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 have 4 random Christian works of art to share. I thought they were random, but there is one important thing they all have in common.

I have just a bunch of random Christian things to share. That's it. That's a weird intro. Um, I don't know what to do with all this necessarily. So let me just get it out there and maybe you can connect some dots. However you would like. 

This is an old hymn written in 1774. Wanted to share here. I believe our founding fathers knew this hymn. It's all I'll say. And I thought of this hymn in relation to the church shooting the other day. Talked a lot about the church shooting. 

Spiritual things after that, which was wonderful. Demonic forces, goodness. Love that that's in the conversation in our country now. This hymn might be helpful to you, no matter what difficult thing you're going through as well. Oh, fearful saints, new courage take. The clouds that you now dread are big with mercy and will break in blessings on your head. 

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust him for his grace. Behind a frowning providence, he hides a smiling face. God's purposes will ripen fast, unfolding every hour. The bud may have a bitter taste, but sweet will be the flower. Blind unbelief is sure to err and scan his work in vain. God is his own interpreter, and he will make it plain. 

" Then here's the chorus. So God, we trust in you. Oh God, we trust in you. When tears are great and comforts few, we hope in mercies ever new. We trust in you. There are two mottos we have in our country. 

One, e pluribus unum, and we've seen how that has been flipped around. out of many. One, diversity is our strength, is it? And the other one is, in God we trust. I don't know if our founding fathers knew that hymn. I bet they did. 

Now, in God we trust wasn't added to our money or motto until later, but it was still a part of our ethos for a long time. Actually, Francis Scott Key, in one or two of the verses of the Star Spangled Banner, there's four verses in total, this line's repeated maybe two times, and this be our motto. in God is our trust. " So whether they knew this hymn or not, certainly they believe that to be true. All right, here's another thing I came across recently. So I'm reading this neat book. 

It's called Christ in the Camp, and it's about Christianity in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. And it was written right after the Civil War. And I found this letter that a dad wrote to his son. So his dad wrote to his son in 1864 with some advice, life advice, while you're off in war. I'm just going to read the main parts of this. Take, first thing, take special care of your health. 

Most soldiers die of disease than in battle. Number two, the rules of war require prompt and unquestioning obedience to your leaders. This one, I'll go into more detail. Number three, try to maintain your Christian profession among your comrades. Aim to take at once a decided stand for God. If practicable, have prayers regularly in your tent or unite with your fellow disciples in prayer meetings in the camp. 

Should preaching be accessible, always be a hearer. Let the world know that you are a Christian. Read a chapter in the New Testament which your mother gave you every morning and evening when you can, and engage in secret prayer to God for His Holy Spirit to guide and sustain you. How about this line? Oh, check this line out. My goodness. 

I would rather hear of your death than of the shipwreck of your faith and good conscience. What a sentence. First of all, beautifully written. I would rather hear of your death than of the shipwreck of your faith and good conscience. But the sentiment, true. Because if you died a Christian, at least you go to heaven. 

But if there's a shipwreck of your faith and good conscience, then. Number four, as you will come into habitual contact with men of every grade, Make special associates of those who influence on your character is felt to be good. And number five, providence has placed you in the midst of thoughtless and unpardoned men. What a beautiful thing it would be if you could win some of them to the savior. The sick, you may comfort. The wavering, you may confirm. 

The backslidden, you may reclaim. The weary and heavy laden, you may point to Jesus for the rest of the soul. Awesome is that letter from, from dad. 

Goodness. 

Uh, I'm just reading, reading through this book casually, and it's so grateful that we have a history and a heritage to lean on. and something we can pull from and live out again. So I read that this weekend. And then this morning I was reading Acts 20 and these two lines stood out. Acts 20, 24, Paul said, but I do not account my life for any value. I don't account my life of any value, nor as precious to myself. 

If only I may finish my course in the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. And then, so that's Acts 20, 24. And then just next chapter. Acts 21, 13, that people are like, Hey, don't go to Jerusalem. Don't go. And Paul answered, why are you weeping and breaking my heart? 

I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus. And since he would not be persuaded, we ceased and said, let the will of the Lord be done. My last random Christian thing. This is a book I bought. It's, uh, it's called Songs for the Household by, I don't know, Worthington from 1892. It's a beautiful book, beautiful green book, gold binding. 

It's just wonderful. Uh, let me read this right here. What prophet, ye his death and cross, alas to self ye also die? Ye love your life to find it lost, afraid the flesh to crucify. Would it live in this world still? Then no, Christ's death to thee is barren show. 

What prophet that he loosed and broke all bonds, yet in ye in league remain with earth? Who wearest Satan's yoke? shall call him master but in vain. Count ye the soul for reconciled, yet saved to earth by sin defiled? What profits, if that he is risen, if dead in sins thou dost lie? If yet thou cleavest to thy prison, what profit that he dwells on high? 

His triumph will avail not, if thou hast never the battle fought. That's a lot of lines you could take out of that, but just stick with that one. His triumph will avail thee not, if thou hast never the battle fought. Then live and suffer, do and bear, as Christ thy pattern here hath done, and seek his innocence to where that he may count thee of his own. Who lovest Christ must live at war with all that breaks his holy law. 

What do we get from all these things here? I got this note the other day, Slater at Breitbart . com is my email, or you can send me my personal email, slaterradio at gmail . com. Damon said, Slater, I listen to every morning on my way to work, but I usually turn you down for a good 20 minutes to a half hour. It's like, well, geez, man. 

Geez, Damon. Thanks for admitting that. That's real nice of you. I usually turn you down for a good 20 minutes to a half hour to pray. I turned the radio back up just when you were talking about prayer, the power of prayer, and it just gave me some great affirmation. 

Thank you. 

Oh, well, geez, Damon. That's a good reason to turn the radio down. It's the only reason. Thanks for that affirmation, Damon. What I'm sensing, what I'm getting from these four things that I shared here is the importance of fighting, standing up for the truth. Whether you're in battle, whether you're as this old poem says, his triumph will avail thee not if thou has never the battle fought or as the hymn from 1744 said, Oh, fearful saints, new courage take. 

Maybe that's what we, maybe that's the point of this podcast actually. The inspiration for all of us. New courage to take. MikeSlater . Locals . com. Transcript commercial free on the website.