We were going to talk this week about distractions in a Christian's life. But then the new American pope was elected, and I got distracted. So it actually works out perfectly and Hebrews 12:3 has never made more sense to me.

Welcome to Politics by Faith. Thank you for being here. I had an intention this week to talk about distractions that we have that take us away from God. We were talking on Monday's episode about the armor of God. Ephesians 6.10 says, Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of

his might. We focused on be strong. You got to be strong, then put in the Lord and in the power of his might." And we focused on be strong. You got to be strong, then put on the armor. If you're weak and you put on the armor, that doesn't do, you gotta be strong and put on the armor. So it says, and we started to quote Dr.

uh, Martin Lloyd Jones. And he listed a bunch of ways that he believes a lot of Christians waste their strength. He said it was as if Christians received some of the available might of God, but he put it in a bucket with a bunch of holes and the water just poured out of the bucket. These distractions just sap the strength of a Christian.

And he made a list. So here's the list. Committing to too many spiritual works or things. Too much conversation, arguments, debates, wrangling, laziness, too much time in the wrong company, too much foolish talk and joking, love of money and career, big distraction. A desire for respectability and image.

An unequal yoking with an unbeliever. Ungodly entertainment. A wrong attitude towards or doubting the word of God. He said we have to walk on a knife edge in these matters. You must not become extreme on one side or the other, but you have to be watchful.

And of course, you can always tell by examining yourself whether your strength is increasing or decreasing. So I wanted to spend the week going over these different distractions, but then the Pope got named and he's from Chicago, which is crazy. And that opens up a whole new world of possibility. Like will the Pope go to a national championship basketball game? The Pope went to Villanova. Like, you know, like people Villanova are going to be insufferable about this. It's just all they're ever going to talk about. You know, the tour guide today, the tour guides like, Oh, Villanova student to teacher ratio, uh, 16 to one.

And we have three national championships and the Pope is from here. The Pope, no other school can say that. So the Pope, I think if Villanova makes it again to the national church, I mean, I think the Pope's got to go. Here's another thing that I never thought would ever, ever happen. This is a woman on Instagram, a young young lady on Instagram. She is FaceTiming her mom and brother. I'm guessing brother. And the mom

when they were younger had a relationship with Bob. Bob Prevost. Bob. Just Bob. And then Bob grew up to be a cardinal, I guess. And they're like, oh, wouldn't it be funny if Bob became the Pope? So here they It's Bob, it's Bob Remos, it's literally Bob Remos! Yes! It's literally Bob!

Mom's situation trip is the Pope of the Catholic Church!

Oh my God!

My mom will come with the Pope!

I love that so much. It's Bob, it's Bob! And mom's like, no, and then the brother's like, mom Bob? That mom's Bob? It's Bob. And mom's like, no. And then the brother is like mom, Bob, that pop mom's Bob. It's the Pope.

She dated the Pope. I mean, that's never would've thought it never would've thought it. So Chicago is a white socks fan. So the Pope got me distracted. I read Hebrews 11 and 12 this morning. This podcast is named after Hebrews 11 and 12 this morning. This podcast is named after Hebrews 11 and 12.

I thought this line from Hebrews 12 fit in pretty good with the Martin Lloyd Jones theme that we were thinking about doing. Therefore, we also, since we're surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us. What a great word, ensnares. And let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. So first he talks

about sin, sin that easily ensnares, but before that every weight. This is interesting because not all weights are necessarily sin, but they can distract us just the same. They can slow us down just the same. And then the word ensnare, sins which so easily ensnare. So ensnare can have a couple different translations in the Greek. Now there's four different translations.

It can mean admired, which is great because sin can look very pleasing. Ensnaring, dangerous. And I like this other translation, easily avoidable. So that Greek word can other translation easily avoidable. So that Greek word can also mean easily avoidable. So let us lay aside every weight and every sin that's easily avoidable. Just put aside these things, these dumb things. What are we even messing around with that for? But I

thought this line in Hebrews 12 fit in pretty good with the Pope being named. Hebrews 12, 3, looking unto Jesus. Charles Spurgeon in his sermon on this scripture said it would be better if we were looking into Jesus. But it says, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, often perfecter of our faith. Who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame,

and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Goodness me, we analyze every word. Often this is translated as fixing our eyes on Jesus. Looking unto Jesus, looking into Jesus, fixing our eyes on Jesus. So the Greek word here, fixing, but this whole expression Jesus, fixing our eyes on Jesus. So the Greek word here fixing, but this whole expression here fixing our eyes, the

meaning here is it's not just looking at something, it's also looking away. So it's the negative. You're intentionally actively turning away from other things and looking at this thing. So you're turning away from the distractions, and in this case people, and only looking at Jesus. So it's not just looking at, you're looking away as well. And now it's fixed. Your eyes are fixed. Can't be taken off of like Peter and it would on the water, why would Jesus and Peter

walking on the water? He didn't do do that fix your eyes on Jesus now now every time I've heard the scripture I've always focused on the fix part right fixing as opposed to looking at other things okay great today I want to emphasize the Jesus part fix your eyes on who Bob no Jesus Not anyone else. Not your wife. Not your husband. Not Moses. Not Mary. Not anyone else in the Bible. Not your pastor. Oh goodness, not your preacher. Our preacher often says that when you get baptized, you're not getting baptized into me or because of

me. You're not worshiping me. It's about Jesus. If your pastor is too big, the bigger, often the bigger, the pastor, the smaller, the Jesus. But if Jesus is big, then your pastor is right where he should be. Jesus is the author and finisher of your faith, the author and perfecter of your faith. Spurgeon wrote this.

He said, I want you, when you begin your divine life, to take care that you look to Jesus with so penetrating a gaze that your unto grows to an into. Be not only the outside of the volume of his life, but loose the seals thereof and read his

heart. Dive into the meaning of what he has done for you. Look at his enduring the cross, know what it means, and enter into the fellowship of his sufferings. Study well the sin bearing, the curse bearing, the forsaking, and the sorrow unto death. Think how the Lord Jesus came under shame for your sake and see how he rose above it all. And you must look to Jesus only. So that part's about the fixing.

It's what I usually focus on, but I wanna focus on the second part of that. Look to Jesus only, whether you know little or much. It is not your knowledge, but himself that must be your one ground of trust. You must take Jesus to be the alpha as well as the omega.

To you, his name stands at the head of the book, and it is also the amen, which closes To your experience, the scripture is true. In the beginning was the word. You begin to run when you look to Jesus.

Mike Slater dot locals dot com. Transcript commercial-free on the website Mike Slater dot locals dot com. Transcript commercial-free on the website Mike Slater dot locals dot com.

The new pope is from America. That's neat. As people search his twitter account, they're finding more insight into his politics, including a criticism of JD and his application of Ordo Amoris to illegal aliens. 

Welcome to Politics by Faith. Thank you for being here. There's a new Pope. I'm not Catholic so I have no connection to this and I don't know how it all even works. But I am an American and we have our first American Pope so that's something. The Catholic Church has had 217 Popes from Italy, 16 from France, six from Germany, five from Syria, four from Greece, and then on down the list,

the last Pope was from Argentina. And finally, America is an, is a underrepresented nation in something. This guy's from Chicago, he went to Villanova, served in Peru for a long time, he's a naturalized citizen of Peru.

And that is all I've learned from his Wikipedia page so far. Now in the few hours since he's been named Pope, people have perused his Twitter account. Now I don't know how much this guy was involved in his own Twitter account. Maybe he had some interns who don't know.

But if you look at his Twitter, big lefty guy, that's not really surprising. He is from Chicago. Now, since that's not really surprising, the Cardinals who voted for the Pope of Aspen, I'm guessing it was I think it was like 108 out of 133, something like that, of these Cardinals were put in there by the last Pope, so they're gonna vote for another guy who's kind of like this. One of the tweets that this Pope, new Pope sent out, was critical of J.D. Vance. It's something

that J.D. Vance said back in January. The new Pope tweeted this on February 3rd. He said, J.D. Vance is wrong. Jesus does not ask us to rank our love for others.

Uh oh.

So what is this about? This is back January 29th. J.D. Vance did an interview. The context here is illegal aliens versus American citizens. The left, they're the ones who have compassion for illegals

at the expense of American citizens. That's the argument. That's the concern here. That's what the election was all about. And here's JD Vance speaking to that.

But there's this old school, and I think it's a very Christian concept, by the way, that you love your family and then you love your neighbor and then you love your community and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country. And then after that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world. A lot of the far left has completely inverted that. They seem to hate the citizens of their own country and care more about people outside

their own borders. That is no way to run a society. And I think the profound difference that Donald Trump brings to the leadership of this country is that the simple concept America first. It doesn't mean you hate anybody else. It means that you have leadership and President Trump has been very clear about this that puts the interests of American citizens first. In the same way that the British Prime Minister should

care about Brits and the French should care about the French, we have an American president who cares primarily about Americans, and that's a very welcome change.

A lot of progressive theologians, pastors, et cetera, did not like J.D. Vance for saying that. And they say, Oh, you know, how could you quote Jesus like that? We didn't quote Jesus. J.D. and then said, and I think it's a very Christian concept as well, which means it's compatible with Christian culture, not that it's an originally Christian concept. So first thing to note is we have two different spheres we're talking

about here. We're talking about the state and the role of the church. We got the role of the state and the role of the church, two different things. So that's the first point. There's another guy, his name's Heracles, Stoic philosopher. He wrote about oikosis. That's where we get the word economics. Economics means management of the home.

Oikos is home and the family in Greek. Heracles, we believe, was the first to come up with the concentric circles that we've talked about many times on this show before. And that is the self is in the middle, and then the next concentric circle out is the family, then the neighborhood, then the country, then the foreigners, the foreigner of the world.

His argument was that the natural thing is to take care of your family before others. And while Stoic said we should have greater concern for every circle beyond the next, he said that the key to the development of justice and ethical behavior is to concentrate or concern yourself first with you and your family and then you can move out. Jordan Peterson makes this point all the time as well. It's one of his central theses and one of his original messages at

least was focus on yourself before you go out and try to change the temperature of the planet, for instance. And I believe that's a Christian message as you yourself need to repent. You need to repent of your sin. Get the plank out of your own eye before you go trying to take the speck out of everyone else's, focus on you and you need to be born again. First and foremost, top priority before you go calling everyone else to repent

while you continue to live an unrepentant sin. Now, every social movement that I've ever lived through my entire life, it always concerns the outer circles of people, right? Black Lives Matter, global warming, right? The marginalized, right? It's always about these big outer circle things. And I've never lived through an era

where the main cultural impulse or calling was repentance of sin, of yourself, or as Leo Tolstoy called it, the regeneration of the inner man. Every social contagion, is a better word, that I've lived through is these outer circles of far away things and never a true focus on the self. Now, anytime there is a focus on the self in our modern world, it's all, you go girl, you're perfect just the way you are.

Everyone else is the problem. They just don't realize how wonderful you are. That's the self-help movement of the last couple of decades. And it's just as toxic. So what JD Vance is talking about here, the Latin term of it is ordo amoris, ordo amoris, ordered loves.

Lots of philosophers have talked about this. Go back to Thomas Aquinas was one of the first. And there is sight of this in the Bible. First Timothy 5.8 says, if anyone does not provide for his relatives and especially for his immediate family, there's an especially there, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. The progressive worldview is this undefined altruism and focus on the universe and love for

all of existence, oftentimes at the expense of those around you. So Thomas Aquinas, these ordered loves, ordo amoris, he says, but living a just and holy life requires one to be capable of an objective and impartial evaluation of things. To love things, that is to say, in the right order. So that you do not love what is not to be loved.

Okay, we don't want to do that. Or fail to love what should be loved. Or have a greater love for what should be loved less. Or an equal love for things that should be loved more or less or a lesser or greater love for things that should be loved equally. We're often all screwed up. There's things we should love that we don't.

There's things we don't love that we should. There's two things we love the same and we shouldn't. Or there's things we don't love the same and we're all screwed up. And Aquinas outlines the proper order. Remember the Stoics, it was self in the middle and then your family and you move out. Thomas Aquinas says, no, it's God who's in the middle. Then the self, spouse, family, extended family, community, nation, and then the world.

Augustine, he said, this, and then the world. Augustine, he said, this is true of everything created, but though it is good, it can be loved the right way or in the wrong way. In the right way, that is when the proper order is kept in the wrong way, when the order is upset.

So this is nothing new. This has been around for thousands of years. It's order versus disorder. Now, this new pope in February tweeted an article about a woman who was against what JD said, or at least JD's application of ordered loves. Now perhaps it's easier for the Pope to say, oh we should love the world because he's ahead of this this church that

has its arms in every corner of the world. So maybe that can be the Catholic church's first priority. And I would argue that the Protestant church, wherever your church is, my church has missionaries all over the world that we support and send out, and that's great. And you're called to do that.

But then there's also the role of the state. And the state should order its love. I believe as J.D. Vance has articulated it. If you're called as a Christian to go and minister to the world, great. But even that has an ordered love to it. There's no way that the Bible says to abandon your family, to go minister to people somewhere else around the world. I have a ministry field right here in my home that I need to pay attention to as well. And if we all focused more on a proper ordering of love,

then we would focus on the self and being born again and becoming a slave to Christ, slave to the Lord, where he is at the center and the highest of all order. I don't know what this Pope will do, who he will be, I don't really care. I'm concerned with your soul and mine. Let's put God in my children. Let's put God in my wife. Let's put God first. Seek first the kingdom of God. Let's pray about how the loves in our life should be properly rewarded.

Mike Slater dot locals dot com. Transcript commercial free on the website Mike Slater dot locals dot com. Transcript commercial free on the website Mike Slater dot locals dot com.

'Tis graduation season. High School graduates are ready to take on the new adventure of college. I have 4 pieces of advice for Christian students entering the lion's den of college.

Welcome to Politics by Faith. Thank you for being here. We walked into church on Sunday yesterday and there were these tables set up and a booth on each table for each of the kids that are graduating from high school. And each booth had a couple of things about each of the kids and if they were going to college, where they're going to college next

year and one of the kids is going to Yale. to college, where they're going to college next year.

And one of the kids is going to Yale. I've never met this kid before. So I sought him out and said, hello. We only had about a minute or so. But I was thinking, what would my advice be to this young man, young Christian man

who's going off into the lion's den? Do you have any graduates that you know?

Tis the season, right? Kids graduating high school, going off to college, grandkids perhaps for you. And what do we do with that now? It's very different than even just a few decades ago. What do you say to a young man or woman who's going off into the lion's den?

I was walking down the hall of the church and there's another guy at the church around my age who went to Princeton. And he said, hey, did you meet the Yale kid? I was like, oh yeah, yeah. I wish I saw him a couple of weeks ago. I would have told him not to do it.

Don't go there. Joking. And then he immediately said, nope, too late for that. Only positive thoughts. We're only doing positive thoughts now. He's in, he accepted, he's going. Positive thoughts. So I got thinking about some positive thoughts for this young man and any man. I guess woman too, but in my head I was thinking a man. Maybe I have some

extra pieces of advice for women going off to college too. Advice to young men going off to college and really these days it young men going off to college, and really these days, it doesn't matter where you're going. There's very few places that are not completely lost. So you have to be completely ready and you have to have the armor of God. This young man is going to major in physics and

philosophy. He went to a classical school here in town. If you have any younger kids or younger grandkids, I recommend a classical school, classical Christian school to send your kids to. They're phenomenal. But this guy, this kid, is gonna study physics and philosophy. What beautiful majors to worship God. My goodness, study the physical world of God's creation and study the love of wisdom. That's what philosophy means. Of course, the philosophy departments have

strayed from this in horrific ways, but philosophy literally means the love of wisdom. So you can study God's creation and the laws of physics that he created, we've merely discovered, and then spend your time studying the love of wisdom. What a wonderful way to worship God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. But you have to do it with the whole armor of God. One last thought of Yale and then I'll broaden it out. The president of Yale in 1937. So all the

Ivy League schools started off as seminaries, we talked about that before, and they've strayed many times since then, maybe never more than right now. But in 1937, the president of Yale said, I call on all the members of the faculty as members of a thinking body freely

to recognize the tremendous validity and power of Christ in our life and death struggle against the forces of selfish materialism. If we lose that struggle, judging from present events abroad, scholarship as well as religion will disappear. Scholarship as well as religion. I would argue that the religion at these schools certainly has disappeared, and in many cases the scholarship has as well. So this president of Yale in 1937 nailed it. All right, so my advice to Christian kids

going off to college. First, know that you are going to battle. Now, battle doesn't mean that you need to be combative all the time, but you're going into enemy territory. C.S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity,

a longer quote, but let me do it. He said, one of the things that surprised me is C.S. Lewis, when I first started reading the New Testament seriously, was that it talked so much about a dark power in the universe, a mighty evil spirit who was held to be the power behind death and disease and sin. This dark power was created by God and was good when he was created, but then rebelled and went wrong. Thus, the universe is at war, a civil war, a rebellion, and we are living in a part of

the universe occupied by the dark power that is rebelling against good. Enemy occupied territory. That is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise as one of us, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage. So when you go to church, you're really listening in to the secret communications from our friends.

That is why the enemy is so anxious to prevent us from going to church or reading the Bible. He does it by playing on our conceit and pride and laziness and intellectual snobbery. Plenty of that at the elite institutions. I know some will ask me, do you really mean at this time of day to reintroduce our old friend the devil? Hoofs and horns and all? Well what the time of day has to do with it I do not know and I'm not particular about the hoofs and horns. Yet in other respects my answer is yes I do. But I do not claim to know anything about his personal appearance.

If anybody really wants to know him, I would say to that person, don't worry, if you really want to know him, the devil, better you will. Whether you'll like him when you do is another question. You're going to college to learn, but learning doesn't mean that whatever you hear is true or good but it's still good to learn to learn what the enemy is saying to learn what other people think who are wrong even if they are wrong and maybe you'll learn things

that are true and good and right and that's great take those with you but learning what is wrong can also make you even wiser and can strengthen your arguments as well because the devil is going to come at you with some good stuff, effective stuff. Are you prepared? Learn along the way so you can get prepared. Milton Friedman said he was very grateful for Karl Marx, made him a better economist.

It can be true for all of us. The enemy can make you stronger. So go into the barracks of the enemy and learn, learn, learn as much as you can. Another thing that C.S. Lewis was talking there, this is my second point,

while you're in enemy-occupied territory, is go to church, right? C.S. Lewis was talking about how the enemy's gonna try to keep you from going to church in college. Go to church. You have to connect, reconnect with the source of truth all the time. Certainly every week, every day, in other ways, but you have to go to church. If you

don't get your recharging, I'll use that word, I can't think of maybe a better word, but you're with me. If you get your recharging, if you don't get your recharging from God at church, you'll get it somewhere else at college. And of college and there's plenty of other places that the devil wants you to go to recharge or have fun or sin or rest or whatever using all these sins to try to keep you away from from God. People think that they need these other things in order to thrive. Nope. Church? Go. Go to a church. Find a local church. Maybe it's even disconnected from the school, disconnected from the campus.

Maybe safer that way. but go every week. Everyone else is gonna be hung over on Sunday morning. You're gonna be a church instead and your life trajectory every single week will be completely different because of it. And at the end of four years,

you'll be in a totally different place because you dedicated even just those Sunday mornings. So first order of business is to learn, recognize you're in battle. Now again, that doesn't mean be combative, but just know you're in enemy occupied territory.

Second point, go to church. Third, Matthew 10, 16, behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves." Love that scripture. We have to be wise, so we have to avoid the traps that are set up for us, but you also got to be innocent. You would need to serve God blamelessly as you proceed. The enemy is gonna try to take you out and there's

a lot of shiny things at college, more so than anywhere else, maybe in the whole country. Shininess is all over the place, fun, fun, fun everywhere. But consider, is it? Or is it just the devil trying to take you out? Now, I'm not trying to be a prude here. Some of it's awesome, good fun,

and you gotta take part in all the opportunities that you think are good, but not all of them are. Fourth point, my advice to kids going to college, if you go to an elite school, you must constantly remember you're not better than anyone. One of the tools the devil uses against people, especially in elite schools, is pride.

And even in the elite schools, people are so ingrained with eliteness that they make elite things in the elite schools. So you go to an elite college, but that's not enough. You have to create a group inside the college that's elite. And then literally, the New York Times wrote an article about this,

about elite groups at Yale that are setting up elite subsections of the elite groups in the elite colleges. And it just goes forever. And it can really affect your soul. And very easily get you to think

that you're better than everyone else who isn't in this group anymore. First Corinthians 1 27, God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise and God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.

And I'll share verse three or chapter three, 18 to 20. Do not deceive yourselves. If any of you think you're wise by the standards of this age, you should become fools so that you may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight. As it is written, he catches the wise in their craftiness. And again, the Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile. There's a lot of fools on college campuses. Now, some of them are in charge of your grade,

so you don't need to call them out every opportunity. Be wise in how you share the truth. But know that even outside these ivory halls, there are the Gothic architecture and all the rest. Just know that there's a lot of people out there who don't have the fancy degrees, but have read the Bible in and out and have more common

sense than anyone inside these Ivy League schools and they may be a hillbilly, they may talk like a hillbilly, they may sound like a hillbilly and look like one, but they're wiser than all the professors put together inside of these universities and I know that's true. Fourth point or fifth point, whatever one I'm on, armor of God. Ephesians 6 10, finally my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. I love this part, before you put on the armor you have to be strong, then you put on the armor. This is important, if you're

weak, the armor of God doesn't do any good. You got to be strong first. Now, I wanna save this for, we should maybe do this the rest of the week. We'll see how the rest of the week goes with news, but Martin Lloyd Jones listed all the ways that Christians waste their strength. They waste their strength, and they apply to college in profound ways. Let me actually share them tomorrow

because it applies to us beyond just college too. We'll save those for tomorrow. But be strong and then put on the armor of God so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. Take up the whole armor of God and stand, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the

fiery darts of the wicked one and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God." Man, how good is that? Just study that, meditate on that, pray that all the time. Print that out, put it on your wall. Praying always with all power and supplication in the spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints and for me that utterance may be given to me that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains,

that in it I may speak boldly as I ought to speak. That is my prayer also for every Christian college student going into the lion's den. Speak boldly, fear the same for what is true. Mike Slater dot locals.com is the website. If you want to go there, the transcript, and there's no commercials. If you want to listen to it every day over on the website, Mike Slater dot locals dot com is the website. If you want to go there, the transcript, and there's no commercials, if you want to listen to it every day, over on the website, Mike

If you want to listen to it every day over on the website, Mike Slater dot locals dot com is the website. If you want to go there, the transcript, and there's no commercials, if you want to listen to it every day, over on the website, Mike Slater dot locals dot com.