***Kids Warning*** The news says that Perez Hilton had a "self-harm episode" or some euphemism like that. It was much worse than most could imagine. How did this happen? And were there demonic forces at work?

Welcome to Politics by Faith. It's where we take the news of the day and bring it to the Bible so we can walk away with peace and perspective. There's new headlines every day. It can all get very overwhelming. But Ecclesiastes says there's nothing new under the sun. So thanks for being here to get the true story as I can't get this button on my shirt. 

There we go. Story of the day today. Perez Hilton. Kids warning for today's episode. My goodness. I saw this, his name trending on Twitter this morning. 

I didn't click it because whatever. when you find out what happened. His name is Mario Armando Lavandeira Jr. He's now 48 years old. He's one of the first celebrity or online celebrity bloggers. And he himself has become a celebrity over these years. 

Gosh, I don't know what, like 30 years ago. I don't know when he first started his website Perez Hill, but it was the internet first started whenever like blogging first started, right? And again, since then, he's become a bit of a celebrity himself. He's done terrible, awful things in his career. Also very troubled personally. He's a homosexual. 

He has three children born via surrogacy. So three children who will never know their mother and who don't really have a father. He was hospitalized earlier in this year for 21 days, sepsis and some other stuff. And he said there he had a religious awakening. And he said he returned, he was refocusing on his Catholic upbringing. His parents are Cuban. 

And I've seen some videos of his where he talks about God. But these videos are troubling. He says he hears voices and he says this voice is the voice of God, like audibly hears God talk to him. We did a segment the other day on the radio, Breitbart News Daily, Sirius XM, Patriot 125, six to nine in the morning, Monday through Friday. We talk about sin and how people deal with sin differently. 

Sin can manifest itself in many different ways. And I like this framework that sin can manifest internally, verbally, and behaviorally. So it manifests internally as pride and bitterness and envy. It manifests verbally, lying, gossip, manipulation, blame shifting on. And then behaviorally with lust and greed and anger and neglect. And then those all combine and we see it with lots of different self -destructive, ungodly, damaging, actions so and and some make headlines and some don't right so like some will be a school shooter that will school murderer that will make headlines others like compulsive gambling or drinking drugs like that those don't make headlines but they're just as self -destructive and and horrible and life life altering and damaging and ending for many people prezes came out in this horrific self -harm so again kids warning if you missed the first one. 

He was doing this live stream with three other people on TikTok, or at least three of the people were on the screen, like hundreds were watching. And all the people who saw this happen, it speaks to the company he was keeping. because they're watching one of the most horrible things I've ever seen and responding not in kind. It's very weird. You may have read headlines about this, that he's had a mental health episode. That doesn't even begin. 

He takes a knife and he starts to cut all over his chest and his face. He slices all over himself, over and over. The words he says as he does this, he responds orgasmically. He responds as if this is giving him sexual pleasure. He says stuff like, it hurts, but it feels so good. This is what you all wanted. 

He says, I'm a, I'm a blanking parasite loser. And he cuts his whole body over and over, slices himself. And the people who are watching this, they're alarmed, but like, not that alarmed. Like one of the guys starts making jokes about, and I didn't even jokes. It's like, he's just so, this guy's so brain dead that he's with. He's like, hey man, the water is not good where you are. 

You got to stop drinking the water, man. You got to, you got to go, go back to, he just moved to Miami. You got to go back to Vegas and save for water. It's like, oh man, you're so disconnected. You have no idea. Like everyone here is in such a dark place. 

So that's what happened. I think John Nolte got it right. He says Perez Hilton is more proof that fame, plastic surgery, and factory built children can only keep the demons at bay so long. Eventually it's just you. A demon called narcissism that can no longer be satisfied and the inevitability of the abyss. The only answer is humility, surrender, and Christ. 

Without that, it all ends in madness and annihilation. Pray for Perez Hilton. Let's talk about what's broken. There's a lot of sins involved with everything going on. So let's just mention one that I don't think we've ever mentioned here, and it doesn't get a lot of publicity. That's worth talking about. 

It's the one that he was most profited from. That's gossip. Proverbs, it's in the Bible. I'm not making this up. Everything's in the Bible. That's the whole theme of this podcast. 

It's all in the Bible. Proverbs 16, 28, a dishonest man spreads strife. Now, we in our culture, we say, well, if a gay guy does it, then it's catty and fun. No, it's not. And we're also advised, not advised, we're told not to do it. Then we're advised to not hang out with people who do it. 

Proverbs 20, 19 says, whoever goes about slandering reveals secrets. Therefore do not associate with a simple babbler. So don't do it. Don't hang out with people who do it. And check out this one, Proverbs 18, 8. Gossip not only hurts other people, it's bad for you. 

So Proverbs 18, 8 says, the words of a whisperer gossiper, are like delicious morsels. They go down into the inner parts of the body. So hearing gossip, it feels good. It's like a delicious morsel of food, but it poisons your heart and your soul. Gossip is not harmless speech. It is sinful. 

And someone like Perez Hilton, he's not the only one, but people like him, they just live in that world. I mean, a lot of people do consuming it, but the people who make that stuff, man, they're living in a dark place. So let's go to the Bible. I don't know exactly what happened. with Perez, I'm not there, I don't know him, right? But it looks like something that could be demonic. 

Again, there's nothing new under the sun. The priests of Baal were worshiping Baal and cutting them off. with swords. The Bible says they were cutting themselves until their blood gushed all over them, as was their custom. So it wasn't just a one -time thing. We recorded an episode with Doug Wilson. 

We're going to release it this weekend. But before we went on to talk about what we were supposed to talk about, I asked him his thoughts on this. And he didn't really hear about it yet, so I just kind of described it to him quickly. And I just asked him, I was like, could this be demonic? I'm like, what's your instinct on this? You hear about something like this, like, what's your first thought? 

And he said, well, demons hate the people that they're tormenting. He was referring to like the cutting part, that demons hate the people they're tormenting, which I never thought of, but of course it's true. And also that's where you get, you know, when Perez said stuff like, I'm a parasite loser, stuff like that. I asked him about Perez saying he's, you know, returning to his Catholic roots or whatever. And Doug had a great line. He said, desperate people often flail. 

People who are spiritually desperate, they flail about and they can flail in any number of directions. And sometimes they may end up in the right place. Sometimes, but most of the time they end up in a very dark place. And that's clearly was where he was. But demons know the Bible. They know God's word. 

They know how to lie. Satan himself, of course, quoting scripture to Jesus. How about this verse right here? Let's focus on this one today. Let's land here. First Timothy 4 .1. 

Now the spirit expressly says that in later times, some will depart from the faith. by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teaching of demons. Through the incessarity of liars, whose consciences are seared. Deceiving spirits. These are demons who rebelled against God. 

And their goal is to keep men and women away from the truth, away from God's word. And one way to do it is to trick them into believing that the person, the patient, in C . S. Lewis' words, does know God and that they're hearing God's voice now even. And how do people do that? fall for this, how are they deceived by this? 

Because their consciences are seared. It's easy to talk about Perez and point fingers, but this is the point in the podcast where we usually move away from the initial topic that's in the news and we end up talking about you and me, each of us. I don't know if you noticed, but that's what we do. We start with a person where it's easy to be like, oh, look at that failed, broken thing. And that's the turn. So we tell the story and then we'd say, oh, this is what's broken. 

And that's where we turn into us because we gossip too. He may be the guy who starts the gossip or whatever, spreads the gossip. But so do we, when we listen to it and we hear it and we spread it, right? So we're engaged in it with all this brokenness too. He was not the only one who's deceived by demonic forces. So anyway, this is the point where we turned us on. 

I'm going to move away from Perez because it's not about him. We all are at risk. We all have consciences or parts of our conscience that are seared. We have deceiving spirits that tell us what we want to hear, but they lie. But when they tell us these lies, We have trouble hearing the truth because our consciences are seared. It's an amazing concept. 

We don't feel the convictions that we should. The Holy Spirit is telling us. because we're so far from the truth and so far from God's word. I pray that we can all have the sensitivity that we need to hear the truth. We need sensitivity in our consciousness, in our conscience. It's hard to say. 

We need sensitivity so that when we're told lies, we can tell their lies, and then we need to be in God's word so we can respond to the lies with the ultimate truth, which is God's word. This is how God speaks to us. God speaks to us in his word. Believing isn't enough to guard yourself from lies. James 2 .19 says even the demons believe and shudder. Our solution is to get in the word every single day. 

Avoid gossip, get out of the gossip business, get in the word, the truth. YouTube . com slash at politics by faith. If you listen to this podcast, wherever you listen, thank you. If you could just subscribe to our YouTube page too, that'd be awesome. YouTube . com slash at politics by faith.

The scenes coming out of Spain looked like something out of the movie World War Z. But how quickly we've forgotten, it's not that different from what happened across our border under Biden for 4 years. What exactly happened in Spain, and what does the Bible say about betrayal from a nation's leaders?

Politics by Faith. It's where we take the news of the day, we bring it to the Bible so we can walk away with peace and perspective. New headlines every day, but Ecclesiastes says there's nothing new under the sun, so thanks for being here to get the true story, the story of the day today, a migrant invasion of Spain, and therefore, all of Europe. Before I share that though, let me share a smaller example, a story of an Algerian man in Spain, so we have an Algerian man in Spain who beat a Spanish man into a coma. This Algerian man has been arrested 18 times since 2020. Eight. 

I grew up thinking that if you get arrested, that's it. That's it for you. You're done. Your life is ruined. This Algerian guy has been arrested 18 times since 2020 and is fine. No problems at all. 

Back on the streets. Now, this latest attack is on video and he's just stomping this guy's head over and over on the sidewalk. Now, this is a story of one African man beating to near death a Spanish man. The story I want to talk about today is tens of thousands of Africans beating to death's door, all of Spain. I'm sure by now you've seen video of what's been happening in Morocco. It's a Morocco, Northern Africa, right? 

The Strait of Gibraltar is right there to get across to Spain. And I first saw these, these videos and I, I didn't, I thought these were Africans invading into Spain. As I said, that's a long boat ride. So the narrowest part of the straight is eight miles. And. I'm thinking like that's still like it's pretty busy waterway. 

I can't imagine getting on a dinghy and making the, but here's what really happened in Spain. There are now I know of two little sections of Morocco that are little slivers in Morocco on the edge of the Morocco and the Mediterranean. Sea that are controlled by Spain. So you have these little Spanish enclaves is the word I keep hearing here. There's little Spanish, little slivers that is technically Spanish territory in Morocco. And one of those cities, Ceuta, C -U -E -T -A, Ceuta, has these walls. 

And the Africans have, I'll tell you how in a second, gotten around the walls. and they know how to do it now. And last count, I heard 50 ,000 men did it. Now here's why. There's two reasons. First, there was a Supreme Court case in Spain that said the military, the police, they are allowed to stop an African coming across the border illegally. 

If they're coming through or over under the fence, then they can be repelled back. But if a migrant comes by sea, the Supreme Court said, you're not allowed to turn them around. So what do these Africans do? They swam around the wall. They, they hopped in the ocean, like walking on the sand, hopping the ocean in Morocco, swim a couple of yards out a couple of yards over. And then a couple of yards back in voila, we arrived by sea. 

Now we're in Spain. It's not unlike our border that we have with Mexico. When it goes to Tijuana, it gets to Tijuana and it just ends right in the water. And that's it. Now. Now, well, San Diego's got a couple problems. 

First, Tijuana, they dump their raw sewage right in the ocean there, so you really, really wouldn't want to swim in that water. You'll get sick, very sick. But you could just swim right across. Now, in America, we'll still send you back, at least now with this administration. But in Spain, they said, oh, nope, can't send them back if they do this. Isn't that amazing? 

So somehow, these migrants all found a ton of pool floaties. Some NGO or someone paid for all these pool floaties on Amazon. and a couple of these larger dinghies as well. And some people just swimming around the wall and then they land in Spain and now they're home free. They can take a ferry across to Spain proper. They can get on a flight. 

And then once they get to Spain, there's something called the Schengen zone or something like that, where it's this agreement with I think 29 European countries that you don't need a passport to go between countries. So once you get on Spain proper, you're whatever, you can go wherever you want. That's it. You're all over Europe. So that happened this weekend, or Friday. Then on top of the Supreme Court decision, you have amnesty. 

So Spain has a communist prime minister. He's from the Spanish Socialist Workers Party. We'll talk more about them in a minute. They're just like our DSA, right? They're just like Mamdani. This is a Reuters article from last month that says 600 ,000 of the 1 .2 million migrants in Spain who applied for legal status in its most recent amnesty drive have obtained temporary work permits. 

This is a one year renewable residence permit to undocumented migrants who have lived in Spain for at least five months and have no criminal record. Okay. So you have an amnesty drive and you got a Supreme court decision that says, if you come by sea, then you're good to go. That's all it takes. So I saw these videos. I don't know if you had the same reaction I did, but it looks, they didn't look AI. 

They looked fake. but not like, I don't say it really looked unreal. They didn't look fake. They didn't, they looked unreal. Is that, is that different? Uh, it almost looked like, like a movie. 

Like I've never seen the movie, but I've seen the trailer of world war Z. I just remember a scene in the trailer where hordes of people are trying to climb over a wall or something. And that's, and I got, there's 50 ,000 of these people as Africans in this small city and where they all go into the bathroom. For instance, there's hordes of people. And my other thought was that this looks worse than it was during the Biden years, but it's not worse. It's just more concentrated. It's more concentrated and more foreign looking, just the terrain and everything looks more foreign. 

But there's similar images of this all across America when Biden was president. And then you still see pictures, or maybe not anymore, but there were videos in Southern California where 20 illegals would be on a boat. and the boat would just zoom right into the beach, right onto the sand. There's families and sunbathers on the beach and all these illegals would hop out and run on the beach and just run into the town, just run into La Jolla. They're gone. Amazing. 

So we've seen the same thing happen in America under the last four years of Biden. And now in Spain, they're seeing the same thing. All men, all 18 to 30 years old, not a woman or child in sight. Total betrayal of their people. Actually, we'll get to that in just a minute. So Spain is 50 million people. 

In 1960, there were 210 ,000 immigrants. Fine. In 1995, there were a million. In 2010, there were 6 million. Today, they're approaching 10 million. So pretty soon, foreigners, mostly Africans, people from the Middle East, Muslims, are going to be in the majority, or at least plurality. 

And when you get the plurality of foreigners, along with useful idiots, that's it. It's over. The country's over. This is, if I may, I wish it never happened for the sake of Spain and Europe and just decency. But the silver lining is that Trump is going to use this in the midterm conventions to highlight what was happening in America under Biden. Let's remind everybody what was happening, what the president saved us from by shutting down the border, and what will happen the second the 

these DSA Democrats take power again. Stephen Miller said on Twitter, the Democrats did this to America every single day for four years under Biden and will do it again instantaneously, but orders of magnitude greater if they're given any form of national power. Democrats, this is Stephen Miller, Democrats will see your home trampled and stolen by invaders and they will rejoice. So this is terrible for Spain and Europe, but they may be a lost cause at this point. I don't know if this point hits with you like it does for me, but think about Middle East, a country in the Middle East. Name any country in the Middle East, first one that comes to mind. 

That country you thought of probably used to be a Christian country. Name a Middle Eastern country, it used to be a Christian country. One day, now if you talk to somebody today and you're like, oh, what religion is Egypt? They'll say, oh, Muslim. Well, it didn't used to be. One day, like a generation or so, it'll be the same conversation with England. 

you talk to a younger person in, in let's say 20 years and you say, Oh, name a name, a Middle Eastern country. They're like, Oh, England. Like, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. That didn't used to be. Didn't used to be a middle. It didn't used to be a Muslim country. 

It used to be a Christian one, but that's the direction that they're heading in. And the DSA candidates here in America would, I mean, they actively talk about how they don't want any borders. So they certainly would bring it. here, and they would do it with glee. All right, so what's broken in this story? Every time there's a story like this, I'm not going to do Romans 13, where the Bible says of our government, rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. 

Would you have no fear of the one who's in authority? Then do what is good and you will receive his approval. For he, the government, is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God and avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. The sword is the state's power to enforce the law. 

And of course the law should be in line with God's will and based on the best ordering of a society. God is a God of order, not a God of chaos. And our communities and our country should reflect God's order. But I want to talk about legal authority in this podcast today. I want to focus on a word I said a moment ago. betrayal. 

What happens when a government betrays its people? That was a feeling I got when I was watching these videos. I was like, oh, what an utter betrayal. Now, I don't know if that's true because I don't know Spain. So that's a question. Is the government of Spain betraying the people of Spain? 

Now, one thing to know about Spain is the prime minister, again, from the Spanish Socialist Workers Party. So it's easy to say, oh, well, the majority of people, they voted for that guy. They voted for that prime minister. So the Spanish people want open borders and they got what they voted for good and hard. But the truth is Spain is a parliamentary system. So in their lower house, um, so you vote for like their lower house, whatever. 

And then those people vote for the prime minister. But what happens in these parliamentary systems with tons of different parties is you vote for who you like, who's in a different party. And then the parties joined together to form like these mega parties or whatever. So the biggest political party, This party that has the most seats in the lower house in Spain, it's called the PP party, the People's Party, which is the closest to the Republican Party in America. It's hard to compare parties in Europe with America, but the PP in Spain is a right of center party. Again, that's all relative too, but they have 137 seats in their lower house. 

The Socialist Party, which this prime minister is a member of, only has 121 seats. so fewer. But they joined forces with this thing called the Sumar Party, which is like the green environmentalist feminist people, and there's 31 of them. So they joined together. They therefore have a majority. They're the ones who picked this prime minister. 

So the Plurality Party is a conservative party that doesn't like what's happening. So did this prime minister betray the people? Maybe. It's hard to say in a parliamentary system like that. I remember hearing my whole life that people are like, Oh, I'm against the two party system. It's way better than the parliamentary system. 

So it's hard to say again, if this is a betrayal of the Spanish people, but for sure, it's a betrayal of the nation of Spain. The people of Spain may want it. I don't know. Sort of like the people of New York city voted for Mondani, right? But who are these people? All right. 

It's really just the foreigners who voted for Mondani. The New Yorkers voted for Cuomo. The foreigners voted for Mondani. So is it something that Mondani does a betrayal of the people? I don't even know what the people are at this point, right? But Mondani could do something that's a betrayal of New York city and a betrayal of American values and same thing with Spain. 

So what happens when a government betrays the nation? I think the Bible speaks to this. Two points. First, the idea of nations. Paul's in Athens, so this is where he's talking to the people of Athens about their temple to the unknown God. So the Greeks, they're thinking that if we forgot about a particular God, we have all these gods, but if we forgot one, then we have this tomb to this catch -all, it's a catch -all tomb or a catch -all temple. 

to make sure if we've missed one, we know that we still got him covered and we're still worshiping to him too. And Paul saw this and he said in Acts 17, 23, he said, this, I proclaim to you, the God who made the world and everything in it. being Lord of heaven and earth does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything to see himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man, every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place that they should seek God and perhaps feel their way towards him and find him. So Paul saying, God made all of us. He made all the nations. 

He made all their boundaries. He made all their dwelling places. He made all their times. The word nations, the Greek word ethnos, ethnos, right? So it's where we get like ethnicity. That's all right. 

So the idea, the original idea is just a word for a multitude of people living together. So it could mean a tribe, a nation, a people group, whatever. It's the same word in Greek in Matthew 28, 19, therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. So it may not be the modern nation state that we have today, but it's still the idea of peoples with boundaries. That's all throughout the Bible. So nations are a biblical concept. 

We don't need to get rid of nation states, but can the leaders of a nation betray the nation? That's the main topic I want to discuss. I think Isaiah one speaks to this. So Isaiah is speaking on God's behalf to the leaders of Jerusalem and Judah. And it's not a good, well, it's a good message. It's not good news for them. 

Well, it's good news, I guess, if they listen. It's not a heartening message at first. That's a fair way. So these people are the rebelling against God and God's judgment is going to come on them in the form of foreign invasion, foreign invasion from Assyria and Babylon. The idea is that God can bring judgment on a nation by using foreign nations. God can use foreign nations to inflict his judgment on Israel. 

Do I need to say it a different way? We get it, right? Do you get it? And George Washington, he wrote about this. All of our founding fathers did. They wrote about, our blessings from America are here because we're a virtuous people and we need to keep being virtuous if we want to continue to see God's blessings. 

His 1789 Thanksgiving address, George Washington said, whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits and to humbly implore his protection and favor. " And then later he says, "...that we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks for his kind care and protection to the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation. " The acknowledgement here is that God is involved in the affairs of people and nations. So the idea of nations are in the Bible, the idea of peoples and nations, the idea that God is involved in the affairs of people and nations. internally and then by also extension externally, even in the form of judgment against a people by using external nations to attack them. And Isaiah 1 right out of the gate, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly. 

They have forsaken the Lord. But I guess it's like the extremist take today that Maybe not extremists, it's like the weirdo take or something, like the radical. That's not really radical to go. It's a radical take with that when bad things happen to our country. First of all, it's the result of sin, like for sure, but also maybe God's judgment. Isaiah 1 -7 says, your country lies desolate. 

Your cities are burned with fire. In your very presence, foreigners devour your land. It is desolate, as overthrown by foreigners. That's what it says. Now check out this one, verse 27. Good news for some. 

Zion shall be redeemed by justice and those in her who repent, who repent by righteousness, but rebels and sinners shall be broken together and those who forsake the Lord shall be consumed. Proverbs 29 .4 says, by justice, a king builds up the land, but he who exacts gifts tears it down. When the righteous increase, the people rejoice, but when the wicked rule, the people groan. When the wicked rule. I hope leaders around the world hear the people groaning. And I pray we, and then repent. 

And I pray we never forget the betrayal that we experienced from our leaders not too long ago. There are still choices to be made coming up here soon. And we and our leaders should listen to God's law and know that God is a God of order, not of chaos. YouTube . com slash at politics by faith. We're almost at 10 ,000 followers. 

If you listen to this podcast, thank you for listening. But if you could subscribe to our YouTube, that'd be great too. YouTube . com slash at politics by faith. Spread the word.

A 16-year-old lifeguard saved the life of a 10-year-old boy in California. It's a beautiful sight. We should honor the lifeguard's bravery and skill. We should also be in awe at the power of God's creation. The bible speaks a lot about the ocean and waves. Why does God use this metaphor?

Welcome to Politics by Faith. This is where we take the news of the day, then we bring it to the Bible so we can walk away with peace and perspective. New headlines every day. Ecclesiastes says there's nothing new under the sun. So thanks for being here to get the true story, the story of the day. Can we just do a nice one for once, please? 

Do we always have to take a terrible story and then work to make it hopeful? Can we just start with a nice one for once? Sorry, I just prepped like two hours. We just did a whole show on COVID and that got me ticked off. And then we did, uh, I just prepped for tomorrow's show on radio about this straight up crazy invasion of tens of thousands of Africans into Spain. Like what the heck? 

Uh, and it's the end of the week. And I just kind of feel like doing a hopeful one. Is that cool? A 16 year old in Santa Cruz, California, Northern California, South of San Francisco, a lifeguard, 16 year old lifeguard saw a 10 year old boy swept out by the waves. 16 years old. I was a lifeguard. 

Let me say it like this. I was a lifeguard when I was 16. A lot like this young man, except I did it at a pool. I was at a pool. I can't even believe we let 16 year olds be lifeguards at a beach, at a serious beach, like Northern California. That is tough work. 

That is man work. You got to be strong. I swam in college. And when I moved to San Diego, people asked me to go surfing. I was like, no problem. Surfing? 

I could definitely surf. I've never surfed in my life. Like, oh, it's so hard about that. Piece of cake. Getting out there? No problem. 

I'm an amazing swimmer. I will never forget it. I got smashed nonstop. Couldn't do anything. Couldn't, I couldn't get out there. I'm not even talking about like, Oh, I had trouble getting up. 

I couldn't get to where you were. You're supposed to go to sit on the board to wait for the wave to come. I couldn't even, it was awful. It was so incredibly humbling. I was just wrecked. could not get past the waves. 

How is this possible? And eventually you figure out, but you figure it out, but you don't get there by fighting it. You can't fight against the waves. You can't, you can't do as possible. You'll never win. You'll never win. 

The ocean is so powerful when you're 10. I'm guessing this boy wasn't swimming in the ocean. I'm guessing he was just like playing in the water, like up to his ankles or something. And then a wave comes in and sweeps him out. I'm guessing that's what happened. Cause the ocean is ferocious, but this lifeguard saw it and he ran out to get him two kids, two kids. 

10 year old boy and a 16 year old boy. Gosh, my oldest is nine. I think we could be strong enough to be a lifeguard like this one day. My goodness. And there's video of it. Someone took a video of it and the waves, they kept coming from, it seems like every direction. 

There's a couple of things that stand out from the video. First, they keep coming. You can't tell us from the video, but it's 58 degrees. Water's 58 degrees out there. So it's cold enough. It's gonna take your breath. 

That's hard enough. And then it just smashing you nonstop. But here's what I love about this lifeguard. One wave in particular was coming to get him. He grabs the boy and he leans into the wave. That's a move from someone who knows what he's doing. 

That's skill. That's excellent. I love it. seeing people who know what they're doing, who are excellent at what they're doing, who are skilled. I love seeing people who are skilled in their craft. Excellence is a virtue that we need more of. 

And the only way to get more of it is to admire it and celebrate it when we see it. It needs to be praised. And people need to have this extra desire. The praise we give on excellence is fuel for everyone to try to be more excellent. So when you see excellence like this and you're like, Oh wow, look what he did there. He, he grabbed the boy and lean into the wave so that he could pop up instead of just getting smashed by it. 

It's awesome. Another thing that stands out is at one point in the rescue, um, some guys who were on the beach try to come out and help the lifeguard. They can't swim that well. It looks, they can't beat the waves. They don't know what they're doing. Like the lifeguard does. 

So the waves start kind of hitting them about and the lifeguard, I think, I think this is what I'm seeing. The lifeguard sees that these guys could drown him. And it looks like the lifeguard, he like does something like this and it looks like he's calling them off. It looks like he's telling them to back off. You gotta be very careful when you're a lifeguard. That's why they have that buoy. 

That's why they have the red flotation buoy thing. When you go out to rescue someone and they're thrashing about, you can't just go grab them because if they're thrashing, they'll drown you. So you keep your distance and you push your buoy to them so they can grab the buoy and then you can pull them in. If I remember my lifeguarding training from 30 years ago. But again, that speaks to the excellence and well -trained skill. Sorry, the story just popped in my head. 

This one's sad. I'm supposed to be happy. I forget where this was. I want to say Texas, but that may not be right. A whole family of people drowned. I don't exactly know who the family members was, but it was like a boy and then four adults. 

And they drowned trying to rescue the boy. They were all fishing in the river. The river took the boy away. They all tried to rescue the boy. And I think the police knew the situation because there was maybe a little boy who went up to the street. I can't even finish the story. 

to see this 16 -year -old risk his life to save this other boy. Spectacular. Pulls the boy ashore with the sounds of terrified and sobbing women on the beach. The guy who recorded the video said, I've never seen a rescue this intense before. So when I saw it unfolding, I just didn't know how it was going to turn out. I mean, people watching, everyone thought the boy was going to drown and maybe even the lifeguard was going to drown. 

The lifeguard's mom told the media, I'm blown away by the love kindness, gratitude, and respect you're sending his way. A few people have asked about a GoFundMe, but honestly, he was just doing the job. He was just doing the job that he absolutely loves. He could start a GoFundMe and probably make 50K, maybe more. But the parents are like, nope, doing his job, doing what he loves. This is the point of the podcast when we usually talk about something that's broken or like what the broken aspect of the story is, what the sin is in the story. 

It's called the fallen conditioned focus. Like what's the broken here? Broken part? Nothing. There's nothing broken about the story. It's wonderful all around. 

Maybe we'll find out his family are Christians or Trump supporters and the media will destroy them. I hope not. But I will say he was invited to the White House for a proper honoring. I look forward to that. They also talked about maybe the boy coming along as well. That would be a really nice thing. 

And I'm very much in favor of heroes being honored. I think it should be a regular occurrence and the White House should lead the way. It should almost be like a TV show. It should be like an expected TV show, like this month's heroes or this week's heroes. Just show Americans doing great things. That's how important it is that we lift up these virtues and that we can be reminded of who we are, and we lift these people up. 

This is who we aspire to be, all of us, each in our own way. Let's go to the Bible. First point of the Bible, the power of God, and we see it through nature. God, the creator of the universe, the precision of nature from the tiniest nanoparticles to the massive scope of the universe, all of it speaks to God's power. Last week in church, in the class before church, the preacher asked for adjectives to describe God. And everyone shouted out really wonderful adjectives. 

How would you do it? How would you, what word would you use to describe God? I was thinking, and the one that stood out to me was powerful. I think of God as powerful. We don't enough. I don't know. 

Do you think of God as powerful? We don't, we don't think about that enough on a regular basis. Heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his glory. Psalm 19 .1. And it's also looking forward to Jesus. Hebrews 1 .3 says he is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. 

And he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. As amazing as God's creation is, God is more amazing. He obviously created. Jesus is more amazing. And there's so much in the Psalms about nature. 

The heavens declare the glory of God. Active, tense. These heavens, they continue to proclaim every day how incredible God is. We should be in awe constantly of the stars, the sun, clouds, moon. We should be all of creation every day, constantly in awe. It's a great thing to do with your kids is to teach them to be in awe. 

And the way to teach them to be in awe is to be in awe. And not just have a nice sunset, although it's a great thing, but everything, flower, look at that cloud, wow, thunderstorms, whatever, any nature thing you're a part of, speak to the aweness of it. Like, whoa, this is huge, this is amazing, this is powerful, God is powerful. Someone gave me that advice when Jack was born. So I wanna pass it on to you. your kids or your grandkids. 

Psalm 104 31. May the glory of the Lord endure forever. May the Lord rejoice in his works. Who looks on the earth and it trembles. Who touches the mountains and they smoke. Earthquakes and volcanoes. 

I will sing to the Lord as long as I live. Isn't that great? But God's more powerful. He just has to look or touch. That's That's it. 

Boom. Check out this conclusion from David, Psalm 83. When I consider your heaven, heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind? That you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them. Oh my gosh, this powerful, all powerful creator. And he cares about us? 

You have made them man a little lower than the angels and crown them with glory and honor. God is powerful and he loves us. A lot of these verses I just shared have to do with like the cosmos and that's great too, but the oceans, he talks about the oceans. Psalm 89 .9, you rule the raging sea. When its waves rise, you still them. God's in charge of all of it. 

Job 38 .8, oh my goodness, all the Job quotes about creation. God sets boundaries for the sea and says, When the waves must start and stop, he's in control of all of it. Psalm 146 .6, God is the maker of heaven and earth, the sea and everything in them. Amos 9 .6, the Lord summons the waters of the sea and pours them out on the earth. God is in control of all of it. So when we see the ocean, we hear the ocean, we feel it. 

We should be in awe at the power of God. I was humbled. Sorry, just even just saying the word feel the ocean. I can't remember my first surfing expedition. And I guess, boy, was I humbled. I didn't know at the time to think, man, God is great. 

I should have. This is the God that we love and that we serve. I prefer to be on his team. But I also want to comment the final point here on the metaphor. of a common Christian metaphor of when we're in trouble. Well, there's two, actually. 

There's difficult and deceit. Let's do the deceit. We don't want to be deceived, right? And the Bible says we don't want to be deceived. We can no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful scheming. Rather, speak in the truth in love. 

We are to grow up in every way into Him who is the head into Christ. I can't be deceived, tossed to and fro. I don't even know what I think, what's going on, where am I? Let's read the Bible. That's your rock. How many people in life feel like that? 

Every day they live like that, just tossed around by deceit and the devil schemes. We are, I don't want to say we're a lifeguard. Jesus is the ultimate lifeguard, if you will, but you know what I mean, right? We can help rescue people from the chaos, just like that lifeguard in California. And the ocean metaphor that's often made too is when life is difficult, right? Psalm 46 one says, God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. 

Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling. Jesus calmed the storm. Of course, the sea became still. Peter sank in the waves, but Jesus reached out and saved him. Psalm 93 ,4, mightier than the thunders of many waters, mightier than the waves of the sea, the Lord on high is mighty. Isn't it incredible how much, how much is in the Bible about waves and water? 

This isn't everything, of course, just shared a couple here. And of course I'll end here. We are called to build our house on the rock. Matthew 7, 24, Jesus says, everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them, or if I may add, hears these scriptures The psalm about God and the ocean and his power and doesn't care or isn't in awe. 

Foolish man who builds his house, who builds his life on the sand. And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat against that house and it fell and great was the fall of it. So three points on today's episode. First, let's celebrate heroism and virtue and excellence. Let's be in awe of the waves and let's build our house on the rock. youtube . 

com slash at politics by faith. If you listen to the podcast, thanks for listening. You can also subscribe and watch on our YouTube page. If you don't watch it, if you could subscribe, that still be helpful so we can get the message out there to as many people as possible. YouTube . com slash at politics by faith. 

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