I understand all of the geopolitical reasons why our president made his trip to the Middle East, and by every measure, it's been a wonderful success. But there are still some things about this trip that I don't think we should look past.
Welcome to Politics by Faith. Thank you so much for being here. I've been thinking the last couple of days and mumbling or murmuring about Trump's trip to the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, and I don't love it. Like it just doesn't feel good to me. I'm just being honest about it. I'm not critical of Trump for doing it. Like I get it and I get the geopolitical
purposes of it. Trump's a better president than I would be, obviously. The point of the trip is to box out China from their influence in the Middle East. It's also to increase leverage against Russia. If we can have OPEC produce more oil, prices go down, Russia gets less money to wage war. So it's wise there.
It also puts the kibosh on any talks of a BRICS world and a different reserve currency for the world. BRICS is Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa. It's like a group of nations that would, well, as America's influence is waning,
the world is like, well, let's do something different. But that's not happening when Trump's in power. So geopolitically, of course, it's great. And it was a perfect trip in every way from that perspective. And maybe it's wise that we turn the page
on the relationship and thoughts that I've always had towards the Middle East. Trump said at his big speech in Saudi Arabia that he has no intention of fighting the battles of the past. He wants to start fresh and have peace.
Stop killing. He just wants everyone to stop killing. And we got a new leader. Or there is a new leader. I don't know. We don't have a new leader, but there is a new leader in Saudi Arabia.
It's 39 year old. He's a millennial. The crown prince. have a real genuine love for each other. The Crown Prince escorted our president to the Air Force One and had a moment. He shook hands and the Crown Prince pressed his hand up against his heart and watched Trump go up the steps. I'm not kidding. Trump turns around and gave him a fist, not a fist bump, but like a, like a, remember when he got shot in the head,
the fight, fight, fight fist game, like one of these fists, and then pointed to the crown prince. The crown prince grabbed it, and then took it to his heart and held his heart, and then Trump did the same, Trump patted his chest, his heart. It's like, geez guys.
They have this genuine respect and love for each other. Or the crown prince turned around and said, can you believe they're bought that? I don't know. I don't trust them. But we'll see. Are they playing us for fools? Or not. Is this a real relationship that we can have in the future. Imagine it, really. Imagine the whole Middle East in line with America. That's pretty amazing.
I never thought I'd see the day. It's hard to believe. And it's certainly better than the alternative. The 9-11 hijackers and bin Laden himself are from Saudi Arabia. So we can turn the page. Someone wrote me a note.
They said we can turn the page, but let's put a bookmark right here so we don't forget that.
I like that idea. By every measure, it seems like a wildly successful trip. And I think we're going to see a lot more, not only economic investment, but more peace deals with Israel as well. It's quite spectacular. I read an article from Biden officials are in awe.
They can't believe how incredible this trip has gone. So that's point one. Point two, as I'm looking more at these nations and looking at these giant city skylines I can't get over the fact that they look so fake it's weird you know the uncanny valley familiar this idea this idea is that robots and like digital avatars they can look real in every way, but something's off about it.
No matter how real they look, they don't have a soul. So your soul is looking into this thing that looks like a human. So your brain's kind of tricked, but your soul is like, that's not real. That's not a human. That's not a soul. There's no soul there.
And it creates this uneasiness and maybe even like a repulsion or disgust inside of you. It's called the uncanny valley. And I have that when I look at Saudi Arabia and Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha, all these countries over here that Trump visited. And you're just like, look at it. It's weird. Like 50 years ago, you look at these cities and they were literally nothing, just literal
desert, nothing. And now there's 184 skyscrapers. Like what in the world, how did this happen? Are there people in them? I don't understand, like these office buildings, the Burj Dubai, the tallest building in the world,
are there people in there? Like going to work? The hardworking people of Dubai headed to work in the office, you know the old nine-to-five Like I know I've never seen any people in these cities And once I get over the fact that all of this was built with our money Because they sold oil that is our oil actually we are the ones who found it we're the ones who developed it
They took it from us by nationalizing their oil industry in 1980. I know I'm alone on this point. I'm the only one who's angry at that, but okay, $15 trillion worth of wealth over the last 45 years, that should be ours. Okay, fine, you guys have it.
Look what they've done with it. So once I get over the bitterness of that, that's a me problem, The whole place still seems very void of character. And people call in about this, and someone made this great point that in America, we had a core, we had roots, we had a foundation of an economy and of a people,
and we were thriving so much that we needed buildings to do it all.
So we built buildings, built skyscrapers. Saudi Arabia, they're doing it the other way, the opposite way. All those countries, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, they're doing it the opposite.
In order to lure people to come to Dubai, they're building the giant buildings and they may be empty, but then they can say, hey, look, we have all the infrastructure. You should come in. And they're trying to create a culture that way. And they do it with sports, too. There's only 33 million people in Saudi Arabia. There's 40 million in California. So it's not a lot of people there, but they have their own Saudi
National Soccer League. Well, there's no people to watch, there's no real players. They have to pay all these players from around the world. They pay Ronaldo $170 million a year, again, our money, but $170 million a year to come. And he'll play in front of a crowd of like eight people. And it's all so weird.
I think that's a nice metaphor for, for these new cities that they're building when there's nothing really there. It's all just very off putting and weird and odd, and it makes me feel uneasy. Just an observation. And I'm thinking of what connects, I'll get to the Bible here now, but what connects us with Saudi Arabia?
Of course, the political conveniences, you know, the allies of fighting against China and Russia and all that, I get that. But is there anything else that connects us? Is there any other value that we share with Saudi Arabia? Americans and Saudi Arabians?
And you look at what Saudi Arabia wants to be, and really the only shared value is money. Now, maybe that's enough, and maybe we're okay with that. I mean, it's way over there, so it's okay. But as long as they stop strapping bombs on women and children and flying planes into buildings,
okay, maybe money is all we need for that purpose. But that shouldn't be the only thing we care about. And this is my pivot to the Bible. Saudi Arabia, those countries, they want to move away from just being an oil economy. They want to move into finance and technology and entertainment. Okay, but we know that that
is not the way to salvation. It's not even the way to happiness, but it's certainly not the way to salvation. And we need to keep our focus on what really matters and not on the cares of the world. I was reading yesterday two things that popped out that I think tie into this. The parable of the sower. We've heard it a billion times. The four soils that the seeds are thrown into. The variable isn't the sower and the variable isn't the seed. The variable is the soil. He who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word. And the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word and it becomes unfruitful.
Cares of the world, deceitfulness of riches. Oh, look at the giant buildings. More riches, more riches. We can't become, we can no longer be a people that just think we can grow the economy, that's all that matters. Look at Saudi Arabia, massive buildings, but who cares?
To what end?
What's the point?
We can't be saved with more money. We're not capable of doing anything even with money on our own anyway. We think that we can do this, we can make our own money, we can have an economy grow, now we can't do any of that without God. Maybe I can say this for tomorrow, but reading through with the kids, the Israelites, their journey through the desert and getting to the promised land, all the battles that they
have to fight, battle after battle after battle, and they can only win with God. That's it. Nothing good happens without God. Economy doesn't grow the way you want it to without God. Nothing does, nothing good ever happens. I was reading Jonah and the people of Nineveh repent.
Actually, let me read this part. This part is great. So the people of Nineveh believed God, proclaimed a fast, put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least. Then word came to the king of Nineveh and he rose from his throne and laid aside his robe covered himself with sackcloth and satin ashes.
And he caused it to be proclaimed to publish throughout Nineveh by decree of the king and his noble saying, let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock taste anything. Do not let them eat or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth and cry mightily to God. Yes, let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who can tell if God will turn and relent and turn away from his fierce anger so that we may not perish?
We got to give it a shot guys. Maybe there's some of that in Saudi Arabia not turning to God, but hey, maybe we should stop killing people. Maybe we stop with the violence. Maybe we stop with the outright wickedness and evil with this, the outright wickedness and evil.
Let's focus on professional soccer leagues instead.
Then God saw their works in Nineveh that they turned from their evil way and God relented from the disaster that he had said he would bring upon them and he did not do it. Amen.
Wonderful story.
Now again, Saudi Arabia hasn't, you know, not a Christian nation, but if they can turn away from Wahhabism, which teaches the American infidel and all that, if they can turn away from that, amen, I'll take it. But with this, and here's what I wanted to share,
Jonah became angry. He wanted God to destroy them. So he wanted to die, but God made this plant grow to protect Jonah. And then God killed the plant the next day and Jonah was angry again. And God said, you have, you have had pity on the plant for which you have not labored.
That's what I want to focus. You have not labored nor made it grow, which came up at the night and perished in a night. Should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there's more than 120,000 persons who cannot discern between their left hand and right, excuse me, right hand and left? I love that you pity the plant, not the people. Real quick, last comment on Trump.
Trump hates death. It's wild, I've never seen a politician talk like it, like this this and then act like this so profoundly he hates people dying unnecessarily He praised the leaders of Pakistan and India last week for ending their skirmish of two nuclear powers It could have ended in millions of people dying and he just talked about how the good people Would would be dying unnecessarily for nothing. He speaks of this all the time
There's no question that Trump should win the Nobel Peace Prize. There's no question about it. He just wants people to stop dying. Same with Iran. He said this about Iran and Saudi Arabia.
He's like, Iran, let's knock it off. Let's do a peace deal. Stop killing people. We'll turn the page. We'll give you another chance here. Please stop killing people." He wants these nations to repent from a geopolitical perspective. So let's turn the
page enough of, he said, I have no interest in fighting the battles of the past. So he said, let's repent from this and we can be prosperous together. And that's as much as you could ask from a world leader. I don't expect Trump to shred the gospel in Saudi Arabia or Qatar, but God wants repentance from sin. And he wants it for everyone on how wonderful it is. When we finally do Isaiah 40 11, he will gather the lambs in his arms.
He will carry them in his bosom. God has such a tender heart, his compassion. The people of Nineveh so backwards, they didn't know they're left from the right. They could, they they're so immoral. They didn't even know what they were doing, but Jesus has limitless affection for those who love him.
He will hold you close to his chest. He will protect you ultimate safety. If anyone wants to hurt the sheep, they have to first hurt the shepherd and that's impossible. So maybe we can look at what Trump is doing with Saudi Arabia with some hope. Like, wow, this may be some real repentance and there's some, some real hope here of a new beginning.
And I think that would be great politically and economically spiritually. Let's pray that we we as a nation, we turn to God like Nineveh, and as individuals, repent and fix our eyes on Jesus. Mike Slater.locals.com, transcript commercial free on the website.
Thank you so much for being here and downloading this podcast. and downloading this podcast. Mike Slater. locals dot com.
