I've never heard this line before in the Bible, but in this time of revival, I pray that more people come to realize it's true.

Welcome to Politics by Faith. Thanks for being here. I've got a couple of random things I want to share. First of all, I'm reading this book called Reading the Bible with the Founding Fathers. Daniel Driesbach, D -R -E -I -S -B -A -C -H. I'm only on page 35, but it is awesome. 

I have so many things underlined here. It's ridiculous. Let me just quote this right here. This is all about how the Bible was used in schools and how it was the most important book in colonial America. It says here, some colonial laws even required households to possess a copy of the Bible. A Connecticut colonial law instructed the selectmen from time to time to make diligent inquiry of all households, how they are furnished with Bibles. 

And if upon such inquiry, any householder be found without one Bible at least, then the selectmen shall warn the said householder forthwith to procure one Bible at least for the use and benefit of their families respectively. Such laws were about promoting moral instruction and literacy among the youth, In addition to nurturing the spiritual improvement of citizens. Isn't that amazing? It was a law that you had to own a Bible in colonial America. And we're told that America is not a Christian country. The biggest, one of the biggest lies we've ever been told is that we are not a Christian nation. 

We're never one. And our founders weren't Christian and all this total absolute abject lie. We need to get back to our founding. We talked on the SiriusXM show today with Frank Turek, Dr. Frank Turek. He wrote a book that someone gave to me, a friend of mine gave to me about 14 years ago. It's called, I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. 

And it was the most pivotal book that I ever read towards me becoming a Christian. There are tons of people, tons of influences, tons of other things, but book, this is the one. And Frank Turek also was Charlie Kirk's mentor. He was standing right next to Charlie when he was assassinated. We talked to him today and I'll get the audio and we can put it here in the podcast version as well. 

Just want to mention that. Two books to buy, Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, and Reading the Bible with the Founding Fathers, Daniel Driesbach. All right, here's the other random thing I wanted to share today. Someone sent me this note, Dave. He said, hey Slater, truly appreciate the way you have navigated our political discourse with frequent references to the great thinkers, including the greatest thinker of all, Jesus Christ. I would like to humbly suggest a song that you could weave into your broadcast or podcast. 

Here we are, Dave. So people will further understand the gravity of the situation facing us, not just today, but in eternity. The song is by Johnny Cash, The Man Comes Around. It certainly helped wake me up years ago. Spread the word, Dave. I've never heard this song before. 

And unfortunately, we can't play it here. It's called Johnny Cash. The man comes around. You should listen to it. It's classic cash and has a line here that really struck me and stood out to me. And I got to listen to it a few more times to see what else stands out. 

But this one in particular, this song is about the second coming of Jesus. He was 70 years old when he recorded it. Here's the stanza. Here are the trumpets. Here are the pipers. One hundred million angels singing. 

Multitudes are marching to the big kettle drum. Voices calling, voices crying. Some are born and some are dying. It's Alpha and Omega's kingdom come and the whirlwind is in the thorn tree. The virgins are all trimming their wicks. The whirlwind is in the thorn tree. 

Here's the line. It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks. That line stood out to me because I understood the other biblical references in that stanza, but where did he get that? hard for thee to kick against the pricks. So that one, I had to give that one a search. And sure enough, it's in the Bible. 

Here's the story. It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks. I like want to make a bumper sticker about this. I love this line. So it's an old Greek proverb. So here's the, you got an old, uh, ox goad, this long stick. 

It was this eight foot long stick with a metal point at the end. And you would poke the ox with it to guide them. And let's get going. And it would also have a flat end on it so that you could use it to push the dirt off the plow if needed. The ox goad is mentioned a couple of times in the Bible. First Judges 3 .31, Shamgar killed 600 Philistines using only an ox goad. 

So it could be a weapon too. Ecclesiastes 12 .11, the words of the wise are like goads and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings. So good things, like a nail firmly hit into what it needs to go. They are given by one shepherd, meaning the words of God pricks the heart of the sinner. Like the sharp end of the goad would prick the ox. And the good shepherd uses the word of God to prick our conscience and drive us to repentance and drive us to Jesus. 

It's what a good shepherd does. It's what all preachers should be doing as well. I will know that we are in a true revival when preachers start preaching on sin. and hell and how you are going there unless you get right with God today. Now some people don't like the ox goad. Frank Turk said today that one of the major reasons why people don't want to become Christian is because it means they'll have to change their life. 

And it was Milton in Paradise Lost. It's describing how Satan fell. It's a beautiful made up story, but it's a beautiful story, poem. And Satan said, it's better to reign in hell than it is to serve in heaven. People really believe that. They'd rather have their life be awful, but at least they're in charge of it. 

At least they're in control. At least I'm the boss of it. even though it's awful by every objective measurement imaginable. But at least I'm the one in charge, rather than be a slave to Jesus. Most people make that choice. So you got Jesus talking to Saul here. 

This is the third mention of goad, sort of. Doesn't use the word, but when an ox is pricked, he doesn't like it. So he'll often kick back at the goad. And this is the translation in the King James Version. Only the King James Version has this exact translation. So here it is. 

So Saul's on the road to Damascus. He's ready to go kill more Christians. Suddenly there shined around him a light from heaven. And he fell to the earth and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecuteth. 

It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. Quoting Johnny Cash. No, no, the other way around, Johnny Cash. Quoting Jesus. Amazing line. It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks. 

What does that mean? If you're an ox and you're going the wrong way. and the farmer pokes you with the sharp end of an ox goat and you get mad and you kick him back, your foot only gets pierced even more and harder than before. You only suffer even more. If you reject God, you will only suffer even more now in this life and for eternity. Jesus told Paul, it is hard for you. 

to kick against the pricks, the sharp end of the goad. Knock it off. Stop your rebellion against God. Stop your rebellion against me. It is foolish for you. It is as foolish for you to do this as it is for an ox to kick the sharp end of the goad. 

Just let Jesus steer your life. He knows he is the way and he knows the right way. Solomon said stern discipline awaits him who leaves the path. It's Proverbs 15, 10. You're going to get the goad. Proverbs 13, 15 says the way of the unfaithful is hard. 

Jesus said it is hard for you, Paul, to kick against the pricks. 

So stop. 

Just surrender. Surrender. Stop making life so much harder for yourself. Again, Milton, in Paradise Lost, Satan said it's better to reign in hell than serve in heaven. No, no, no. It is way better to be a slave to Jesus. 

Because Jesus said, my yoke, you know what ox used to used to wear, you put two ox next to each other, you put a yoke, wood on top of them to keep them together. My yoke is easy. My burden is light. Stop. kicking against pricks. Slater Radio on Twitter and Instagram, mikeslater . 

locals . com is the website where we have commercial, no commercials, commercial free, and the transcript up on the website, mikeslater .

The Christian is called to forgive. The state is called to enact justice. God gives judgment.

Welcome to Politics by Faith. Thanks for being here.  Spent some time on the show today talking about Erika Kirk and her incredible forgiveness of the man who assassinated her husband and that her Christian obligation to do that. But some people are like, well, hold on. How can you like what Erika Kirk did and also what Stephen Miller said when he was up there? Because Stephen Miller's up there talking about the need to go after our enemies. Well, it's very simple. Erika Kirk, as a widow, has a Christian obligation to forgive her husband's assassin. 

Stephen Miller, as a representative of the government, his role, the government's role, God ordained, is to wield the sword of justice to destroy our enemies. Erika Kirk gave grace. The government punishes evil, and God is the ultimate judge for eternity. So there's three aspects here. You have individual forgiveness. You have government justice, and God judgment. 

What Satan did these last few decades is he took the scripture, don't judge. And the leftists have turned that to tell Christians to turn off their radars to evil. Christians had this superpower, this ability to be able to discriminate between good and evil. It's what we did best. And then the left came in and said, no, no, no, no, no, no. You're not allowed to judge. 

Godless heathens came in and said, no, you can't judge God. Only God can judge. People who don't believe in God. said only God can judge. And Christians are like, oh, I guess, okay. And then we just let evil reign around us every day, all day from every single possible place, from every direction. 

We're just like, well, who am I to say, who am I to say what's, I guess we just got to hand our kids over to Satan now. You know, what are we, what are we going to do? Can't judge. I'm not allowed to judge. Christians, we, as individuals, we don't, act out of vengeance. We leave that to God's divinely appointed governments to administer justice. 

And then we leave the judgment to the Lord. There's this really beautiful potential that it's such a wonderfully Christian, amazing thing where you can have a guy murder Charlie Kirk or anyone. Then that murderer becomes a Christian, makes Jesus Lord of his life. Then the government administers the death penalty. That murderer then meets his maker and then goes to heaven. And that is what loving our enemies means. 

We are called to pray that these people do become Christian. That's what loving your enemy means. Two things on this. First, when the Bible says love your enemies, the Bible doesn't say don't have enemies. That's important because that's just turning off your discernment. Second point, when 

loving your enemies isn't just having like these warm fuzzy feelings. That's what the leftists have become because they're all about feelings. It's like, oh, you're supposed to like, like love them like a teddy bear. No, no. It means pray that they become a Christian and pray that they become one before they die. Because once they die, that's it. 

There's no second chance on this one. Loving your enemies means praying that they become saved. That doesn't mean we pardon them. Like that's different. Like forgiveness is the individual action. The government can pardon, they can pardon, but that's not what's going to happen in Charlie Kirk's case for sure. 

There will be justice on earth and then judgment from God. Last point on this, and I want to pivot a bit a little bit. Don't listen to these atheists who tell you that only God can judge, therefore you can't judge, therefore I can do whatever I want. The people, the pagans who are telling you that only God judges, they don't believe in God. Also, they don't believe in heaven and hell, which is why God is judging. Very interesting. 

People pay a lot of attention to what God judges. God is judging. Like, oh, is homosexuality sin? Or is this a sin? Is that a sin? Right? 

People are focused on the what, but the pagans or whoever, they never focus on why God is judging. God is doing the judgment to determine whether or not you go to heaven or hell, but they don't acknowledge that. So why would we listen to those people who then come in and say, oh, you're not allowed to judge? God says. What God? You don't believe in God. 

His verse came up on the show today and I said it was worth a study. So let's do this quickly. Um, Matthew 10, six, Jesus says, behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves, but beware of men for they will deliver you up to councils and scourge you in their synagogues. You will be brought before governors and Kings for my sake as testimony to them and to the Gentiles. That last line is pretty interesting. 

You'll brought before. governors and kings, like your, this is what Charlie Kirk, his evangelical work got the attention of kings and governors. The entire US government was at the Charlie Kirk Memorial, which by the way, probably wasn't very safe. It wasn't like a good idea. You know, when they have a state of the union, they always leave someone pretty high in the government out of that building. Cause everyone's in the building. 

I don't know if they did that for this, but it seemed like everyone was there, but alas, praise God, everyone made it out safe. But what Jesus is telling his disciples here is your sheep, you're going out in the midst of wolves. You're going into a very hostile, dangerous place. So therefore you need to be as wise as serpents and also gentle as doves. I think we get the dove part. We have a lot of focus on the dove part, right? 

We said the other day too much. I think in our church today, it's become too effeminate. Our church has become too focused on the lamb, not enough on the lion, too much on the forgiveness, not enough on the judgment. We get the dove. What about the serpent? What's that about? 

Why would God suggest that we act and tell us that we need to act like a serpent, which by the way, the serpent was the, the, the animal that Satan used to deceive Eve. Like what a weird animal to have chosen. It means to be wise. Don't fall into traps. Avoid the snares that people set up for us. Don't make dumb decisions. 

Don't be self -destructive. Don't pull trouble down on our own heads. There's Charles Spurgeon. and therefore must be gentle. The weapons of Christians are that they are weaponless. They are to be prudent, discreet, wise as serpents, but they are to be loving, peaceful, harmless as doves. 

The Christian missionary will need to be wary to avoid receiving harm, but he must be of a guileless mind that he do no harm. We are called to be martyrs, not maniacs. We are to be simple hearted, but not to be simpletons. I love this definition of shrewd. Shrewd means astute and penetrating. So we're to be as shrewd as a serpent, astute and penetrating. 

Jesus commands us to be the disciples continual mindset for B is in the present imperative, meaning you have to always be this. You have to always be not just one time. It necessitates continuing dependence on the Holy Spirit in order to obey this command. And that is the ultimate point. The best way to be shrewd is not to rely on yourself in your own ways, but to be directed by the Holy Spirit at all times. I got a way to call it the other day. 

It was so great. So it's like, Oh, I've listened for a long time. And I just had this, this Holy Spirit nudge to call in. And then he had a great point. And then I say, man, don't don't let this be the last time you call in. And he was like. 

was so wise. He said, uh, he said, all right, I'll see what the Holy Spirit tells me to do. It was like so natural. 

Just like, Oh yeah. 

I mean, I'll okay. Yeah. I'll see what the Holy Spirit said. I got a ton of emails from people after that. They're like, Oh, that was really cool. That's a really cool moment. 

It's someone who's in tune. This is who we're called to be in the world. Sheep among the wolves. How can you possibly survive it? To be only directed and always joined by the Holy Spirit. MikeSlater . Locals . com is the website. MikeSlater . Locals . com transcript commercial free on the website and Slater Radio on Twitter. Slater Radio on Twitter and Instagram. MikeSlater .

The Charlie Kirk memorial was spectacular. I pray this is the spark of a revival in America. But there's one key aspect of a revival I haven't seen yet. Tucker Carlson touched on it, we'll break it down a bit more here.

Okay, politics by faith. Thanks for being here. Just got off of the show, Sirius XM show, and preparing for tomorrow's show. Was on the Jesse Kelly show. I think we're gonna put that segment here. Just so overwhelmed with how amazing the Charlie Kirk Memorial was the other day. 

Just wanted to stop in here and say a couple words. So excited. My producer sent me a text just a bit ago. He said, we're gonna do a special next week on the TV about something else. And I texted him, I was like, oh, you know, what are we doing this week? And he said, revival. 

I just changed it. He said, love it. He said, I feel so blessed to be a part of this timeline in history. I'm not sure what exactly is happening, but it's happening. I love it. I feel the same way. 

It's so exciting to be talking about was three things that we're going to analyze on, on the show. We'll do it here too. Uh, first the great awakening of 1730. So we've got to study Jonathan Edwards, John Whitefield, and this other guy, Gilbert's tenant. So Jonathan Edwards is more like the main theologian and intellectual of the Great Awakening. Again, 1730, so this is what inspired our founding fathers. 

This is what our founding fathers were born into and grew out of. So Jonathan Edwards was like the big theologian guy. And then Whitefield was a British guy, but he came over to America 13 times. He did seven revival tours across America. His American partner was Gilbert Tennant. He was out of Philadelphia and Whitefield loved Tennant. 

He called him a son of thunder. He heard him give a sermon once and he said he had never before heard such a searching sermon. Searching means convicting. Never before have I heard a sermon so convicting. The sermon is called the Nottingham sermon or the danger of an unconverted ministry. Oh baby. 

It was about spiritually dead ministers. Oh, you better believe we're going to get into that one. Ministers, pastors, preachers who never preached the gospel. I saw the gospel preached more this week, more on Sunday night at this Charlie Kirk Memorial than many churches have ever given ever in its existence. What an amazing time to be alive. So we got to learn about the great awakening. 

And what were they preaching exactly? One famous line from George Whitefield, man is nothing. He hath a free will to go to hell, but none to go to heaven. till God worketh in him. We got to talk about muscular Christianity. What was the muscular Christianity movement of the 1880s? 

That's where the YMCA came from. Moody, Teddy Roosevelt. What was muscular Christianity? That was in response to weak effeminate preachers as well. A weak church, one that focused too much on the lamb, not enough on the lion. Weak, pathetic Jesus. 

Out came muscular Christianity. Let's talk more about that. And then a Proverbs 31 woman. What is that? The greatest rebuke possible. to the woke left feminist, which has controlled way too much of our culture for way too long. 

The greatest rebuke is the Proverbs 31 woman, and they won't know what's coming. They have no clue what's coming for them. What a time to be alive. So excited. On Revival, and we're going to talk more about this on the special later in the week. But Revival for me is not just people saying the name Jesus, although J . 

D. Vann said he's said the name, the word Jesus, the name Jesus more in these last two weeks than he has probably his entire life in public. That's That's great. It's not just that. It's not just going to church. 

It's not just opening the Bible. All that's good. Revival to me is the mass repentance of sin and not of our nation's sin, but of each individual person's sin and not that person's sin, but our sin and my sin. It's my sin. Romans has a whole list of sins in it. Romans one. 

People tend to focus on the homosexuality part of it, but there's a lot. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They're full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness, gossip, slanders, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's righteous decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die. They not only do them, but give approval to those who practice them. That is our nation in a nutshell. 

And that's Romans one verse. And anyone who hears that thinks, oh man, that, that, that's, I wish Nancy heard that. Susie needs to hear that. Oh, if only Susie were listening to this podcast. I'm going to send this to Susie and that way Susie will know how bad she is. And Paul knew that's how everyone's going to interpret it about someone else. 

So the very next section Romans two is I'm not talking about them. I'm talking about you. You need to repent. You need to be saved. You are the problem. And that's Luke 18, nine. 

Luke 18 is the tax collector. When we all start acting like the tax collector. Then and only then will I know we're in a revival. And this is what our founding fathers spoke of. They talked about fasting and prayer and humiliation, humbling themselves. We'll talk more about that. 

later in the week, and a lot more than just now. Tucker Carlson was the only one who I believe spoke to that. I may have missed some others, but Tucker Carlson spoke to this point. It's incredibly important. 

I want to play the whole thing here. 

Ladies and gentlemen, Tucker Carlson. Emotional, made me emotional to see that. Susie Wiles had tears in her eyes, which you don't, you don't often see in politics, but it's real. This is the most unbelievable thing I think I've ever seen. And I don't Whatever happens next in America, I hope it's in this direction, because God is here, and you can feel it. And Charlie would have loved this, not just because he loved large groups of people, but because, ultimately, he was a Christian evangelist. 

And it actually reminds me of my favorite story ever. So it's about 2 ,000 years ago in Jerusalem, and Jesus shows up, and he starts talking about the people in power, and he starts doing the worst thing that you can do, which is telling the truth about people, and they hate it. 

And they just go bonkers. 

They hate it. And they become obsessed with making him stop. This guy's got to stop talking. We've got to shut this guy up. And I can just sort of picture the scene in a lamp -lit room with a bunch of guys sitting around eating hummus, thinking about, what do we do about this guy telling the truth about us? We must make him stop talking. 

And there's always one guy with a bright idea, and I can just hear him say, I've got an idea. Why don't we just kill him? That'll shut him up. That'll fix the problem. It doesn't work that way. It doesn't work that way. 

Everything is inverted, and the Beatitudes tell it, I think, the most crisply. Everything is sort of the opposite of what you think it's going to be. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. That is true, and you can feel it here. The thing about Charlie's message, I've thought a lot about it, and I'm trying not to be emotional because in addition to everything else, He was a wonderful man and a decent man and one of those rare people you meet who you just groove with in conversation and have these very intense conversations that you don't stop thinking about, which is my experience with him. But the main thing about Charlie and his message, he was bringing the gospel to the country. 

He was doing the thing that the people in charge hate most, which is calling for them to repent. So how is Charlie's message different? And Charlie was a political person who was deeply interested in coalition building and in getting the right people in office, because he knew that vast improvements are possible politically. But he also knew that politics is not the final answer. It can't answer the deepest questions, actually. That the only real solution is Jesus. 

And the reason, it's really simple. Politics, at its core, is a process of critiquing other people and getting them to change. Christianity, the gospel message, the message of Jesus, begins with repentance. Christianity calls upon you to change. Core prayer given to us by Jesus, the Lord's prayer, demands that we forgive other people, but preceding that, is a request for our forgiveness. 

In other words, forgive us our sins, meditate on what we've done wrong, how we've fallen short, and then it becomes possible to forgive other people. That is a call to change our hearts from Jesus. And that is the only way forward in this country. That is the only solution to where we all know we're going. And Charlie knew where we were going without that. And that is not a call for being politically passive. 

Of course not. I stood on many stages with Charlie calling for various people to be elected, particularly Donald Trump, and I'm proud of that. It's only an acknowledgment that what Charlie was really saying is that change begins, the only change that matters when we repent of our sins. We, me, a recognition that the real problem is me and how fallen I am. And that was the reason that Charlie was fearless at all times, truly fearless to his last moment. He was unafraid. 

He was not defensive, and there was no hate in his heart. I know that because I've got a little hate compartment in my heart, and I would often express that to Charlie about various people, and he would always say, always say, that's a sad person, that's a broken person, that's a person who needs help, that's a person who needs Jesus. He said that in private because he meant it. So I guess I would just say this gathering and God's presence, God's very obvious presence in this room, the presence of Jesus is a reminder of what we've known for 2 ,000 years. which is any attempt to extinguish the light causes it to burn brighter every single time. So as we as we proceed into whatever comes next, and clearly something's coming next. 

Remember this moment. Remember being in a room with the Holy Spirit humming like a tuning fork. This is the way right here. 

This is the way and that is what Charlie Kirk was saying underneath it all. It is my sin that I need to repent of every single day. Let me quote this from Charles Spurgeon. He said, remember that the man who truly repents is never satisfied with his own repentance. He can no more repent perfectly than he can live perfectly. However pure our tears, there will always be some dirt in them. 

There will be something to be repented of, even in our best repentance. But listen, to repent is to change your mind about sin. And Christ, and all the great things of God, there is sorrow implied in this. But the main point is the turning of the heart from sin to Christ. If there be this turning, you have the essence of true repentance. Once I see, not like I'm the true arbiter of what a revival is, no, but when I see this massive repentance movement, when I see people turning away from and speaking boldly against adultery and gambling and putting foreign objects in their bodies, whatever, say a full hatred, a turning away from and boldly proclaiming against speaking against and the wickedness and evils of these things. 

And not this like half -hearted, like, well, it wasn't good for me anymore, so I decided to turn away. " It's like, no, that's evil. We've totally given up on a discernment of Christians to determine what is and declare what is good and evil. So we're like, oh, well, you know... adultery wasn't right for me. And I would think, no, it is wrong. 

Stop it. And then here are the good things that we need to do instead as Christians. What an amazing moment this is. What an amazing opportunity. Praise God. Let's keep it going. 

Slater or Mike Slater at dotlocals . com.  Mikeslater . locals . com, Slater Radio. And the transcript and commercial free is on the website, mikeslater . locals . com. And then Slater Radio on Twitter and Instagram.