We give a humble tribute to 13 service members who we add to the list of Americans who gave their lives fighting for this country. We also go over Rudyard Kipling's poem "Recessional" on this Memorial Day.
Welcome to Politics by Faith, our Memorial Day edition today. This is where we take the news of the day and we bring it to the Bible so we can walk away with peace and perspective. There's new headlines every day, but Ecclesiastes says there's nothing to do under the sun. So thanks for being here to get the true story, story of the day today, Memorial Day and peace deals. Just getting news last day or so about a new Iran peace deal possibility. I don't know the details.
No one does. A lot of commenting on things that no people have seen. And there's been a lot of these deals, a lot of back and forths. We've seen this a bunch already. I'm kind of, you know, wake me when it's over. Like, let me know when we really have a deal and everyone signed a deal and all that stuff.
As it relates to Memorial Day, I haven't really heard anyone talk about the Americans who have died in this effort. 13 Americans have died. Six in Kuwait when an Iranian drone strike hit one of our ports, our bases, command center. One in Iraq, there was an attack in Iraq, six crew members died. This was a military refueling aircraft crashed. And then Saudi Arabia, a service member was killed on an attack on our air base there.
Let me read their names here. Captain Cody Cork from Winter Haven, Florida. Sergeant First Class Noah Tietjens from Bellevue, Nebraska. Sergeant First Class Nicole Amore from White Bear Lake, Minnesota. Sergeant Declan Cody from West Des Moines, Iowa. Major Jeffrey O 'Brien from Waukee, Iowa.
Chief Foreign Officer Robert Marzan from Sacramento, California. Sergeant Benjamin Pennington from Glendale, Kentucky. Major John Klinner from Auburn, Alabama. A lot of people who are against this Iran war effort, and I get it, talk a lot about the money, how much it's costing, and that's a concern, of course. This has also cost 13 lives and we should know that. Now, I believe a noble effort, what we've done in Iran here last, however long it's been, a couple of months.
We can't let Iran have nuclear weapons. Donald Trump has been talking about this since like the eighties. He talked about Iran not having a nuclear weapon on the escalator speech. When he first announced in 2015, coming down Trump tower, the escalator, he talked about how we can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon. So this isn't like some shocker, like, oh wow, Trump hates Iran. Like he doesn't want, like, no.
We've known this forever. I'm for this effort to stop them from having him and to stop them from being a thorn in our side. Our national security strategy, the document talks about not having the Middle East be the center of our universe anymore of our national security concerns. Like why are we so focused on the Middle East all the time? And Iran is one major reason. There's two parts.
in particular, that I want to read here from the Middle East section of, it's like a 30 page document, the National Security Strategy. And part of the document says, for half a century, American foreign policy has prioritized the Middle East above all other regions. And that's because the Middle East for decades has been the world's most important supplier of energy. There was a prime, like superpower competition going on, and that was ready to smash. into the wider world and even into America. Now, the fact that we are now the global oil superpower, taking a lot of energy, or literally a lot of focus away from the Middle East, that's been great.
Second reference in this National Security Strategy says, we want to prevent an adversarial power from dominating the Middle East, its oil and gas supplies, and the choke points through which they pass. while avoiding the forever wars that bogged us down in the region at great cost. Donald Trump does not want a forever war. And he, the point of this is so that they don't control these choke points. Now they have for these last couple of weeks, but the point is long -term, we don't want that. And we've talked before, we don't have to do it all here.
I don't want to get too off base for Memorial Day, but this administration has locked down every other choke point around the world that exists to protect America and the free world. Let's get a peace deal so we can open up that straight. I'd prefer if the Iranian regime was done for once and for all. I don't know if that will happen in the near term. It doesn't look like it so far. The Iranian people never rose up.
They didn't know that. I don't blame them. I'm not like, wow, it's their fault. I'm not, I'm not blaming them. Right. The regime killed 35 ,000 of their Patriots just a couple of weeks before this whole thing started.
I'm currently reading Gulag Archipelago and the whole opening couple of chapters are all about how the government just picks. people up off the street, anyone and everyone for even having a hint of being against the regime and how everyone's spying on their neighbors. And the littlest thing you could do against the government, they'll come and they'll grab you and they'll sweep you up and give you 10 years. And that's it. No matter who you were, what you were doing, it doesn't matter. And that Gulag Archipelago scenario, it's not far off from the reality in Iran.
It's really easy for us in America to be like, well, just rise up. Like we did 250 years ago. Like that's it. Um, they also don't have guns, so kind of hard for them to rise up. I'm also for this Iran war. And again, the last thing I'll comment on Iran really big picture is, um, hurting Iran hurts China, which is the main goal period in foreign policy was.
So what's broken about this situation and Iran and Memorial Day war war is awful. And it's the inevitable reality living in a fallen world. C . S. Lewis wrote an essay, it was actually a sermon, 1939, called Learning in Wartime. And he was talking to these students, and he said, he was answering the question, because people were asking, like, how can we be studying?
How can we be sitting here learning, going to school, going to college, when there's a war going on, right? People felt, there's a lot of people even today and then, like very urgent, people are on the edge. And I love what C . S. Lewis said, he said, this war, and let me read the quote. He said, this war, creates no absolutely new situation.
It simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it. But human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice. If men had postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure, the search for knowledge and beauty would never have begun. We are mistaken when we compare war with normal life. Life has never been normal. Even those periods which we think most tranquil, like the 19th century, turn out on closer inspection to be full of crises, alarms, difficulties, and emergencies.
Plausible reasons have never been lacking for putting off all merely cultural activities until some imminent danger has been averted or some crying injustice put right. But humanity long ago chose to neglect those plausible reasons. They wanted knowledge and beauty now and would not wait for the suitable moment that never comes. There's a lot of this today. We expect the world to be perfect.
We expect everything to be normal. We expect things to be safe and secure. And when they're not, We're all like, ah, what are we going to do? The world's coming to an end. I don't know if I can do it. I can't even.
It's like, no, no, it's always been like this. This is the, this is the normal. So what are you gonna do? Wait around until what? Until when? And war is normal.
It's awful. And it won't stop until we're in heaven. This is the point of the podcast when we usually go over to the Bible. And I, I sort of want to do that today, but, um, I want to do it via a poem on this Memorial Day. On the radio show the other day, we read an easier poem, Henry. Henry Wordsworth, Henry, was Henry Wordsworth, was it Longfellow?
I think it was Longfellow. His Decoration Day. Let me make sure I get that right. Wordsworth, I wish I'd tell you the right poem to read. Yeah, yeah. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Decoration Day.
Yeah. But I want to read a different one here today. Well, the Longfellow one's so great. Your Silent Tense of Green, talking to the, people who have died in service. Your silent tents of green we deck with with fragrant flowers. Yours.
the suffering been. The memory shall be ours. " That's the last line of that poem. It's great. But I want to start here or end here instead with Kipling's recessional. He wrote, God of our fathers, which is Exodus 3 .15. God also said to Moses, say this to the people of Israel. The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob has sent me to you. So The God of your fathers, this is my name forever. Lord of our far -flung battle line, British Empire, big empire, far away, distant, all God ordained, right? So Lord of our far -flung battle line, beneath whose awful hand We hold dominion over palm and pine. Awful here means like awesome, awe -inspiring. So it's beneath your God, your awesome hand that we hold dominion, control over palm and pine, meaning different climates around the world. Lord God of hosts, be with us yet, lest we forget, lest we forget. The whole point of this poem is do not forget everyone that God is the source of all good things. God is the source of all of our prosperity. The tumult and the shouting dies. The shouting of victory too. The tumult of war, but it all passes. The captains and the kings depart. They die as time goes on, but still stands thine ancient sacrifice. So God, you remain. and humble and a contrite heart." That's Psalm 51 17. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. Oh God, you will not despise.
Lord God of hosts, be with us yet, lest we forget, lest we forget. Far called, our navies melt away, on dune and headland sinks the fire. So again, as time goes on, things will disappear. All the things that we think are so important. Lo, all our pomp of yesterday is one with Nineveh and Tyre.
All the celebrations that we have of our great victories, it's all going to go the same way of Nineveh. which doesn't exist anymore, and also places of judgment from God. Judge of the nations, spare us yet, lest we forget, lest we forget. If drunk with sight of power, we loose wild tongues that have not thee in awe. I think that's my favorite line of this poem. If drunk with sight of power, we loose wild tongues that have not you in awe.
So if we get drunk with power, If we let loose people, leaders, who don't understand that you are, again, the source of all that is good, who do not have you in awe, who do not hold you in esteem, God, woe to us. Such boastings as the Gentiles use or lesser breeds without the law, Lord God of hosts, be with us yet, lest we forget, lest we forget. For heathen heart that puts her trust. Oh, this is so good. For heathen heart. that puts her trust in reeking tube and iron shard, meaning weapons.
So who's that heathen heart? Not the Christian heart, but the heathen heart, the pagan heart that puts their trust in weapons of war. All valiant dust that builds on dust. Genesis 3 .19 says, by the sweat of your face, you shall eat bread till you return to the ground for out of it you were taken for you are dust and dust you shall return. So the weapons and the warriors, but the weapons in particular are dust that just builds on top of the dust that is us. And guarding calls not thee to guard.
So God, it's all you. And if we don't call on you to help us, we got nothing. Woe to those who rely on the self versus relying on you, God. For frantic boast and foolish word, thy mercy on thy people, Lord. I love that's the last stanza. I love that ending because it ends with a plea to God, right?
Every other stanza ends with, lest we forget, lest we forget. But the last line is a call to God, your mercy on your people, Lord, please. It's not our enemies that we need to worry about. It's forgetting God that we need to worry about. Same for America. Same for us today.
Same for the Israelites back then. Deuteronomy 6 says, then take care lest you forget the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. Indeed, still today, thy mercy on thy people, Lord. YouTube . com slash at politics by faith. If you could subscribe over there, that'd be great.
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