Charlie Kirk said he wants to be remembered as a man who had "courage for my faith". I have two suggestions on how we can be remembered in the same way.

Welcome to Politics by Faith. Thank you for being here. What a difficult week it's been. I want to say a few words inspired by Charlie Kirk. I believe there are five main lies from the father of lies, Satan, that they probably started on college campuses. We know they fester on college campuses and have exploded out of college campuses. 

Five main lies. First, who are you to say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, my truth. We'll start with these three. God made the good, the beautiful, and the true. That's what we stand for. The good, the beautiful, and the true. 

Satan came in and speaks to the opposite of this. What is good? There's no good. Who are you to say what's good? Who are you to say what's bad? Who are you to say? 

No such thing as beauty. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And there's no such thing as truth. Only my truth. Fourth great lie is evolution. There's two reasons it's so wicked. 

The beginning and the end. Evolution demands the denial of a creator. It's the first thing. But then if you carry on with evolution, you keep going down that road. It leads to nihilism because if we're just here randomly, then nothing matters. How could it? 

Nothing could matter. The evolutionists deny creator at the beginning, but then if you keep going down it, there's no point to anything because just was a big bang out of nowhere for some, something came out of nothing. And then an amoeba formed and an amoeba turned into a frog and a frog somehow turned into a monkey and a monkey turned into a frog. And there's just like things in our brain, like chemicals in our brain that make us feel certain emotions at different times, but that's it. It's all random. So nothing can matter. 

Nothing is good. Nothing's beautiful. Nothing's true. It's all random. That's nihilism. Nothing matters. 

Five lies from Satan. Very dark. Now, Charlie Kirk would go into the belly of the beast and speak the truth on all of these things. He'd say, there is a creator and Jesus is Lord. There is such thing as truth. Like a man can't turn into a woman, a woman can't turn into a man. 

There is goodness. You should live a proper life. There is beauty. I think he spoke mostly of beauty as being married and having kids. Like, oh, it's so joyful and wonderful and beautiful. And you should find purpose in your life, all the way from a meaningful job to serving others, providing for your family, and of course, living a Christian life. 

So he went into this dark place and was a light for the truth and for the gospel. And when you're a light and you go into a dark place, People don't like that. John 3 19 says people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. That's the root of the darkness that's in our country. It's, it's believing those five lies that are prevalent. Most people believe them. 

Here's what I want to share that I haven't yet shared on Sirius XM. Charlie Kirk spoke with confidence. I've been reading this sermon from Jonathan Edwards, Jonathan Edwards, the father of the Great Awakening in America. It's from 1739. It's called, The Importance and Advantage of a Thorough Knowledge of Divine Truth. 

Why does it matter to know God's Word? Why does the truth matter? Like he wasn't even, today we have to say there is a truth. At least he was, like the people he was talking to knew there was a truth and he's just arguing why it matters. Why is it important? Why is it important to know the truth and to keep learning? 

I pray that out of Charlie's death, because he was asked how he wants to be most remembered. And he said as a as a Christian, Christian man, I pray that out of this people go to church. My challenge has been on the radio. If you don't yet go to church every Sunday for one year, one year, sit in the pew, listen to God's word. Don't complain about the people around you. Don't complain about them being weird. 

Don't complain about people looking funny. Don't nitpick every single thing that you would do differently that you don't like. Sit there for one year and talk to someone every single day. Every Sunday you're there. Talk to a different person. That's it. 

and see how your life is different. Now, for all of us who go already, the challenge is to grow in your faith deeper, much, much deeper, to no longer be satisfied with the basics, to no longer be satisfied with milk, but strong meat. Hebrews 5 .4 says, but solid food is for the mature. Now, why does this matter? Why do we want to be mature? Why do we want solid food? 

For those who have their powers of discernment, trained by constant practice to do what? To distinguish good from evil. We need to be able to distinguish good from evil. from evil. So Jonathan Edwards. that every Christian should make a business of endeavoring to grow in the knowledge and divinity. 

His first point he makes is if you don't pick up your Bible, then it's the same as having a Bible that's written in Chinese. Doesn't do you any good either. Anyway, got to pick it up. He said, if you don't read your Bible, he says, without knowledge and divinity, none would differ from the most ignorant and barbarous heathens. The heathen remains in gross heathenish darkness because they're not instructed and have not obtained the knowledge of the truths of divinity. So it says, don't be like a heathen. 

You are no better than them if you don't read God's word. He said, Christians ought to, uh, excuse me, ought not to content themselves with such degrees of knowledge and divinity that they've already obtained. It should not satisfy them that they know as much as is absolutely necessary to salvation, but should seek to make progress. Knowing the bare minimum is good. Let's want more. Read the Bible. 

Jonathan Edwards says, read the Bible. Revelation 1 .3 says, blessed is he who reads the Bible. and those who hear the words of this prophecy. Blessed are you who reads. Are we grateful for our life? If after watching the assassination of Charlie Kirk, does it make you grateful for life? 

I was away. The wife and I were away on a little trip for about three days or so. I got home yesterday. We're so excited to see the kids. Plane landed, there was some traffic, and I missed the first half of Jack's soccer practice. I'm Jack, the coach of his team. 

The assistant coach held down for it for the first half hour and I got there in the middle and I was walking to the field and I didn't know how Jack would respond. He's eight years old, almost nine, and he's got his teammates there, his friends, right? And he saw me and he just booked it and ran to me and jumped in my arms. And I was like, oh, this is amazing. I don't know how many of these I have left. I don't know how many I have left. 

You don't get a warning. Your eight year old's not like, hey, I'm only gonna do this four more times. You don't know. And I'm hugging him and it's wonderful. And I had a thought, of course, of Charlie. And maybe you've seen the video of his four -year -old daughter when he was on Fox and Friends running across the set. 

Daddy! 

And jumping in his arms. Are you grateful for life? Jonathan Edwards said, When God hath opened a very large treasure before us for the supply of our wants, and we thank him that he hath given us so much, if at the same time we be willing to remain destitute of the greatest part of it because we're too lazy to gather it, this will not show the sincerity of our thankfulness. Heavenly Father, we are so grateful for everything you've done for us. So grateful for the life that you've given me. I'm just too busy to read that. Oh, the Bible? 

Your Word? 

I got it. I got it. I got the gist. Jonathan Edwards says, It becomes one who is called to be a soldier and to go to warfare, to endeavor to excel in the art of war. It becomes one who is called to be a mariner and to spend his life in sailing the ocean, to endeavor to excel in the art of navigation. It becomes one who professes to be a physician and devotes himself to that work, to endeavor to excel in the knowledge of those things which pertain to the art of physics. 

So it becomes all such as profess to be Christians and to devote themselves to the practice of Christianity and to endeavor to excel in the knowledge of divinity. That is one thing that I'm getting, that I'm learning, that I've dedicated myself to because of what happened this week. I'll end on this. There's the book I have here. I've been quoting it a lot from 1835, I believe, called Scripture, Emblems and Allegories. And there's a section on fearful and fearless. 

And it ends with this. It says the righteous man is afraid of nothing but sin. So I say this. The first part I was talking about was about having the knowledge, the wisdom and knowing what is true. And my last point here is having the courage to go forth with it. The righteous man is afraid of nothing but sin. 

He goes forward in the path of duty, though dangers grow thick around him. He enters the burning, fiery furnace and grapples with its curling flames. He descends into the den of lions. The king of beasts crouches at his feet. In the storm at midnight, tossed upon the raging billows, he is calm in the presence of the God he serves and to whom he belongs. In earthquakes shock, when temples are falling, earth opening, and ruin reigns around, he stands fearless amid the desolation, exclaiming, therefore, we will not fear, though the earth be removed out of its place. 

Descending the dark veil of death itself, he says exultingly, though I through the valley and shadow of death, I will fear no evil. And when the last enemy stands full in his presence, he sings triumphantly. Lend, lend your wings. I mount, I fly. O grave, where is thy victory? 

O death, where is thy sting? There are a lot of lessons to be learned from the life of Charlie Kirk. And what we do next, I don't know. Pray this can spark a revival. That's my prayer. I know the president is giving him the Medal of Honor. 

our Presidential Medal of Freedom, excuse me, Presidential Medal of Freedom. And I pray that that is such an incredible moment that it sparks something amazing in this country. I don't know. I know the paths will open and we need to be ready and on the lookout. In the meantime, let's grow in our knowledge of God and our love of God. And let's have more confidence in spreading the word. 

MikeSlater . Locals . com, transcript commercial free on the website, MikeSlater .

How does someone get to the point where they would stab an innocent woman in the neck? Years of degeneracy leave an empty soul ripe for the picking.

Welcome to Politics by Faith. Thank you for being here. We have talked a lot on my SiriusXM show about horrific murder in Charlotte. It's one of the worst things I've ever seen. I saw, maybe by now you've seen the video where it stops right when he's above her about to come down and stab her in the neck. I've now seen the rest of the video and it's even worse than I imagined. 

It's different than I imagined what happens after he comes down on her neck, but it's worse. Let me address that tomorrow, if I may. I want to make this point first here on this show. This is a, his name's Frank McCormick. He used to teach 11 years public school in the ghetto in Chicago. He wrote this post. He said, I know this type of kid, speaking of the murder, the type that would smack the kid sitting in front of him, telling the teacher, I don't give a blank when corrected and ruin an entire year's worth of learning for the entire class. 

His special education teacher would describe him as actually very smart with a lot of potential, despite him failing every class and scoring a nine on the ACT. There would be countless meetings with him and his mom and social workers, psychologists, and the principal would speak in soft voices and nod and smile when the kid told him he wants to be a doctor. They'd design all sorts of ridiculous accommodations that give him ample room to behave however he wanted and terrorize his teachers and peers with minimal consequences. Teachers would spend the entire class trying to rein in his behavior, and when they called security to remove him, they'd have to evacuate the entire class first. He'd rarely receive any consequences. The principal would reprimand the teachers for not building a relationship with him. 

and accused them of singling him out because he was black. As a result, they'd give up and his behavior would escalate. If he was really bad, he'd get a timeout in a split second. room where he'd sit on his phone and tell the supervisor to shut the blank up if they said anything. Maybe he'd have to partake in a peace circle if he became violent. He'd eventually get socially promoted to his senior year, and there would be a massive effort to get his credits recovered, mostly by pressuring teachers to give him alternative assignments and a 50 % for the work he didn't do. 

He'd walk down the graduation stage and everyone would cheer, and he'd probably do something embarrassing, like give the finger to the audience. As a young adult, he'd walk the city. behaving exactly as he did in school, because he'd been socialized to learn that there are zero consequences for his behavior. Depending on the city, he'd probably get similar treatment from the cops and the public afraid of creating a public scene that would lead to riots in the city. And then one day he'd snap and do something like this. And only then would everyone act surprised, as if this wasn't largely in part due to how our public schools negatively socialize and enable the behavior of animals that should be locked up or institutionalized as teenagers. 

Last week, we did a segment on the church shooter, the transgender church shooter. And the argument we made is that this young man, his entire childhood has been about affirm, affirm, affirm, affirm. Oh, I'm trans. He can do no wrong. He's trans. You have to affirm, constantly affirm. 

And because the left was so dedicated to this whole transgender narrative, any sign, other sign, I mean, that's one, that's a sign, but any other sign of any major, major mental problems, could never be addressed because then they were worried, like, oh, well, then that means that transgender people have a mental illness. And we can't ever say that because that's not true. That's not the right thing. So we have to affirm everything all the time. And black people in America have a very similar thing. It's called the big tree of low expectations. 

You've heard that. But it's different than affirm, affirm, affirm. It's more like accommodate, accommodate, accommodate. And the wages of sin is down. Our goal is life, but we see the death and there's, it's all around us. There was a story, or not a story. 

There was a 21 year old congressional intern who was shot and killed a mile from the white house. And they captured two of the three people who did it. Two 17 year olds and an 18 year old. 

Allegedly. 

And these mug shots of these three teenagers are, they're so, these young ones are so dead in the eyes. Their souls have been completely seared and severed from their bodies. themselves and from God. Wonderful, lovely woman called in at the end of the show on Monday and she talked about demons and how when you take a child with no dad, no discipline ever, no accountability to anything at all at any time in his life, no masculine presence at any time, toxic inputs from the world constantly, rap music and everything. They are prime picking for the devil, just easy pickings for a demon to get right in there. And what's going to stop them? 

That phone call reminded me of Matthew 12, 42, where it's a story of an evil spirit left a person, and then the spirit said, I will return to my house from which I came. And the Bible says, when it, the spirit came or comes, it finds the house swept and tidy. Then it goes, that sounds good, right? Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more wicked than itself. They go in and settle there. And the last state of that person is worse than the first. 

A couple of things about that. scripture that I wanted to go a little deeper in. First, the evil spirit says, I will return to my house. I will return to my house. Amazing. This is about a person who got rid of some bad things in their life, right? 

Clean, cleaned up their life, got their act together a bit and is now living with better habits and better routines, but without Jesus, without something that can truly save. So the evil spirit comes back seven times, seven fold. If I may, this is what we need to do ourselves and with our kids in the world. Reject everything that the world is feeding us. You must get rid of everything that this fallen, broken, demon -controlled world is feeding your children and you, and then replace it with what is good, beautiful, and true, and replace it with the Bible and with God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I want to go a little deeper with a little more context in this. 

So Jesus told this story. Because a Pharisee said, Teacher, we want to see a sign from you. And Jesus answered and said to them, an evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. Jesus has shown enough signs. There were enough proofs. Nothing Jesus could do at this point would get these people so hard -hearted to believe that he was the son of God. 

And the point of the demon story is that if you reject Jesus, you'll be worse off than before. But it does tell us something about demon possession. Matthew Poole, Bible commentary in the 1600s, he said, the devil cannot be at rest. where he hath no mischief to do to men. Meaning the Bible is not going to, the demon is not going to come to you. If there's no mischief, he can, he can act upon you. 

Don't give the devil a foothold. The demon can only inhabit someone if he finds it empty. Even if it's all nice and put together and in good looking order, if it's empty, meaning devoid of the Holy Spirit, the devil will make your soul his home. Spurgeon said the devil has no objection to his house being swept and garnished. For a moralist, like a good person, may be as truly his slave as the man of debauched habits. So long as the heart is not occupied by his great foe, God, and he can use the man for his own purposes, the adversary of souls will let him reform as much as he pleases. 

" So good. When Satan has a demon has control over your soul, he'll even let you keep your life neat and tidy. Anything to keep you away from God. Remember the greatest lie from the devil, as people say, is getting people to believe that he doesn't exist. And the Bible says he masquerades as an angel of light. Sometimes the demon will cause someone to stab a woman in the neck. 

And sometimes a demon will act like the guy who wrote me an email today, telling me to tone down the Bible thumping on the radio. Keep it to the podcast. Demons work in all sorts of different ways. But the point, however it acts, is to keep you away from God. We quoted the screw tape letters the other day by C . 

S. 

Lewis. This part stood out to me as well. So you have Screwtape a demon telling his nephew, a young demon, that it... gets easier over time to keep him away from the enemy, in this case, God, from their perspective. And he says, all you need to do is distract him with little things here and there. And this is how that chapter ends, this letter. 

You will say that these are very small sins, right? So, so Screwtape is saying, hey, just, just like little, little things, just do little things to distract him away from God. He said, you'll say that these are very small things and doubtless, like all young tempters, You're anxious to be able to report spectacular wickedness, stabbing someone in the neck. But do remember, the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the enemy, God. It does not matter how small the sins are, provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the light and out into the nothing. Murder is no better than cards, if cards can do the trick. 

Indeed, the safest road to hell is the gradual one. The gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts. I share this because I'm studying Romans 2. I'm going to be teaching a class at church this Sunday on Romans 2. And this is part of what I want to talk about is Romans 2. It's easy to read and be like, oh man, yeah, those sinners, they're the worst. 

It's easy to look at this guy and the train and be like, oh my gosh, evil. And it is, don't get me wrong. But Romans 2 is about us. It's easy to look at someone with, you know, sins so deep that they'll murder someone, stab a woman in the neck. But demons can work in everyone in more subtle ways, where maybe murder isn't the preferred method of keeping them away from God, but it works just the same. This is just the beginning of us talking about this story. 

This is a massively important, I hope, turning point in America. 

We'll do more tomorrow.  MikeSlater . Locals . com. Transcript commercial free on this website, MikeSlater .

I don't blame enemies domestic for taking over. I blame us for letting them.

By faith, thanks for being here. Dearborn, Dearborn Heights, their police department released a new redesigned badge in Arabic. It's in Arabic. The other day we talked about a football player, it's either Eastern or Western Michigan, who, his name on the back of his jersey is in Arabic. Now, on the surface, this is a problem. This is the most surface reason why this is a problem, is I don't know what his name is. I don't know who just made the tackle. 

I don't read scribbles. So on the most practical level, that's the problem with that. but obviously there's much deeper issues. Alas, here, Dearborn Heights, the police badge is in Arabic. I've learned that the woman who did this, her name is Emily Murdoch. She's an officer on the police force. 

A 35 -year -old white liberal woman, of course, decided to write Arabic on the police badge. Now, Dearborn is named after, have you ever wondered this? I have not. I've never wondered this, ever. And there's something interesting about that I'll share in a moment. But Dearborn is named after a Revolutionary War hero, Colonel Henry Dearborn. 

He was a doctor, became a minuteman, worked his way up the ranks, served alongside General Washington during the Revolutionary War. He also served in the War of 1812. He was also Thomas Jefferson's secretary of war. By the way, Trump wants to rename the Department of Defense to the Department of War, bring it back to what it was, the Department of War. So Pete Hexeth wouldn't be the secretary of defense, it'd be the secretary of war, like it used to be. So Henry Dearborn was the Secretary of War. 

Thomas Jefferson. He was the Secretary of War during the First Barbary War against the Muslims in North Africa. This is where we get the Marine Corps hymn, From the Halls of Montezuma to the Shores of Tripoli. So he fought a war against the Muslims in Africa. There's a city named after him, which is now entirely controlled by Muslims. Are you with me on that? 

You don't think that is that something or not? I think that's something. Now, a guy called in from Michigan. He said, Slater, you're overreacting. By the third generation of these Muslim immigrants, the Muslim girls are just like American girls. I asked him, I said, also, he goes, Oh, I mean, they're wearing skimpy clothes. 

They're wearing makeup. They're listening to rap music. They're just like American girls. He was being dead serious. Like, it's like, I don't worry about it. So it's, it's, you know, no big deal. 

Like they're, they wear their burqa around and then they, but you know, they bring a change of clothes to school and they change into the skimpy clothes and then they put the burqa back on. Yeah. They're just like America. And I'm thinking, huh, that's not a great Testament. 

To American girls? 

Is it? Ah, Slater, don't worry. The third generation Muslim girls, they dress like streetwalkers just like our girls. Do you see the metaphor here? Are you tracking with me? This is why I don't blame the invaders, really. 

It's our fault. We don't know who we are. We lost sight of it entirely. We don't know where we come from. I never even thought to wonder where Dearborn, Michigan got its name. Didn't even question it. 

But the people of Dearborn, the founders of Dearborn, I should say, out of all the things they could have named their town, they got together, had a committee meeting. I'm assuming it's, hey guys, what do we call this place? I'm sure they had a couple of names. They threw out there and they're like, you know what? Let's go with, go with Henry Dearborn. 

And they're like, oh yeah, like definitely. That's great. Henry Dearborn, of course. Colonel Dearborn, that'd be great. Of course we'll name this town after an incredible American hero who I never heard of. Do you see the injustice? 

I'm so angry. I'm angry at two things. I'm angry at the adults in my life when I was growing up who did not have the courage to say, this music that you're listening to is terrible and bad, and then present me with music that is good. And I don't mean like, oh, here's the classic rock. I mean, stop listening to that crap rap music. Here, listen to real music. 

Here's real actual music that you should listen to. And here's why it's good. I listen to the song, I'll hear the songs that I listened to growing up. I was like, this is such absolute wicked from Satan trash, absolute garbage. And I know all the words to the songs. I'm angry at the culture makers who said, this rap music is cool. 

Nelly is, Nelly is cool. Here everyone at this middle -class white high school, everyone here needs to listen to 50 Cent and dance like this. It's like, where was any adult? And I'm also disappointed in all the adults growing up. my life who never said, here is our history. Here's what it is to be an American. 

We just floated through. You can't do that. So I don't blame the invaders. We don't know who we are. We lost sight of it. We don't know where we came from. 

We lost so much. We forgot so much about who we are. And the invaders, they just picked it up. They didn't take it. We dropped it. 

They didn't rip it from our hands. 

They just picked it up. And now they have it. It would be something if that caller today called in and said, Slater, You got it all wrong. By the third generation, these Muslim girls, they are Christians and they name their kids George Washington. They know our history and can tell you everything about the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. And they are all Proverbs 31 women through and through fully embracing of the goodness that is American culture and American life. 

That was like, wow, okay. As opposed to, oh, Slater, they're just like American girls. They all wear yoga pants and sleep around. god jeez that's so different but that's on us we didn't give them anything to assimilate to that was good yeah if we did live our heritage probably never would have come here in the first place i was reading with the kids last night the story of amaziah king of judah 25 years old when he became king at this point we've had jehu jehoahaz and joah jehoash in israel and Jehoash in Judah. Jehu, Jehoahaz, Jehoash, and Jehoash in Judah. 

And we were all reading about it with Jack, John, and James, a lot of Js. So you got the King of Judah, Amaziah, and he got all of his military men together. He counted all of his military. How many guys we got? 

300 ,000 men ready for war. 

Pretty good. 300 ,000. He's like, you know what? We should get more of them. So he hired 100 ,000 men from Israel. for a hundred talents of silver, pretty penny. 

But a prophet came to the King and said, Oh King, do not let the army of Israel go with you for the Lord is not with Israel. God shall make you fall before the enemy. God has the power to help and to overthrow. Remember that line right there. God has the power to help and to overthrow. The word help here is the word meaning assist or to rescue, but has this connotation of coming in in a timely, like just at the right moment. 

God has the power to help and to overthrow. If only we believe this to be true today. Now, what's interesting here is hiring a hundred thousand troops for his military made practical sense. The King said, I want to win a battle. I'm going to hire some mercenaries to help out. It made earthly sense. 

It made political sense. It made practical sense, but it made no spiritual sense because it is all about God. He has the power to help and to overthrow. Nothing else matters. Nothing else matters. Nothing else matters. 

I'm doing this on purpose. It's not like a glitch in your head. Nothing else matters. I can't express enough how many times, nothing else matters. Sometimes you need to hear that thing a lot of times before it finally clicks. Nothing else matters. 

God will win a battle with one person. Samson killed over a thousand Philistines with a donkey's jawbone. One, one guy. And God will make you lose a battle with 400 ,000 soldiers. Nothing else matters. So the prophet says you shouldn't do this. 

And the king says, well, what about the 100 talents of silver that have already paid? And the man of God answered, the Lord is able to give you much more than this. Do we believe that to be true? So I asked the kids as we were reading this yesterday, I said, so what do you think the king did? And they all guessed that he disobeyed God, because that's what these kings always do. But he actually did obey God, sort of. 

He told all the Israelites to go home and he paid them, still paid them, go home. But they were angry. They were angry because they wanted to kill. They wanted to plunder. They wanted more money than even 100 talents of silver. So they went on, they killed a bunch of people anyway. 

But then the king, so he obeyed God there, sort of, but he then disobeyed God. He went, he killed the Edomites and he took their idols. He took their idols. He took them, he defeated them and then took them and he bowed down before their idols. And the Bible says, therefore, the anger of the Lord was aroused against Amaziah. 

And he sent him a prophet who said to him, why have you sought the gods of the people, which could not rescue their own people from your hand? 

Like, what are you doing? That's not right. practical sense. You just defeated them and you're going to take their idols? Clearly their idols are no good. I know that God is determined to destroy you because you've done this and have not heeded my advice. 

What an idiot, but we're no better. Obviously it didn't go well for the king. He tried to flee his kingdom, but people brought him back, killed him. This is all 2 Chronicles 25 if you'd like to read it for yourself. It's the same thing over and over again. Just obey God and don't worship idols. 

Let's do positive. Obey God. Worship him. Obey God. Worship him. All right, I got to pay off something I said I'd do yesterday. 

So this book I have, oh gosh, it's so beautiful. This book, Fragile. 1859. It's called Scripture, Emblems, and Allegories. Let me go to the main page here. It has a different title, a longer title. 

Religious Emblems, being a series of emblematic engravings with written explanations, miscellaneous observations, and religious reflections. designed to illustrate divine truth in accordance with the cardinal principles of Christianity by William Holmes, minister of the gospel and John W. Barber, author of The Elements of General History, et cetera. 

Improved edition 1859. 

It's so good. 

I'm just going to read. 

I'm going to read it. So you can stop the podcast now if you don't want story time. I got to read this because I want to do something with this. I want to take I got to be so fragile with this book. I want to take pictures of this and put it on the Internet and do like a series of this. So here we have a picture of a Christian soldier. 

Here's what it says, the Christian hero here has made his stand. obedient to his captain's great command, in panoply divine, equipped to complete. No danger dreads, no foe he fears to meet. Gosh, I just wish Christians lived like this. Truth wove the girdle that his loins adorn. This bears him scatheless through the battle storms. 

A sense of pardon guards each vital part and forms the breastplate that defends his heart. For brazen grieves, obedience he takes. Through thorny paths, his onward progress makes. Hope of salvation is his helmet fair. Though oft perplexed, it saves him from despair. Hope of salvation, though oft perplexed, saves him from despair. 

He wields, and not in vain, a trusty sword. A right good blade it is, Jehovah's word. The spirit's weapon, it will each knot untie, each foe disarm, and make Apollyon fly. Apollyon's in Revelation. O 'er all the rest, he grasps faith's mighty shield. and onward rushes to the battlefield. 

Let me read now the analysis. As soon as one enlists himself as a soldier of Jesus Christ, that moment, the world becomes his enemy. It happens to him as it fell out to the Gibeonites. When they made peace with Joshua, the neighboring nations were highly offended and said to one another, come, let us unite our forces that we may smite Gibeon. For it hath made peace with Joshua, and with the children of Israel. " The Gibeonites, that's a crazy story. 

They're the people who knew Joshua was coming and they pretended to be these travelers from a distant land and they tricked Joshua into coming. alliance. It didn't go well for them after that, but not that bad because then all the neighboring kingdoms went to go attack the Gibeonites and Joshua protected them. This is the scene in Joshua 10 where there's hail and God also stopped the sun. But there are other foes more mighty and fearful against whom he has to contend. This is you. 

Satan, after 6000 years of practice in the art of destroying souls, is a powerful opponent. He goeth about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood merely, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of the world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore, on this account, take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. There's two kinds of armor, offensive and defensive, one to attack the foe, the other to protect ourselves. It is remarkable that but one weapon is mentioned by the apostle as belonging to the offensive kind, and that is the sword. 

All the rest are defensive. Among the Grecian warriors, there were at least nine different weapons with which they assailed their enemies. Yet the apostle thinks that for the Christian, one is enough. The captain of our salvation has provided us with all that is necessary for the Christian warfare. Is our head exposed to the assaults of the devil? He has furnished us with a helmet to guard it. 

This is called in another place the hope of salvation. This good hope prepares the soldier for the warfare, upholds him in it, and brings him off a conqueror. Is the heart liable to be pierced? There's a breastplate provided to protect it. It is the breastplate of righteousness. This is a conscientiousness, not only of his own sincerity, but also of his favorable acceptance with God. 

He feels that he is honest in his profession of attachment to the Savior and that Christ his captain, acknowledges him for a true soldier. The feet being exposed to injuries, a pair of brass boots are given to protect him. It would not have answered any good purpose to protect the head, oftentimes, unless the feet likewise were provided for. If the feet were wounded, the soldier could not stand to fight the foe. Neither could he pursue him if conquered. 

The greaves simply prompt obedience to the captain's commands. With this, rough places become as plain and the crooked as straight. 

Greaves are like shin guards. 

Let's see here. The girdle is given to keep the rest of the armor in its place and to strengthen the loins. Truth accomplishes this for the Christian soldier. By this, he discovers who are his enemies, their mode of attack, and the best way to resist them. A shield also is provided. It's called the shield of faith, by which is able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one. 

Finally, a sword is put into his hands. With this, he is to inflict deadly wounds on all his foes. It's called the sword of the spirit because the word of God was inspired by the Holy Spirit. Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way, but by taking heed, thereto according to thy word. By the clear instruction, by the powerful motives, and by the glorious encouragement of the word of God, the Christian soldier puts all his foes to flight. 

That was just the first picture I opened up to in this book. 

We didn't fight. 

Evil one will take over. 

But if we do fight, who could ever beat us? 

No one. 

Ever. Mike Slater dot Locals dot com. 

Transcript commercial free. And the website Mike Slater dot Locals dot com.