Shout out to all of the Creasters! I used to be one. That is someone who only goes to church on Christmas and Easter. And while the people you see on Sunday might kiss your butt and tell you how wonderful it is you're there, if I may tell you (and 20 year old me) a different message (what I wish someone told me).

Welcome to Politics by Faith. Thank you for being here. Happy Easter. I hope you have a wonderful Easter weekend. I've always wondered this and I've found a good answer to it. So I'll just come out with this little fact. You know, he resurrected, Jesus resurrected. That's what we should be thinking about all the time, but once a year we give an hour to it. But then other people come back from the dead in the Bible too. So I don't quite get that.

Well, check this out. There's several examples in the Bible of people being resuscitated before Jesus, such as the widow's son in the days of Elijah and Lazarus. Each of these was resuscitated from death, but none of them were resurrected. Each of them was raised in the same body they died in and raised from the dead to eventually die again. Interesting. Resurrection isn't just living again. It is living again in a new body based on our old body, perfectly

suited for life in eternity. Jesus was not the first one brought back from the dead but he was the first one resurrected. Those differences make sense to me. I just want to share that in case you've ever been wondering the same. We did a special the other day on the TV about Jesus's resurrection and the word Christer came up and I thought it'd be worth a minute to talk about this. The Christers. I was a Christer, went to church on Christmas and Easter,

my whole life growing up. And I look back at that, I'm not really sure why we did that, but I wanted to think, like as opposed to just not going at all, like, you know what I mean? Like why go Christmas Eve and on Easter Sunday?

I don't, just don't do any. What's the good of two out of 52? I don't understand, you know? But I was trying to think what I would tell myself 20 years ago, who only went to church on Christmas and Easter. What would I say to that person?

Me, what would I say to me? Now people have different motivations and you need to motivate people in different ways. Right now, by the way, I would tell that person you should go to church every Sunday. There's gonna be a lot of people at church on Sunday. You know a lot of people, a lot of Christians showing up. I would tell

them all you should go to church every Sunday. We tend to cater to the softer side of people these days. I think that's starting to end. I think people realize that they really just want to hear the truth. But we're still, we're getting out of this zone where it's all about, Oh, you know, I got to make sure the feeling is going to be, Oh, Oh, you know, it's like on the show today

we talked a lot about the self-esteem movement in America, where that came from. The everyone gets a trophy movement. That came from a California government task force. You're like, oh yeah, of course it did. That makes perfect sense. There was this California assemblyman

who was in the assembly from 1967 to 2004. It's all he ever did. He was a total lunatic wackadoo from Silicon Valley, San Jose. And he came up with this idea that the reason there's all these problems in society, teenage pregnancy and murder and crime and child abuse and spousal abuse, the reason all these things happen is because people don't feel good about themselves.

They don't feel good enough about themselves. When in reality, the problem is people feel way too good about themselves. But anyway, so we had to tell our kids and this report came out in 1990, the problem is people feel way too good about themselves. But anyway, so we had to tell our kids, and this report came out in 1990 called The State of Esteem, and it went to every county in California, and they all embraced it and put it into our schools. And then that turned into, well, everyone gets a good grade, right?

No more red pen when it comes to marking papers, and everyone has to be passed on to the next grade and everyone gets a trophy passed on to the next grade and everyone gets a trophy and all this other nonsense. So this really harmed us in dramatic ways. This isn't just like some sort of gimmicky little side point to make.

This is a big deal. This is where our work ethic comes from. If we wanna be the manufacturing capital of the world again, if we wanna be the strongest military, like we need work ethic. We need people who wanna strive for excellence.

We want people to be self-motivated, not just giving everyone trophies for showing up. Like this is a big problem. The beginning of the self-esteem movement, and it was 35 years ago, well, those kids are now all grown up and they've had kids

and we've been living through this for a couple decades. It's not good. We really have to get rid of this. It's a big problem. Actually, it sounds funny. Like, oh, we'll give everyone a trophy. What a funny segment. No, no, really big deal. We have to stop doing this. So it's also coming to our churches. It's very like, oh, yay, You showed up! I'm so proud of you, you look great in your pastel today. That's what we do now. Maybe that motivates someone, I guess. I would prefer a more direct approach.

I think many people would. So again, I'm just talking to me. I'm talking to me 20 years ago. Been a Christian for 10 years, 11, 12, something like that. So 20 years ago, me, I'd be like, hey man, you should show up on Sunday, next Sunday. Every Sunday, you should come every Sunday

because you should be a better leader of your family. I would say, hey man, you should show up on Sunday. You need to be more connected to your heritage, your roots as an American or Christian nation. This is important to who we are as a country. That's something that's an appeal, not the most important, but I'm just, I'm talking to me from 20 years ago.

I'd say, Hey Slater, you, Hey, Hey you, me, you should stand for something. You should be a man of conviction for once. Okay, maybe a little harsh, but just came across this from John Eldridge. I guess he has a new book out and he wrote this. He said, I don't remember the issue my friend and I were talking about. It had something to do with Christianity, but I remember my friend's response. He said, gosh, I'm not really sure. And I thought it a humble and gracious posture to take.

Only it's been five years now and he's still saying, I'm not really sure. He's landed in that place. And now I see what happened. He has chosen doubt, a posture, very attractive and honored in our day. Doubt is in. So doubt masquerading as humility has become a virtue. See the difference? Humility is a virtue. Doubt is not. But we think they're the same. I just don't know. Oh wow you're so humble. Doubt has become a virtue, a prerequisite for respect. People of strong conviction are suspect. Many

Christians I know have settled for a sort of laid-back doubt, believing it to be a genuine character decision. They think it's a virtue. Now, I appreciate the desire for humility and the fear of being dogmatic. I think those are good concerns, but friends, conviction is not the enemy. Pride is.

Arrogance is. But not conviction. I would say, so I would say to myself 20 years ago, like be a person of conviction. I would say, so I would say to myself 20 years ago, like be a person of conviction, believe in something, stand for something. And the Bible is a pretty good thing you should stand for. And I would say to myself, Hey man, you're choosing football and brunch and sleeping in. And you think those things are good, they're comfortable, they bring you pleasure or something.

But hell sure sucks forever. Excuse my language. But we don't talk about hell. I think a lot more people would show up to church if they thought hell was an option when they die. But if we and Satan get people to forget about hell and never think about

it, then it's a lot easier for people to make choices about the me and the now and the pleasure and the present. I think I'm making it one of my missions of this podcast. This is where our ratings go to zero. Our number of views go to zero to talk about hell because no one else ever does. No one, you never hear about it anywhere. Certainly not church. I think it's important to talk about it, know about it. John Edwards, he said, almost every natural man that hears of hell flatters himself that he shall escape it. Jonathan Edwards was one of the men who ushered in the Great Awakening in America in 1730 and he did it by talking about hell

and how you are hanging by a slender thread over the fire of hell right now. How do you feel when I say that? I don't want to listen to this at all. This is a major downer. Yeah that's the problem that's the problem we don't want to hear it but it's true and while you're here in this pew enjoying Easter brunch and Easter egg hunts and having fun because that's what we do we think about how we can make church more fun for everyone you're hanging by a thread

that can be cut in an instant where you going Jonathan Edwards he said there's nothing that keeps wicked men at any moment out of hell but the mere pleasure of God. The bow of God's wrath is bent and the arrow already made on the string and justice bends the arrow at your heart. Any church going to preach that on Sunday? Probably not.

So I'm just adding some balance. That's all. Just give me one more minute. I just want to add a little balance here right so we get a little bit of everything nice little assortment when he has a platter here one more quote from sinners in the hand of an angry God that's his most famous summer it's not nearly his best but it's his most famous this how he ended he

said therefore this is the end of the sermon therefore let everyone that is out of Christ now awake and fly from the wrath to come. The wrath of almighty God is now undoubtedly hanging over a great part of this congregation. Let everyone fly out of Sodom. Haste and escape for your lives.

Look not behind you escape to the mountain lest you be consumed. Thanks so much for coming. Everybody Easter egg hunt begins in the back... He said unconverted men walk over the pit of hell on a rotten covering and there are innumerable places in this covering so weak that they will not bear their weight. Honestly that would have helped me come back to church next Sunday because of a couple

reasons first of all these people are not afraid of telling the truth and I'm interested Honestly, that would have helped me come back to church next Sunday because a couple of reasons. First of all, these people are not afraid of telling the truth and I'm interested in the truth, but also it knocks me out of talking about me and thinking about me all the time. All we ever do is we think about ourselves all the time, constantly. So to go back to the self-esteem movement and the everybody gets a trophy movement, actually, gosh, this ties in perfectly to yesterday's show about Ezekiel 27 and 28. The Prince of Tyre

thought he was God and so many people today do too. So this whole self-esteem movement was based off the fact that people need to think better things about themselves and if they just think good thoughts about themselves and they won't beat their wives and they won't use drugs and they won't abuse alcohol they won't do all these terrible, pathological things anymore.

We just need people to feel good about themselves. We're just gonna tell everyone, you're great, you're amazing, you're wonderful. And I would argue that people already feel too good about themselves. You're thinking, oh, people feel bad about themselves.

Well, maybe the argument is people are just thinking too much about themselves. Whether it's good or bad, we're thinking too much about us. Pride was the reason for Satan's fall, wasn't it? So you name it, arrogance, the things we see today, arrogance, selfishness, narcissism, you're the center of the universe, the world revolves around me, focusing on my pleasures, my comfort, what's best for me, unwilling to sacrifice.

All of this is pride. What's in it for me? Serve me. I'm entitled. Give me this. It's all pride.

It's everywhere.

We all have it.

And even if you don't love yourself enough, you're still obsessed with yourself. But that's not, you go to the bookstore and there's sections of self-help books, very few books on helping others. It's all about helping me. It's thinking about me all the time.

And then also the other problem with self-help is, you know, it's me, me, me,

me, me.

And then it's the idea that you can change yourself as opposed to it's all God. We need to focus on Him. Set your mind on things above and also, Hebrews 12, fix our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. C.S. Lewis said, if anyone would like to acquire humility, I can, I think, tell him the first step. The first step is to realize that you are proud and a biggish step too. At least nothing whatever can be done before it. If you think you're not conceited it means you are very conceited

indeed. I remember a friend of mine it's very early in me becoming a Christian, I don't even know if I was at this point, but this is my mentality and he had it too of I'm good. Like I don't, God you're busy, you got a lot going on. I got it together, like I'm pretty capable, I'm good. If I need you, I'll call you, I'll you know, set up a flare or something, but you go worry about other people. I'm good.

How wildly arrogant is that? But I would hear that and be like, well, no, I'm not conceited. That's like my humility. Actually. It's like I'm not conceited at all. Like I'm being generous by saying, God, saying God go spend your time with other people who need help that's great that's great gosh I was just like that guy at the temple she's got thank God I'm not like that guy I'm alright if you think you're not conceited it means you're very conceited indeed first Peter 1 8 for you know that it was not with

perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect." Lamb, reference to the Passover as well. The point of today's rant is that if you are a Christer, if I may, you should go to church every Sunday. You should also be baptized and born again. Then you get to go to heaven for all of eternity and not hell.

We'll get back to politics on Monday. Hope you have a great Easter. Mike Slater dot locals dot com. Transcript commercial free. Transcript commercial free. Mike Slater dot locals dot com.

As a former Creaster (someone who only goes ot church on Christmas and Easter), maybe a warning from the Prince of Tyre in 590 BC will get you to church more than twice a year.

Welcome to Politics by Faith. Thanks for being here. I don't have a political tie-in today. I don't have a political story to tie this into. I just read Ezekiel 28 this morning and I just want to share that. Maybe we can say this is my Easter message.

Easter message for America, for each of us. The message is Jesus is Lord. Know it, live it as a person and a nation. Let's start with the nation. Ezekiel 28, Otyre, T-Y-R-E. You have said I am perfect in beauty.

It's talking about a city. Your borders are in the midst of the seas. Your builders have perfected your beauty. They made all your planks of fir trees from sinner." It's this beautiful description. It goes on with how stunning and grand this city is.

With ivory from the coasts of Cyprus, fine embroidered linen from Egypt was what you spread for your sale. This is the most prosperous city you could imagine When it comes to war those from Persia Lydian Libya were in your army as men of war you have conquered And you've taken over places and the cities have joined your ranks. They hung shield and helmet in you They gave splendor to you

Goes on about how this city traded with the world. Damascus was your merchant because of the abundance of goods you made, because of your many luxury items, with the wine of Helbin and with white wool. I suppose we could talk about tariffs in this segment. But it goes on this beautiful, beautiful description

of the stunning city of Tyre. But then what? You were filled and very glorious in the midst of the seas. Your oarsmen brought you into many waters. So you had a beautiful city right on the coast and you traveled and you traded and you were way out far away from land. But the East wind broke you in the midst of the seas, your riches, wares and merchandise,

your mariners and pilots, your conkers and merchandisers, all your men of war who are in you and the entire company, which is in your midst. So just went on this whole thing about how amazing and grand and all the different people and things and places and the entire company, everyone will fall into the midst of the seas on the day of your ruin.

The East Wind. That's a god. So let's learn from Tyre, shall we? Ezekiel goes on, all the inhabitants of the isles will be astonished at you. Meaning what happened, like your rise and then fall Their kings will be greatly afraid and their countenance will be troubled

The merchants among the people what peoples will hiss at you you will become a horror and be no more forever Of course America no longer, worshiping God. Coming up on Easter here. And this came up during our recent TV special that we're gonna repost here as well, but the Christer. So I grew up a Christer, we went on Christmas and Easter and I look back and I don't know why.

I don't know why we went on those two because really we kind of go and complain and then make fun of it on the way home about how the pastor guy made no sense. So I don't really know why we went. I mean, maybe at least there's something that,

I mean, we didn't go to the local mosque. So maybe it says something about our culture that there's still some sort of tie to Christianity, but I don't know. There's so many churches that are gonna see a big bump in attendance on Sunday and they'll be happy this is great we're so glad

you're here but then they don't give a gospel message and we'll see how many churches really encourage people to come back like hey you should come back every week not because it's super fun, not because we don't have the Easter Bunny next week but it'll be even better, no, because your soul's at stake. That's why you should come back.

You think life is great, look at, oh my goodness, everything's wonderful, just like the city of Tyre, just like the Prince of Tyre, couldn't be better. But that's not your doing. Everything you have is because of God.

Everything.

Here's what Ezekiel says, your heart was proud because of your beauty. You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. We're not beautiful. We're not smart. We're not successful. We're not smart. We're not successful. We're not standing up on our own doing.

It's all because of God. And we deny that at our peril. Here's the next one. This passage of Ezekiel is entitled, The Lamentation for the Prince of Tyre. So we just talked about the city. Now the person.

Now this person's name, they is Ethball III. This is about 590 BC or so. Ezekiel says, because your heart is lifted up and you say, I am a God, and we all do this, I sit at the seat of gods in the midst of the seas. Yet you are a man and not a god. Though you set your heart as the heart of a god. This prince thought he was god. Look at all I've accomplished. Look at all I've achieved." I think of, it's not a good example, it's just a timely one, Katy Perry. How proud of herself she was for being an astronaut. But it wasn't even like,

wow, I'm really impressed that I got the courage to go up in this thing. It was look at the power I have. That's what she, it's like you didn't achieve anything, but none of us do. All the glory goes to God.

But you say, oh, I'm so rich. Well, that's why Ezekiel says your heart is lifted up because of your riches. God do? We saw what he did to the city. What does he do to the prince? Because you've set your heart as the heart of a God, behold, therefore, I will bring strangers against you, the most terrible of the nations, and they shall draw your swords against the beauty of your wisdom and defile your splendor. They shall throw you down into the pit and you shall die the death of the slain in the midst of the seas. Will you still say before him who slays you, I am a God, but you shall be a man and not

a God in the hand of him who slays you. How about that imagery? The people who come upon you to kill you, what are you going to say to them? They got a knife to your neck, a sword to your neck. What are you going to say? I'm a God.

No, you're not. It's going to cut your neck and kill you. This chapter goes on beautiful poetry about how stunning everything is and how amazing this Prince was and the city and the whole thing. You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created till iniquity was found in you by the abundance of your trading.

You became filled with violence within, and you sinned. Therefore I cast you as a profane thing out of the mountain of God." The more you read the Old Testament, the more obvious it is, first of all, how all powerful God is, of course. But just time and time again, if you and if a people reject God and his laws, bad things happen.

Very bad. Like sulfur from the sky. Really bad things happen. Very bad. Like sulfur from the sky. Like really bad things happen. If you worship God, then good things happen. Oh, so you're saying I'll get everything I want? No, no, not what I said. Not what the Bible promises. But what you want will change and be more in line with God. Romans 12, therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's

mercy to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice holy and pleasing to God this is your true and proper worship. The word bodies here means everything soul, spirit, flesh, mind, everything about us, all of us, worshiping God all the time. Not just on Easter Sunday, not just for the one hour of Easter Sunday, but all the time.

Let us not be like the city of Tyre or the prince of Tyre. Ezekiel 27, Ezekiel 28. Mike Slater, dot locals dot com. Mike Slater, dot locals dot com. Transcript commercial free on the website.

The current motto of Harvard is "Veritas" meaning "Truth". Which is hilarious because most people there don't think truth even exists. But Harvard's original motto was "For The Glory Of Christ." How far they've fallen! And it might be Trump who hits the final blow.

Welcome to Politics by Faith. Thanks for being here. Thanks for taking time to listen to this podcast. I hope what we've been putting together here has been helpful for you. We talked a bit about Harvard today. Trump v Harvard.

We've been talking about education a lot. We do on the show a lot because it's the root of almost everything. We used to have an education system that, where the purpose was to cultivate virtue. And only recently have we changed the purpose of education for college and career readiness. And we failed at both. Kids can't read, kids are lazy, entitled, don't work hard, don't care, and don't have virtue. So they're not college career ready.

Harvard now has remedial math classes. Harvard has remedial math classes. So they're not college ready, they're not career ready. And certainly virtue has not been cultivated. But if you work on cultivating virtue, then of course there'll be college and career ready

and better people. We have strayed very far off the path. But with Harvard and Trump, it's pretty interesting. Trump wrote a letter, his administration wrote a letter to Harvard basically saying, stop being racist and woke or else we're not gonna give you $2.2 billion

like we normally do. The federal government, you, the taxpayer, gives Harvard $9 billion a year. They have a $53 billion endowment, which results in them spending out of that or from that 2.4 billion a year.

It's 37% of their operating budget. We give them 9 billion total, but 7 billion of that goes to 11 different hospitals that are affiliated with Harvard. So they're just focusing on 2.2 billion that goes to other things, 2.2 billion dollars.

So it's saying if you don't stop being racist in your admissions and your hiring, and if you don't stop being woke in general, we're not gonna give you this 2.2 billion dollars. And we went over in detail, that's the gist of it. They're demanding merit-based hiring reform,

merit-based admissions reform, international admissions reform. Like, hey, maybe you stop letting people into Harvard from around the world who hate us and who are anti-Semitic, maybe. Stop with that.

Viewpoint diversity in admissions and hiring came out that 97% of all Harvard faculty who donated donated to Democrats, of course, and an end to DEI. So those were the demands from the Trump administration and the president of Harvard said, no. Said no government, regardless of which party's in power,

should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue."

Okay.

That's fine. Then I guess you won't be needing this $9 billion anymore, private school. That's what it says here. It says, no government should dictate to private universities. You're, like, are you?

If you get $9 billion? We'll just call it the two. We'll go with the two. If you get $2 billion from the federal government, are you really a private school anymore? So the way the letter was written

and the demands that Trump made in it, the Trump administration, led me to believe that they don't want Harvard to actually agree to these terms. It's a win-win for Trump. Either Harvard does agree to him and we're like, okay, or they don't and we cannot give them $2.2 billion,

but it's even more than that. There's two other things that conservatives around Trump have wanted to do to universities and that is tax their endowments and take away their 501c3 status. Here's what Trump wrote.

Perhaps Harvard should lose its tax exempt status, be taxed as a political entity, if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired supporting sickness. Remember, tax exempt status is totally contingent on acting in the public interest. Now this happens all the time where Trump will do a thing

and then the media acts like this is unprecedented, it's never happened before, it's so evil and awful and wicked and terrible. This has happened before. The Supreme Court saw or heard a case against Bob Jones University, it was 1983.

And the case was on whether the IRS could revoke the tax-exempt status of a religious university if their policies were racially discriminatory. Bob Jones had a policy that banned interracial dating and marriage among their students. And they said, this is our sincerely held

religious beliefs, First Amendment rights. And it's the same thing Harvard says, right? Trump comes in and says, you have to do XYZ. And they say, no, it's our First Amendment rights. We don't have to do those things. Okay, Trump says, well, we're gonna revoke your 501C3.

Oh, you can't do that. In an eight to one decision, the Supreme Court said, yes, we can. The opinion was written by the chief justice. He said the government is a fundamental overriding interest in eradicating racial discrimination in education. And Harvard just lost a Supreme Court case, not put a year and a half ago, where the Supreme Court ruled that Harvard's admission policies were indeed racist against Asian people in particular. The Supreme Court in 1983 said tax-exempt status under 501c3 is only available to organizations

that serve a public purpose and do not violate established public policy, such as the prohibition of racial discrimination. Again, Supreme Court ruled, not even two years ago, that what Harvard did with their emissions for a long time was racist,

and that's true also in their hiring practices and other things. So that's the news on that. We'll see how that plays itself out. I brought up this question on the air though, that does this set a precedent

for when a Democrats back in power that they'll go after the 501c3 status of churches? Now, there's a general question here that we need to figure out as a MAGA movement, if you're in the MAGA movement. And there's this hesitation, oh, we can't do that

because then when the Democrats get in party, they'll do it to us. We don't wanna start a precedent. And it turns out pretty much every single thing that's happened so far has happened before. Like there's been precedent to it.

Trump's not doing anything new or different. We talk about the tariffs. Oh, the tariff never been done before. The very first bill that Congress ever passed was a tariff bill. The very first one.

Oh, this deportation, deporting people like this has never happened before. Yes, it did. Eisenhower, Operation Wetback. All this stuff has happened before. There's nothing new with most of this stuff. It's just been a long time, sure.

Oh, no presidency's ever taken away the 501c3 status of a university? Yes, they did, which I told you about. Supreme Court case, 1983. So all this stuff's happened before. So this argument that, oh, it's precedent. He's creating precedent. No, the precedent's already been set. And I don't know if the

conservative movement should operate in fear that, oh, we don't want to do this because they may do it back to us because they've been doing it back to us. This is why Hillsdale doesn't take any federal money because they know that the federal government uses that, those strings attached to control the university. So we have been in an active state

of the federal government controlling universities who take federal money, which is pretty much all of them, except for Hillsdale, maybe a few other. So then Trump uses, is now in power, and uses the same tool, the same strings to do what a majority of Americans

want the universities to do. And now it's this huge outrage, never done before. No, definitely done before. Done always actually, just never this way, in this direction I mean. That's what they're really outraged about.

Not the power, but the one who happens to be wielding the power right now. So the concern is, well, should we not do it? Because then if we do it, then they'll do it back to us. They've been doing it back to us. And do you really think they'll stop if we take the quote unquote high road and don't do it to them right now?

So that's a bigger question, but specifically on this one, are you afraid, is there a concern, that if the left takes over again, oh, by the way, the way to resolve this also is to make sure we win every election. But if a Democrat or someone on the left ever takes power again, will they use this power

to take away the 501c3 status of churches? Now we were talking to a congressman recently who actually just wrote a bill that protects 501c3 status specifically of churches, so that's good. But regardless of that, what would happen if a government one day did that?

We got a caller from Tennessee, and I wanna play what he said about it.

I've been an associate pastor of church several different times from different places, and I would just as soon just go ahead and drop it and let them have it because you know it's coming. They've already started doing it. And some churches coming in and say,

you can't preach against this sin or that sin. Going back to the same thing that we had when you read the gospels about John the Baptist, when he come in and he told me, he said, you can't have her. That's adultery. You can't have your brother's wife. And they beheaded him.

So, I mean, that's the kind of thing that's coming to. So they're gonna come in, and they've already come into some churches and said that's hate speech, to preach against that kind of sin. So they're gonna tell us what we can

and what we cannot preach and tell us we're going to pull our 501Cs, we'll pull it, because that money, God don't care. God owns everything. So the money is not a big deal. I know some churches, that's what they're all about, but the churches that are about spreading the gospel and letting people know and fathering the kingdom of God, they don't care about the money.

We need money to operate, but God can provide what we can't. So I'll say let them have it, if that's what they want, to keep them out of our churches and keep them from telling us what we're going to preach. But even when they do that, I'm telling you, they're still going to come in and they're going to try it, and they're going to try to force us to not preach

against certain sins, because they're going to say it's a hate speech to do that. Yeah, I mean that's that you have the right take. That's I 100% agree. Would, do you think people would not donate money to the church or to a religious organization because it's not tax-exempt anymore? No, they will. They'll

probably give more. Yeah.

Certain people might not cause they're just using it as a tax write off. They might,

they might cut back if they say that you've given money to the church. It's not a tax write off anymore. Some of these bigger churches, mega churches with them are their big donors would probably cut back on some of their giving. But the rural churches and stuff that we have around in Tennessee and the other areas, they're not going to stop giving to their churches because they lost their 501c. That's not why they're there. There's a few of them there, but most of them are there because they love God and

they want to know more about God, and they're about trying to help the community, and they want to know more about God and they're about trying to help the community and they're about trying to get to heaven and increase their rewards by the things that they do here. Yeah, they'll get... I think... It's not about people.

I think that is the right take. Tim here is not operating out of a posture of fear. That is for certain. And of course I'm gonna go right to Joseph. He went to John the Baptist but I'm gonna go to Joseph. Joseph hated by his brothers, left for dead, sold to slavery, you know the rest of the story, and then forgave his brothers. And the brothers were so worried that Joseph would kill him. But Joseph told them, Genesis 50, 20, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.

Man, never forget that. What they meant for evil, God meant it for good. Our timelines may not be the same. That's God's. We just got to get over that. Joseph had some ups and downs in the meantime, but in the end, God meant it for good. So I say take away the 501c3 of Harvard. By the way, original motto of Harvard, Harvard's motto right now is Veritas, which means truth, which is pretty funny because people there don't think that truth exists.

But do you know the original motto of Harvard? The original motto of Harvard is for the glory of Christ. That's where Harvard used to be. Their motto was for the glory of Christ. That's where Harvard used to be. Their motto was for the glory of Christ. All the Ivy League schools started as seminaries. How far we've fallen.

So take away their 501c3. And if you want to retaliate and take away the church's 501c3 or religious organizations or whatever, I agree with Tim in Tennessee, that's fine. Anything that separates the chaff from the wheat, anything that scares away the lukewarm is a good thing.

What was meant for evil, God will meet it for good. Mike said it out, locals.com, transcript. By the way, he was from West Tennessee, that caller. My first stop after college was in Jackson, Tennessee. That is where I really learned to become a conservative. Meeting with, talking with every single day for four years, the people of West Tennessee.

I am the West Tennessee brand of conservatism. And my wife is the East Tennessee brand of conservatism and my wife is the East Tennessee brand of conservatism which is different. It's a fun little mix maybe one day we'll do a sociological analysis of either but it's fun to hear people from West Tennessee who I think are fearless. Mike Slater dot locals dot com transcript commercial-free on the website, Mike Slater dot locals dot com transcript commercial-free on the website Mike Slater dot locals dot com. Transcript commercial-free on the website Mike Slater dot locals dot com.