keep the Department of Education because education is so important all right what's 12 times 12 what's a square root what year do we fight the Revolutionary War who was it against like the most

how many states are there I saw a video the other day where they do one of the man on the streets and they asked a kid that's 18 years old, 17, how many states are there? And he got it right. And then they asked him, what is the capital of the country? And he got it right. And then they said, name two countries in Europe.

And he did it. And the people who were doing the interview and his friends were amazed well we got a genius here he knew how many states there were it's a genius these days this is the system we're defending if you ask that girl to do a math problem in her head

i guarantee you how she would react i know exactly how she would react. She would laugh and giggle. This is a tick that a lot of people use. I do too. Slater, what is a hundred times a thousand? Oh yeah I'm just I'm not good at math. You know I don't I don't know. They do like this nervous laugh to try to laugh it away, it's not funny. Our education standards are abysmally low. It is abysmal. And I'm no better. I'm a product of the public education system. Thomas Jefferson, I think of this often, Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to his nephew

about what books he should read and what he should study in his school. And he said, for the president, I advise you to begin a course of ancient history reading everything in the original and not in translations of course of course you got to read these in Latin and Greek 16 year old you got you got to read these in Latin and Greek first read Goldsmith's history of Greece this will give you a digested view on that field it's 300 pages do you know in school

today no kids have to read books there's no expectation that books need to be read and teachers I gave up on that forever go there like here's a little printout we printed out a chapter or here's a couple paragraphs of this book let's talk about it. Even then, it gets known to them. But like reading a whole book, that's this is just the beginning. Then take up ancient history in the detail. Reading the following books in the following

order. Herodotus, Thucydides, by the way following order. Yesterday we talked about the type of education system we used to have and one of the points was sequential. And here's Thomas Jefferson. Following order. Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophontus Hellenica, Xenophontus Anabasis, Quintus Curtius, Justin. I don't know I've never heard a half of this shall I don't know I'm pronouncing them right. This shall form the first, I was just trying to be confident. This shall form the first stage of your historical reading and it's

all I need to mention to you now. So finish those and then get back to me. The next will be Roman history. From that we'll come down to modern history. In Greek and Latin poetry you will read Virgil, Terence, Horace, Anachron, Theocritus, Homer. Read also Milton's Paradise Lost, Ocean, Pope's works, Swift's works in order to form your style in your own language. In morality read Epictetus, Xenophontus memorabilia, Plato's Socratic dialogues, Cicero's philosophies. That

That used to be the standard. People focus on the fact that 70% of kids can't read grade level. That's bad. But this used to be the standard for everyone else. This is, this is, so think of even the kids who can read, hooray!

What are they reading?

What are we expecting out of them? It's really like the visual is something like a couple hundred years ago our kids could deadlift 400 pounds or 800 pounds and now they can't be expected to bend over and pick up a pencil off the ground.

It's too heavy.

Can't do it.

We expect so little and it's really sad

That's enough education Actually, not what I wanted to talk about. So yesterday right before Donald Trump signed the executive order ending the Department of Education he signed a proclamation honoring the 250th anniversary of Patrick Henry give me liberty or give me death that speech took place this Sunday 250 years ago. Let me read this proclamation.

Patrick Henry rose to the pulpit of St. John's Church in Richmond, Virginia, to speak these immortal words that remain etched upon every heart. I hope they do. We need to re-etch them. If they're not, give me liberty or give me death. By the way, make sure your kids know this story. Share the story with them today. Some members cautioned against such decisive action,

insisting that peaceful reconciliation was still possible. But as Henry listened, he grew more impatient. A Baptist minister who observed the proceedings later recalled that he had an unearthly fire burning in his eye. An unearthly fire! Overcome with righteous indignation, Henry rose from his seat with no notes in hand, boldly beseeching his fellow Virginians, if we wish to be free, we must fight. At a moment when America's fate hung in the balance, Henry's words sparked daring action in the souls of patriots, fortified the cause of

freedom and set America on the path to ultimate triumph over forces of tyranny and oppression. By a narrow margin. I love that part of the story. If it were a movie, made up movie, it would be everyone jumps to their feet, throws their wigs in the air and votes for independence or in this case for a militia. But no, it was still a narrow margin.

The second Virginia Convention passed the resolution to form a militia, the first critical step to independence. Thomas Jefferson said, it is not now easy to say what we should have done without Patrick Henry. He was before us all in maintaining the spirit of the revolution. As we approach the 250th anniversary of the nation's independence on the 4th of July, 2026, we look to Patrick Henry, a son of the frontier, the first and sixth, the governor of Virginia, an unflinching advocate for American independence and a true man of his moment.

Today we invoke his courage, we honor his legacy, and we fearlessly summon the spirit of 1776 to build a future that we will be proud to impart to our children. Like Patrick Henry and the giants of American liberty who came before us, now is our time to ring that great bell of American freedom and to propel our nation into a new and radiant golden age. Beautiful. All right, remember Patrick Henry. I want to tell one more story. Whenever I think of Patrick Henry,

I always think of Nathan Hale. Nathan Hale was a soldier and a spy for the Continental Army in New York City, and he was captured by the British, and he was hung. He was a student at Yale at the time.

There's a statue of Nathan Hale on Yale's campus. It's a very humble, beautiful statue.

And he was a student at the time,

and he got a letter from a friend, and it said, was I in your condition? I think the more extensive service would be my choice. Right, meaning go join the military now, do more. Our holy religion, the honor of our God, a glorious country, and a happy constitution

is what we have to defend. The word constitution wasn't, it was a lowercase c. Let me look up the original dictionary. Constitution the state of being. So a happy state of being. This is why you have to fight.

You have to go fight because of our holy religion, the honor of God, a glorious country, and to be a man.

And he did.

He volunteered. George Washington asked him. Volunteered to go behind enemy lines and he was captured. And the British general officer who was in charge of hanging him wrote in his journal that Nathan Hale behaved with great composure and resolution. And he desired the spectators to be at all times prepared to meet death in whatever shape

it might appear. He said that Hale was calm and bore himself with great dignity in the consciousness of rectitude and high intentions. Rectitude. That's the word we're going to talk about more in a moment. Rectitude.

He asked for writing materials, which I furnished him. He wrote two letters, one to his mother and one to his brother officer. He was shortly after summoned to the gallows. But a few persons were around him, yet his characteristic dying words were remembered he said remember what he said I was a tour guide in college I had to work on thank you very much I know I was super cool in college so this is one of the stops on

the tour and I was always asked people what did he say it's written around the base of the statue but no one could see what did he say and most people said give me liberty or give me death. Most people thought it was Patrick Henry. Some people said, don't shoot till you see the whites of their eyes.

It's a great quote too. Great Revolutionary War quote. Colonel Prescott, love it. Not the one. What we're looking for is, I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.

Wonderful line. It was inspired by the play Cato, which was super popular at the time. And the line in that play is, how beautiful is death when earned by virtue? Haven't we just been talking about it?

Isn't that amazing? I know it is true that when you talk about principles and you talk about important things, it all comes together. All week we've been talking about death and dying and how we should view it. And then here comes this quote about Nathan Hale and we were talking about Nathan Hale because we were talking about Patrick Henry. It all comes together.

How beautiful is death when earned by virtue. Who would not want to be that youth? What pity is it that we can die but once to serve our country? And I'll end the historical background with this. This is a poem that was written by one of Nathan Hale's friends. I'll start halfway through. these I wish to draw my breath," he bravely cried, or dare encounter death.

And when a cruel wretch pronounced his doom, he replied, "'Tis well, for all is peace to come."

I love that.

Don't worry, I'm going to die. Don't worry.

I'm going to heaven.

"'The sacred cause for which I drew my sword shall yet prevail, and peace shall be restored. I've served with zeal the land that gave me birth, fulfilled my course, and done my work on earth. Have ever aimed to tread that shining road that leads a mortal to the blessed God. I die resigned, and quit life's empty stage, for brighter worlds my every wish engage. And while my body slumbers in the dust, my soul shall join the assemblies of the just."

Jim in Virginia called in, and he quoted Patrick Henry. He said, I've read 26 Patrick Henry speeches. And he quoted this one.

Patrick Henry said,

Liberty, the greatest of all earthly blessings, give us that precious jewel and you may take everything else. And then at the end of the speech he said, Guard with jealous intention the public liberty, suspect everyone who approaches that jewel.

I made a point, a quick sidebar,

I made a point on the radio,

speaking back to my elitist days, that if Jim from Virginia, who sounds as yokel as they come on the radio, just a southern hee-haw yokel. By the way, I saw this video the other day of an episode of Hee-Haw called Rendercela.

If you haven't seen it, go look at Rendercela, it's great. But Jim is just as hee-haw as they come, a total country bumpkin in every way. And I just imagine him walking into a Yale University classroom and just how all those students would look at him and they would have no idea that Jim was smarter than all of them.

Wisdom certainly, no question about that. But even in knowledge, just straight knowledge. Because if nothing else, Jim read 26 Patrick Henry speeches. And most young people today don't even know who he is. But Jim mentioned, Jim actually didn't make the quote. Jim, he knew it so deeply he just spoke of it generally.

Like oh, you know, Patrick Henry spoke of liberty as a jewel. And actually went and found the quote. And in that speech that Patrick Henry gave, where he defined liberty as a jewel. He also said this, this was in 1788, so this is after the Revolution, he said, 23 years ago I was supposed a traitor to my country. I was then said to be the bane of sedition because I supported the rights of my country. I may be thought suspicious when I say our privileges and rights are in

danger, but sir, a number of the people of this country are weak enough to think that these are true. Should those accusations fall on me I am contented conscious rectitude is a powerful consolation so they are a hold on I've went have you ever heard the word rectitude maybe I've heard it before I've never thought about it I've used it rectitude what an amazing word and here it is coming up twice in the same day come on Patrick Henry ends that speech with when I thus profess myself

an advocate for the liberty of people I shall be told I'm a designing man like I'm ambitious that I am to be a great man that I'm that I am that I aim to be a demagogue and many similar illiberal insinuations will be thrown out but sir conscious rectitude outweighs those things with me so it's worth saying listen no matter what I'm saying here I'm gonna get criticized but it doesn't bother me. I know I'm right.

I know that what I'm standing for is righteous. I can be falsely accused of all sorts of things and all sorts of motivations by all sorts of people, but I know my motives are pure and I have a conscious rectitude.

Rectitude, what a great word.

Let's chat about it. Webster's Original Dictionary says, "'In morality, rightness of principle or practice. Uprightness of mind. Exact conformity to truth, or to the rules prescribed for moral conduct, either by divine or human laws.

I love this word. We've got to get this word back. Let's bring it back. We're all bringing it back. Rectitude. Rectitude of mind is the disposition to act in conformity to any known standard of right,

truth, or justice. Rectitude of conduct is the actual conformity to such standard. Perfect rectitude belongs only to the Supreme Being. The more nearly the rectitude of men approaches to the standard of the Divine Law, the more exalted and dignified is their character. Want of rectitude is not only sinful but debasing.

There is a sublimity in conscious rectitude, in comparison with which the treasures of earth are not worth naming." Wow that's so good. A sublimity, like a sublimeness, a sublime, a joy, a peace, that's a good one, a peace. There's a piece of sublimity and conscious rectitude that Patrick Henry spoke of. In comparison with which the treasures of earth are not worth naming. Don't even pretend that any other treasure possible could hold a candle at all to rectitude. It's great. I could not find the word rectitude in the Bible or any Bible translations,

but the closest of course is righteousness. Righteousness, moral uprightness, virtue, honor, goodness, integrity, honesty, principle, wholesomeness. I like this scripture from 1st Timothy 5. The Bible says, The aim of our charge is love, that issues from a pure heart, and a good conscience, and a sincere faith. This translation has, of a faith unfamed. If I may read here, and this is convicting, this is very convicting. This is a commentary from W.M. Statham from

mid-1800s. This is about the words here, a good conscience. He said, there may be a worldly conscience. He said, it's a wonderful interesting study this relation of society to sin for there are fashionable vices and respectable sins which are heinous in the sight of God but the conscience if informed by the world is at ease because the spirit of the age the world our current culture does not them. You can think of Pride Month or whatever. There's many many examples.

How important then is it to keep conscience enlightened not by the world but by the Word of God and invigorated by the Holy Ghost. How beautiful is this? Our conscience, our good conscience, our rectitude needs to be enlightened by the Word of God and defined by and invigorated by the Holy Spirit. Statham concludes, it is important to have the Bible in our heads,

but it is most important to have Christ enthroned in the tribunal of conscience within. Wonderful.

I'll end here. Getting rid of the Department of Education is a wonderful thing, been fighting for it for 20 years. But now the true revival begins. Now the true revolution begins. Now it's time to really change our systems. May I recommend the classical Christian model of education. It is a movement that is growing, not rapidly

enough, but it is growing more and more opening up across the country. If there's one near you, I could not recommend it higher because it's the ancient path. It's what's always been done. There's nothing new. There's no new funny business or new theories being explored. It's the way that we used to educate our children for a thousand years, right? It's a classical Christian model of education.

It is informed by God and invigorated by the Holy Spirit, as Statham said. It is about not only knowledge and wisdom, but rectitude. We all must bring back rectitude as a word in our families and our homes and hopefully a word in our nation.

A goal. Moral, rightness in principle and practice, uprightness of mind and exact conformity to truth. That is what we are all about.

Mike Slater dot Locals dot com is the website, transcript and commercial free over on the website Mike Slater dot Locals dot com. website Mike Slater dot Locals dot com.

It took 37 years of my life before I learned the true story of Patrick. How can that be? How were the atheists able to paganize every one of our Holy Days? We must take these days back from the pagans.

Welcome to Politics by Faith. Thank you for being a happy St. Patrick's Day. A pet peeve of mine, it's much stronger than a pet peeve, whatever is stronger than a pet peeve, that's what this is, great lament. I should stop saying it's a pet peeve, it's not even close to a pet peeve, it's a lament of mine, is that all of the holidays in our country have been paganized and secularized.

The word holiday itself is holy day. And now all these Christian holidays are not anymore. And this is a big problem. And it's a great opportunity for us now, though, in this cultural moment that we're in, and it's certainly, certainly a moment. We are turning away.

A lot of people are turning away from what we've been fed the last few decades, but they're going to be turning and looking for something new.

And this is our opportunity to provide them with something that is good. And I think the argument that this is who we used to be, this is where our country came from, here's the holy days we used to celebrate and how we used to celebrate them. I think that's a pretty easy sell actually. I think it's very important to do. So that's why I'd like to keep making this point. Almost all of our holidays are, we're Christian. Halloween was All Hallows' Eve. To hollow means

to make holy, to set apart for holy or religious use, to consecrate as a sacred. It was the day before All Saints' Day, November 1st, where we celebrated the great Christian martyrs who came before us. And now it's a goofy, pagan, dress-up as a superhero day. Christmas, of course, the birth of Jesus Christ. And now it's Santa in presence.

Easter was the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It's the thing that the entire Christian faith hangs on. We are to be most pitied if this didn't actually happen. But now it's Easter bunny and eggs. Ridiculous. Thanksgiving. The same thing. Thanksgiving was a day where the Puritans prayed to God, thank you, God, for bringing us here safely to this new world. And

this second mass exodus from from tyranny, where we can live our Christian faith to the fullest. That's Thanksgiving. We were told the story back at Thanksgiving, but literally, thank you God for it raining so that our crops can grow. And in our founding, and all the way through Abraham Lincoln and beyond, Thanksgiving was a day of fasting. It was a day of not eating. It's a day of fasting and prayer. And today, it's a day of gluttony and football.

Isn't that amazing? Now if you're talking to anybody about this, some people may think that people like these holidays as it is. And you may have atheist friends who don't want these to be Christian holidays. Okay, here's a good starting point if I may. Put on your anthropologist hat, your sociologist hat.

Get this person, I don't mean this in a manipulative way, just for the sake of conversation, get someone to admit and acknowledge that it's different. These used to be Christian holidays that we celebrated in the United States of America. This is what we used to do. This is what they used to mean. This is why we used to celebrate them.

And now we do it in a very different way. You have to acknowledge that. Now you can, we're not going to put any value judgment on it yet. They can say, yeah, we used to do it that way, but it's better now. Okay.

That's an opinion.

I think it's way worse now, but we'll worry about the judgment in a second. First just acknowledge that that's how it used to be. And now we're doing something very different. That's a very important starting point. Now we can add judgment to it and why I think this is very lamentable. Before I make that argument let's tell the story of St. Patrick. What is St. Patrick's Day? St. Patrick's Day are you wearing green?

Okay so it's a day to wear green okay and it's a day to drink green beer and That's not what St. Patrick's Day is. I went nearly my entire life, it was really until two, maybe three years ago, when I first learned the story of Patrick, the guy. At best, if you asked me what St. Patrick did, I would say he drove the snakes out of Ireland. But that's not true. He didn't do that. There were no snakes in Ireland. There are no snakes in Ireland.

But there's no snake. He never did anything with snakes. There's no snake. And someone would be like, well, it's an allegory. No, we don't have time for allegory. Tell the story.

What did he actually do? Because the story is way better than any allegory. So here's the deal. St. Patrick, he wasn't Irish. He was born in England in the 400s. His dad was a deacon.

His grandfather was a priest, but he was an atheist. He was then abducted from his village and thrown on a slave ship up to Ireland. Ireland at this time was totally backwards, so was England, but Ireland was was even worse. Everything was very spread out, a lot of fighting, a lot of battles. There were no governments. There was no order. It was just total chaos. And they worshipped the pagan gods, the sun and the moon and wind and stuff like that. Their religious leaders were the

Druids. So his name, he wasn't Padre, his name was Mewin. So Mewin gets taken as a slave. This is a real story. Have you ever heard this? I've never heard this until years ago. Mawin was taken as a slave to this foreign pagan land and he was sold to this guy named Milchu and he was there for six years. Six years as a slave, mostly as a shepherd to his master's sheep and he wrote when he was there

and in his book, he said, uh it's his journal. He said, I prayed frequently during the day. More and more, the love of God increased and my sense of awe before God increased. Faith grew, and my spirit was moved, so that in one day I would pray up to one hundred times, and at night perhaps the same." One day he decided to escape.

He traveled two hundred miles to the coast. He found a ship ready to sail, and they said, no, we're not gonna let you on this ship. You're a slave. But he begged them, and they finally agreed, and ultimately he made it back home, back to England, and he found his mom and his dad again,

and dedicated his life to God, and right there became a priest. And then one night he had a dream, and in his dream he heard, holy boy, please return to us. We need you. And he decided to return to Ireland, to return to the place where he

was taken to be a slave, return to the people who enslaved him and preach the gospel. Think about that. It was a long time ago, so it's hard to get there and there's nothing to say that he couldn't be taken a slave again. And how are you even gonna do this? How are you going to preach Jesus to people worshipping the Sun God and the Moon God and the Druids? How are you ever going to do that? But he did and he spread Christianity throughout Ireland. He

changed his name to Patrick when he became a priest. So there you go, that's St. Patrick. Have you ever heard that before? I've never heard that, not until like two or three years ago. So do it, I mean, do this nicely. No one wants to know it all. So don't be like, hey, do you even know why you're wearing green? Or what do you even, like that. Be like, hey, do you know, do you even, have you ever heard the story of St. Patrick's

Day before? Like I've never heard it until I heard it on the radio today. Do that to someone and tell them the story. It's a very simple story. He was British, he was English, taken as a slave to this place called Ireland, escaped, and then the Holy Spirit told him to go back to Ireland and spread the gospel.

It's an incredible story.

It's an incredible story.

It's a wonderful thing to celebrate. That's why it's a holy day. That's the point of holidays. Here's something we should emulate. This is something that reminds us who we used to be and who we still should be.

And now we're like, here's my green socks. I have a couple quotes here from Mawin. He said, I am Patrick, a sinner, most unlearned, the least of all the faithful, and utterly worthless in the eyes of many. I so value the Christians who came before us who understand the true depth of their Because the more you understand how undeserving you are of salvation, the more grateful you

are for the Savior. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15, For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. So did I before I was a Christian. This is what Jesus was talking about. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, and blessed are

those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Mourn what? Mourn their sin. We did a whole series a while ago, we should do it again, on Servant on the Mount and the Beatitudes. But here is Mawin Patrick, who understands this very deeply. I pray to God to give me perseverance

and to deign that I be a faithful witness to him to the end of my life for my God. He said, I know for certain that before I was humbled, I was like a stone lying in deep mire. And He that is mighty came and in His mercy raised me up, and indeed lifted me high up and placed me on top of the wall. And from there I ought to shout out in gratitude to the Lord for His great favors in this world and forever that the mind of man cannot measure."

This is a perfect one for the week that we spend a good amount of time talking about dying. And we talked about COVID, remember we talked about the five year anniversary of COVID and the big lessons from COVID. And my biggest lesson was that people are scared of death.

And here's what Patrick said about that. He said, for daily, I expect to be murdered or betrayed or reduced to slavery if the occasion arises. How about that? I expect to be murdered, but I fear nothing because of the promises of heaven.

For I have cast myself into the hands of Almighty God, who reigns everywhere." I am certain—this is why holidays matter—I am certain that if for the last fifty years St. Patrick's Day was more than a day to drink green beer, celebrate Patrick and to praise God like he did and to understand the state of our own sin and where we actually deserve to go versus what Jesus has done

to us instead and if we understand like Patrick did that I fear nothing because we cast ourselves into the hands of Almighty God who reigns everywhere I guarantee you of course we would be a totally different country right now for the better and specifically regarding COVID, we would have acted completely differently. We would have feared nothing because we trust God who reigns everywhere and at all times and under all things, which is what Martin Luther understood in that episode we shared

from a couple of days ago. I got this email. Let's see if I can pull it up here quickly. It's another situation where I could just pause the recording. We're not live, but someone sent me a note of Andrew Jackson. Here it is.

This is from Charles. Slater just finished listening to your podcast about COVID. Thank you, Charles. Stonewall Jackson, in general, how is it that you can keep so cool and appear so utterly insensible to danger, when such a storm of shell and bullets has rained about you when your hand was hit?" Here's what Stonewall Jackson said,

"'Captain, my religious belief teaches me to feel as safe in battle as in bed. God has fixed the time for my death. I do not concern myself about that, but to be always ready, no matter what may overtake me. That is the way all men should live, and then all would be equally brave." Stonewall was right about that. In Job, it says, a person's days are determined. You have decreased the number of his months and have set limits that

he cannot exceed. Give you two more quotes from Patrick. God watched over me before I knew him, and before I learned sense or even distinguished between good and evil, and he protected me and consoled me as a father would his son.

It's beautiful.

Final quote we'll share here today. I came to the people of Ireland to preach the gospel and to suffer insult from the unbelievers, bearing the reproach of my going abroad and many persecutions, even unto bonds, and to give my free birth to the benefit of others."

Wow.

And to give my free birth to the benefit of others. Amazing. Just yesterday in church, the preacher was talking about Philippians 2. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Look each of you not, look not only to his own interest but also to the interest of others.

So treat others more significant than yourselves. And here's Patrick saying, to give my free birth for the benefit of others. Beautiful. So again, what if this is what we all knew St. Patrick's Day to be about? What a different country we'd be, what a different family we would have and a different mindset we would all have as well.

So let's get back to it. Let's not just lament what we've been missing, but let's take it back. Let's take this and all the holy days back. So my challenge to you is to talk to someone today about the story of Patrick. Tell them that he was born in the 400s, was taken as a slave to this backwards place called Ireland, escaped, went back to his mom and dad, became a Christian, and the Holy Spirit called him to go back to Ireland, the place that enslaved him, and spread the gospel. And he did exactly that. Let us all be as brave and trust in God as Patrick was. Let us all be as brave and trust in God as Patrick was. Mike Slater dot locals dot com. Transcript commercial free on the website Mike Slater dot locals dot com.