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Oliver Anthony’s Rich Men North of Richmond: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

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Oliver Anthony’s Rich Men North of Richmond: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

August 20, 2023
For The King
For The KingFTK

Bryce and I take a different approach this episode but we hope that you enjoy this and walk away with some good things to think about with this new cultural phenomenon! Will's Art: ⁠⁠⁠Reflectedworks.com⁠⁠ USE PROMO CODE: FORTHEKING AT CHECKOUT FOR 10% OFF To see what I'm reading click ⁠⁠here⁠⁠ To visit my blog on Substack click here Social Media:⁠⁠⁠⁠ For Gab page click here For Twitter click here To stack SATS at Fountain.fm page click here For YouTube click here Support: To Donate Crypto click here For some Kingly Clothing click here Contact: Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠forthekingpodcast.com⁠⁠⁠⁠ Email: forthekingpodcast@gmail.com

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Transcript

Hello, For The King listeners. I am not your host, Rocky Ramsey. My name is Will Drusimsky, a brother in Christ and friend of Rocky's, whom he has generously invited onto the show in order to verbally showcase my artwork to you in 50 seconds.
As an artist, I strive to accurately reflect the glory of God and everything that I paint, and through that process I hope to flood as much of the earth as possible with paintings which accurately proclaim the undeniable fact that Jesus is Lord and the creation which he made commands us to worship him. So if you would like to join with me in distributing clean, refreshing artwork showcasing the creativity of the God who made us, I would be overjoyed to have your help. I run my own website called Reflected Works, where I showcase the artwork I've done in the past, sell original paintings and prints, and take requests for unique commissions.
Once again, that's ReflectedWorks.com, all one word, and I'm looking forward to helping you further the kingdom of God right now here on this earth by putting some of your free wall space to productive use. Thank you very much for your kind attention, and now enjoy the show. I'll not apologize for this God of the Bible.
Hello, friends. Welcome to the For the King podcast. This is your host, Rocky Ramsey, and I am joined with my co-host on the Sunday episodes, Bryce, my brother, Bryce, and I'm doing well.
How are you doing? I'm doing all right. I got a little sunburn yesterday working out in our yard. We're doing some work.
Dude, you're going to get skin cancer. I know. I need to lather up on some more sunscreen.
Yeah, I think that would really help me. Yeah, that would. Yeah.
Yeah, I might get skin cancer, but you know what? To die is gain, so that's okay. Whatever. Whatever.
Who cares? Who literally cares about anything? You know what I mean?
I mean, the world is going to hell anyway, so. Yeah, who cares? I don't care about anything. Doesn't matter.
Psych. So yeah, I'm doing all right, and glad you're doing well, Bryce.
We're going to take a kind of shift on this episode to just comment on something that's going on in our culture.
Bryce and I think it's prudent and important to engage with where the people of our nation are being swept away to and from.
Right. Obviously, we want people to flood into the church, like it says in Isaiah.
All the nations are going to stream to the church to Zion, the Jerusalem.
That's what we want, obviously, but there are going to be some different ripples in the sea of the Gentiles, the people of the earth. And one recently ripple that's made a big splash in the world is Anthony Oliver's Richmond North of Richmond.
So we're going to comment on the song, talk about kind of what we think about it, why it's turned into a phenomenon, and maybe critique it a little bit at the end and give some thoughts on maybe where he falls short and where we kind of hope the movement, I guess, goes in a sense. So does that sound good, Bryce? Anything to add precursor there? I mean, that's what we hope to do. Yeah, that's good.
And then we'll pick back up on talking about godly masculinity next week in the future.
But we thought this was a pretty big thing that just blew up and we ought to comment on it. So so first to get through some things that we really enjoyed about it and liked about the song.
The aesthetics are great. The optics of it. The video is just he's just it's just him with his guitar in the middle of a forest.
It kind of looks like a rundown part of Appalachia, right? There's like a camper in the background that's run down. He's got his old truck. He's got his dog there.
He's just got some really rudimentary recording equipment, nothing crazy. And he's singing his song. And the way he looks, big old red beard, right? Doesn't look effeminate at all.
And the voice, the actual, his vocals are very, very masculine as well. Deep, good, masculine vocals. They're not effeminate.
So I guess kind of my thoughts on the optics. I don't know if you kind of if you agree with it. We didn't even talk about that before, but that's kind of where I the first thing is what you're going to see.
And in terms of what you see, it's a masculine environment. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, I definitely think that's true. That has a lot better look than Luke Bryant who Luke Bryant, who's had makeup put on him and skinny jeans on.
He's like sitting on a tractor that he's never driven before. So for a country artist, that's a lot better look. Yeah, it is.
You know, this dude drove his truck in and set up his equipment and his dogs just to it. That's just him.
Yeah, by himself.
By himself, yeah.
It's definitely a far cry from the effeminate bro country music that happens. Yeah, that's a good point.
Yeah. So that's good.
He isn't country at all.
That's a good point. Yeah. Yeah.
So we did enjoy that. I think the optics are great. The way he's presenting his masculinity.
That's good.
Let's move on to the lyrics, you know, so that that's what we've seen when you look at the video and what you see about him, what he looks like and all that. So far, so good.
Let's talk about the lyrics. I start dissecting what he's saying. So this song is basically a war cry for blue collar America or kind of working class, middle class, working class America.
That's, I think, the kind of ethic of the song, the ethos of the song. That's that's what he's doing. It's kind of written in a sense like he is.
It's a dialogue with God a little bit. He invokes the name of the Lord a few times in the song.
He says, oh, Lord, it's a damn shame what this world's gotten to.
So he does invoke the Lord's name a little bit like he has him in mind.
Like he's kind of a cry out, not just to people in general, but to God in a sense. But he does again, talk to the people.
So this this world with the way the world's gotten to for people like me and people like you wish I could just wake up and it not be true.
But it is. Oh, it is.
Yeah. So there's some there's some goodness there. He's kind of speaking to God a little bit.
He's also pleading with the people. Hey, we're in a bad situation in our country.
What do you think there, Bryce, in terms of like who the songs to the audience, that kind of thing? Yeah, yeah, he's definitely trying to speak to the collective conscience of the blue collar worker who seems to be working all day.
He's not able to get ahead.
I mean, if you look at his own personal videos that he's done, that's exactly what he talks about that that's that's who he has in mind in this. He's people who are working all day.
This is literally a Leo show. He's been selling us all working all day over time.
Hours for bullshit pay so I can sit out here and waste my life away drag back home and drown my troubles away.
So he's speaking for like the blue collar worker who is literally at a loss not knowing what to do with himself anymore.
He's going to work working very long for very little amount of pay. And it's essentially just a waste of life is kind of the what he's invoking here.
So he's speaking out to the blue collar worker.
Who is living in that sort of reality, I suppose. Yeah, well, and it's I like that he goes there like in terms of the way he's experiencing time in our country.
He's wasting his life away.
If you're into Bitcoin or anything like that area into just economics in general more like conservative economics. They like to phrase your wages or what you're making in terms of the value for your exchanging time for some kind of like value retention.
So usually that's from your dollar. Your dollar is basically you exchange. You think your one hour of work time is worth this amount of dollars.
That's what your value is for that time you put it.
And with the amount of time a lot of people in America put in to make ends meet. You're not you're not really having a high quality life outside of the time you're putting in working.
And that is literally just due to the bad economics we have in our world. He doesn't really I don't know he could he could articulate economically what's going on. But it's just it's what happens in a fiat based system.
Your time slowly is inflated away. That's what inflation is your time being basically destroyed all the time you put in for your hard work. We continue to try to put in more hours to make ends meet.
But as prices continue to inflate in this environment in America, the average person the average working wage cannot keep up with the economics that we put ourselves in printing more money.
Yeah. And in fact, it seems like that's what he's trying to articulate when he says these Richmond north of Richmond.
Lord knows they all just want to have total control. Want to know what you think. Want to know what you do.
And they don't think you know, but I know that you do. And then he goes on to pretty much articulate that point because your dollar ain't shit and it's tax to no end. Because of Richmond north of Richmond, which he's talking about DC.
So he's talking about the huge federal government.
And the way that they are taxing the people making sure that they get a huge cut of your paycheck. And also your dollar isn't worth nothing.
Exactly. It's not even worth cow manure. Like that's essentially what he's saying.
So inflation plus taxes is bringing your income your money to literally nothing.
So that's what he's crying out honestly for the injustice of all this. What Washington DC, the federal government is actually doing and literally becoming the, they are the hungry hippo who cannot, they can't get enough.
That's true. They're fat. They're fat and lazy.
Yeah, I guess going off that rice, just thinking presuppositional. And what does God's word have to say about taxation?
It seems like, I think it's first Samuel seven ish around there. When Israel starts to cry out for a king and God says, what's going to happen when you get a king like the world? He's going to tax you at 10%.
God's tax is 10%. Any federal government, any government at all that taxes more than 10% is saying, I am God.
They're taxing more than what God himself taxes his people to do the work of the kingdom on earth.
So we're taxed like 30% like we're taxed like crazy.
There's a sales tax on everything that you purchase on top of you already being taxed on the money that you got to buy that thing. You're already taxed for income tax.
And then there's a sales tax.
And then there's a gas tax. And then there's a property tax to use the roads and the public schools.
There's so many taxes where it comes out to be, I think upwards of 40% for the average American of their money that they bring in is taxed.
And that's four times what God himself requires of Christians. Well, actually, I mean, so there is other tides in the New Testament that come out to more like 23%.
But the tax for the church specifically, the institution of the church, the Levitical priesthood, you know, so I don't know.
I just, just some of my points, like he just has a great point. He understands there's something wrong here.
And honestly, we need to think biblically to have an answer as to why that is wrong.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean that that's an articulation why it's wrong. Conservative people will just complain about things and not actually have a reason why it's wrong.
I can go to the scriptures and say here's why it's wrong.
So he kind of tries to give a reason for why something's wrong a little bit later on. He talks about, he says, I wish politicians would look out for minors like a person with a pickaxe who goes into a tunnel, that sort of minor.
And not just minors, minorities, younger folk, and not just minors on an island somewhere. Lord be and then here's his reason. Why shouldn't we do that? We got folks in the street ain't got nothing to eat and obese milk and welfare.
Now, it might not be a sufficient reason, but it's still a reason. And he goes on trying to give a reason for something else too. He says if you're five foot three and 300 pounds taxes ought not to pay for your bags of fudge rounds.
Why?
Because we have young men are putting themselves six feet in the ground because all this damn country does is keep on kicking them down. So he's trying to give an articulation. Yeah, it might not actually be entirely sufficient.
But even still, like this is just basic common sense. Like this is what people are attracted to. So something that this song kind of reminded me of is when you have cultural revolutions or reformations, it's not done by some academic.
Never.
It is never done by an academic alone. It's usually done by a poet, a person who tells stories or a songwriter.
That's usually how it's done. If you think it's typically in the 17th or the 18th century with William Shakespeare.
Shakespeare writes Caesar, which is a theatrical display of what the monarchy was like in his day and the tyranny going on.
So he would write poetry and he would also write plays that fundamentally got at the issues of his society in that day.
The same thing when you look at the Roman society and also in the Grechgan society, think about Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, or also think about Virgil's and Edith. Both of these people were commissioned by the states of their day to write something that was showing the history and origins of Greece or Rome.
That people would rally behind that ideal. So it's the same thing that happens with a song like this. When something like this comes out, it rallies the people because it speaks in such a common sense tone.
And this is why any – there is no professor from the Southern Baptist Seminary who's ever going to be influential culturally. And why won't they be influential? Because they're just these brain-dead academics. That's why.
They're not common sense thinkers. They can give you a rationalized support for why a woman should be a pastor.
Like these people are just a bunch of blumbering buffoons.
But a person who can speak with absolute clarity and common sense to your average folk, that's who people rally behind.
And this is the embodiment of Martin Luther. Yes, Martin Luther was an academic, but he was fundamentally a people's person.
He was a shepherd. That's who he was. Think about King David.
King David was a shepherd. He could speak common sense to the people.
So that's the type of person that people rally behind.
And this is why you have droves of people who are even saying stuff like Oliver Anthony 2024, like wanting him to president or listening to a song and finding meaning from it.
Because he is speaking to their particular needs. They're both telling the same tragedy, the same story that people are falling in line with.
So I don't know if you have thoughts on that.
No, I mean, I think you're right. Yeah, that's kind of the, that's evident throughout history that that is how these cultural revolutions started.
I mean, that is, to some extent, the way the Marxists infiltrated was through story.
The story of crony, rich people, oppressing poor people. That story sells.
That's a story the mass of the poor people could get behind. And that's why that even happened. There was the Bolshevik Revolution.
That's why that even occurred.
So yeah, I think you're totally right on there. This seems to be, at least for this month, to be a pretty big, hard-hitting song for a lot of the common people in our country.
So that's good. This song does a good job at telling a story. A tragedy, like you said, that's really all he's telling us is a tragedy.
So I think, yeah, I agree. That's a great thing in this song. Do we have one other thing? I mean, I guess those are my thoughts on that.
We also really like that he does call out obesity and just how much of an epidemic that is in our country, how bad that is. It's not something I think we should pass over, and it's no coincidence that the left wants to immortalize fat people and make them, they're beautiful and they're healthy and they're strong. They should feel comfortable on their skin, that kind of thing.
It's no coincidence that the left wants to normalize that and make you perfectly fine if you are a big person that is super lazy.
And him calling that out, I think it's pretty common-sensical to say, hey, it's unhealthy to be big. Humans naturally aren't like that.
Maybe they shouldn't be. They die at 40.
Oh, there's something wrong here.
So like you said, it's very common-sensical, but this is a huge thing in our country that needs to be nipped in the butt.
The butt, sorry. I always get that mixed up.
Is it nipped in the butt or nipped in the bun?
Butt. Is it butt? All right. This also reminds me of a – John Owen wanted to go hear Jonathan Bunyan preach, and he was told by the king, why do you want to go and listen to that tinker-preet? And John Owen's reply to him was, he said, if I could give up all my learning to preach like that, man, I would.
And what's he getting at? Why did John Owen say that? Because even though John Bunyan was some blue-collar, run-of-the-mill Christian, had no training. They only had a couple books in his library. He had Martin Luther's Galatians and a couple other books.
He hardly had anything in his library. Why was he such a good preacher?
Because he captivated people by the story of the gospel. So that's why he – yeah, so you're not going to have an academic ever really lead you into righteousness like that.
So Bryce, would you say then, pastors should be culture warriors in a sense? Whenever you bring the sword of the gospel, you are a culture warrior because you're trying to shape culture through the story of the gospel. And pastors should view themselves like that more, like not more, oh, hands off from the culture. It's more like, actually, I'm going into the culture through the pulpit to my people, delivering the right-side-upness of the world in our culture.
Because if you don't tell a story, it's not like there's not going to be a story told. It's not whether you're going to tell a story. It's what sort of story are you going to tell.
You're either going to tell a good one that overpowers the wicked stories of the world, or you're going to tell a bad story that isn't compelling. And that's what most pastors and preachers are doing. They're telling bad stories.
They're very bland and dull.
It's like setting out a campfire with somebody who thinks that they're able to tell good stories. They're trying to tell you something, and it's just the whole time, it's like, all right, let's just listen to the… Yeah, I think crickets.
This is awful. Yeah, tell a good story, and it's like trash. It's like, okay, let's just sit here then.
Yeah, right. Yeah, we're set on the walls. I'm a little nervous for that.
I'm about to become a dad here soon. I hope I can be real creative for my kids. I want to do everything I can to make sure they can think creatively.
I'm trying to hone in that skill and have more wonder in my life, but yeah, you need to be able to tell a good story. That's important. And that's why anybody who looks at a song like this and they're against it, they hate it.
The reason they hate it is because they've never been captivated by a good story before. Tragedy is a genre. If you look at Shakespeare, many of his plays were tragedies.
They didn't have good endings, but they had a purpose for them.
So you need to recognize when things… You don't go to a classical concert to hear bluegrass music. And likewise, you don't go to a bluegrass conference to hear classical music.
There's a time and place for everything.
So we just have to recognize, is it the time for tragedy? Because if so, then we need to be telling tragic stories. So yeah, just something to think about, I guess.
So let's piggyback off that and start moving towards some critiques. Let's just start right there. I think, based on what you just said, Bryce, I think conservatives, usually Christless conservatives, they end there.
They are really good at telling the hurt puppy story. They're good at crying wolf. They're good at telling the tragedy.
But then that ends there. There's no solutions. There's no saying what conservatives are actually for.
What's the kind of world we want? And it's Christendom, obviously. That's what the conservative wants. But what's the glories of Christendom? How does Christendom solve all these problems? Why is it more glorious to be skinny rather than fat and stuck on welfare? Why is it more glorious to not have an island full of children that you're molesting? Why is that bad? Why is it more glorious to not do that and just love your wife and not be a pedophile? What's more glorious about that? They have painted, the liberal has painted this sexual licentiousness as a good… Like right now it is painted as a better story.
I could do whatever I want. I have all the pleasure I could ever want in the world. There's no responsibility of me in terms of your sexual fidelity.
There's no responsibility they're being called to. Right now they're telling a story of… It's not true liberty, but it has all of the appearances of liberty, I guess. It's a false light.
So it's just unfettered freedom to do whatever you want.
And that's actually a bad story. But because we're not coming with the better story of liberty in Christ, we haven't articulated that well enough in our society.
What are your thoughts there about like, yes, this is a tragedy that he's telling, but how do we not, I guess, stay there as conservatives? What are your thoughts there? With this platform, what do we want to see out of him in the future? Should it always be tragedy out of him? I think the fundamental error that he has in the story is like, okay, number one, if you're in the trades, you are typically making more money than the liberal. And why is that? Because I mean, if you… Just go listen to Mike Rowe and listen to him talk about the trades right now, because you have such a huge gap in age with the trades right now. There are people who… You have welders, mechanics, harpenters, plumbers who are willing to hire you on with a huge bonus pay upfront with great pay and benefits.
And they're wanting to do that because they don't have anybody who are in those fields. So he's kind of telling an inappropriate tragedy. Even though, yes, I think fundamentally he's true with the way that this country treats the blue-collar men.
They constantly kick them down.
They elevate the black. They elevate the fat.
They elevate the liberal for no cause. They do it unjustly.
One ought to uphold righteousness and uphold righteous people and not wicked people.
So all this is true.
But honestly, I'm extremely skeptical of a person who says that you're working long hours in the trades with bullshit pay. I know, dude.
That was kind of my initial thought too. Is he singing this song to foolish, lazy conservatives that actually do have a solid job but they're just stupid with their money?
They eat out every night. They always buy new cars.
Are you talking about that kind of… What kind of person is resonating with this? Somebody with a brand new charger, Dodge Charger?
That's a 2021 that they dropped 30K on. Is that the kind of person? Because I see a lot of people that work real hard and all that. But they're always buying brand new stuff and they're eating your dash every night.
Now think about this too. If this is the story that you're painting, that it's a tragedy to be a blue collar worker, who's going to be a blue collar worker now? He is painting right now the typical guidance counselor's picture from the… You're going to work overtime hours and you're not going to have any good pay. You need to go to college and become a psychologist.
It's like really? I make $13 an hour like you do? Of course I'm not going to do that. I think he's falling into this trap that conservatives are painting where they've accused the liberal throughout the whole Trump presidency of being victims. Now Biden's in office and all of these conservatives are now falling into the victimhood mentality.
No, you're not a victim. The book, The Millionaire Next Door, C.R. Wiley, talks a lot about this book. The person who is more likely to be a millionaire is a dad who has a stay-at-home wife and I think it's like three plus children.
That's the typical person who's going to be a millionaire and why is that? Well, if you've seen The Cinderella Man, it's because you have something to fight for. You actually have purpose and reason in life. And here's my analysis of what's going on with Oliver Anthony right now.
You know, I don't see a ring on his finger.
It doesn't seem like he has any children. It sounds like he's just a guy who has a dog and a truck.
So, okay, I can see this guy, this sort of guy falling into tragedy because there are so many young dudes who are waiting until they're 28, 30 to get married and they have no purpose in life. They have no drive so they fall into some dumb warehouse jobs where they're not going to make much money and they're working long time hours. And I totally see that happening.
So, I think this is kind of a result of people not getting married when they're older, not having as much ambition and falling to the victim mentality where you're like, I'm just working overtime hours with bullshit pay and I'm just going to not really work very hard on it.
And this is all I can get for all this time and effort I'm putting into. I'm not going to continue to succeed.
And like, yeah, you know what? I don't believe in manifestation or anything, but like, yeah, if you keep acting like that, yeah, you're not going to get a raise. You're not going to get a promotion. So, I just listened cross-paw to count on the guy from RedBalloon.work and they just started doing a, with Public SQ and a few other companies that have like a mass aggregate of conservative companies.
They started doing like these surveys and he was saying all of the like companies that are going bankrupt are lip-tard companies because they're not good with their finances and conservative companies are actually thriving. Like there are so many conservative dudes that are looking for a 20 year old guy to come in and take the trade away from him, you know, because he's about to retire and he wants to train up a nice conservative, hardworking dude, young man that can come in and make a lot of money doing this kind of stuff. So again, I agree with you Bryce.
I think a lot of this is like, it's kind of doomsdayism.
It's kind of like the victim mentality that the conservatives like to go into. And it's like, well, actually, if you just work hard and have a reason to work hard, I doubt, I really doubt honestly that he's talking to, you know, dudes like me and you that aren't like buying new cars and getting DoorDash every night and being stupid with our money and actually say like, like actually being wise and saving our money and achieving goals at a slow rate and not trying to splurge and get something quicker than we can.
I mean, is he talking about like I get bullshit pay so I can't buy my $30,000 2021 Dodge Charger and get a lease on it for, you know, 500 bucks a month. How can I afford my monthly payment? It's like, bro, you have a $500 a month car payment on top of your rent, on top of utilities, on top of your phone, on top of all your subscription services and eating out DoorDash every night. You know what I mean? It's like, okay, eventually it comes to a point where you're the one being a fool.
It's not really the system, but we already talked about earlier the things we like. There is something wrong with inflation and fiat money and all that. We totally agree with that.
Yeah, the country does keep kicking blue collar workers down. Yes, yeah. But how much of this is somebody that's just being foolish, you know? So I think that's one thing.
Did you have anything off that or should we move on?
Yeah, we can go on. Okay, so you have the whiny kind of conservative that's not providing any solutions. And one thing we want to be wary on, I've heard a lot of Christians talking about the cussing thing, his language.
I personally think with some of the sins he's talking about, like gluttony and fatness and welfareism and then the overtaxation and stuff like that, I think those are actually, those are major big ticket sins in our society that are worthy of a harsh word. In Ezekiel, we see that towards God's people. When they're being very sinful, he uses harsh language, like you've hoared yourself away.
Or Paul says some really nasty stuff. He says virtually the same as bullshit. Yeah, exactly he does.
He literally does.
The Hebrew, the Greek is what it's called. Yeah, scubola, right? Yeah, I can't remember the Greek word.
I think it's scubola, which means literally bull crap in Greek. So there's a time and place for this. And I think he's actually a good example of calling out big ticket sins in our society where you can offer up words like that to help get the severity across.
Yeah. So that for sure is good. But we need to be very, very wise as Christians because some of the concern I've heard from Christian circles is true.
We don't want to be foolish with our words and be a hindrance to the gospel. But there does come a time where you can wisely use a strong word. And I think this is actually an example of when it's okay to use some of the words he used.
Now, Bryce had brought up a good point. He takes in the chorus when he's talking about obesity. He says, well, God, if you're five foot three and you're 300 pounds, we're a little curious if he's kind of being flippant with the Lord's name there.
Well, God, if you're five foot three or three, or is he saying, well, God, as in a crying out to God, well, God, if you're five foot three, we don't really know how he's using that or what he captured there. But it seems like he might be a little flippant with the Lord's name here in this song. And we would caution death way against that and think that that's kind of bad, honestly.
Well, and that's kind of that just shows the hypocrisy of Christians who are there more willing to say, you shouldn't be saying bullshit. Other than listening to him in the song, say, Lord knows that they always want a total control or well, God, if you're five foot three or Lord, it's a damn shame. Like we should be much more concerned with the second or the third commandment than we are with somebody saying the word bullshit.
Yeah, like it's just it shows how far Christians have gone from just biblical consistency and fidelity. We're able to pass over something like that. Yeah, it's just baptism.
You know, it's just, oh, you hear that word. And what a lot of people think it means to be a good Christian is that you don't ever cuss. But what it actually means to be a good Christian is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength and love your neighbor as yourself.
And sometimes saying a harsh word in a good moment does not break any of those commandments that the Lord has given us. It might actually be a good cause because we see Paul himself doing it. We see Jesus.
You white lost too. That's like saying you. I don't know what it would be like in our culture, but I don't want to say I don't want to say anything like Jesus said this.
I definitely don't want to like put words in Jesus's mouth, obviously. But him him saying those words, you whitewashed to him like that. That was like that was a big insult, a big insult.
And there's a time and place for that kind of thing. Jesus himself is doing it. So I would just I think he's more flippant with the Lord's name than I am comfortable with.
And in terms of the other language, I think the rest of it's actually OK. There may be a few times where the the cussing maybe hindered his point. But but some of it is like him just saying it's a damn shame.
I think that's fine to use a word like that. Man, it's a it's a damn shame that our country is where it's at now. Like in terms of it's damned, it's cursed.
It's a we're in a cursed time. I think that's fine using that word damn sometimes in that sense. It is like damnation.
We have a cursing on our country with some of our foolishness. So anything there you disagree with, Bryce? No, I think that's yeah, I think it's super solid. Yeah, I mean, it's just it goes back to there's a time and place for everything.
Exactly. Like we need to take Solomon's wisdom there and recognize it's not necessarily wrong to say what is considered to be a bad word. It just depends on when you're saying it and why you're saying it.
If it's coarse joking. If it's coarse joking, probably stupid. Yeah, and like honestly, like that's just that's with any words in general.
Every word needs to be seasoned with salt. If you're not seasoning any of your words with salt, you're actually doing something wrong. Yeah, so that goes with cussing that goes with even what I'm saying right now, just a simple sentence like this.
Yeah, it should be all these things need to be seasoned with salt and have we need to be mindful about all of all the things that come out of our mouth because we're going to be judged by every single word that we do. Yeah, you could tear down somebody more with a word that's permissible than a cuss word, you know, so yeah, I know you gotta leave rice. I think those are some of our main big thoughts.
Is there anything you think we skipped over? I think that's kind of the bulk of it. Yeah, I think it's important to like just a note when he says I've been selling my soul like he's not talking about like him performing a seance and like selling a soul of Satan. Like what he's referring to is a captive soul that's been taken captive by the workforce.
Yeah, so that I mean, as a critique, like, that's not really a critique, but it's a critique of like when people are examining this and like looking at like, oh, that's satanic. You know, you shouldn't be selling your soul. Like, that's the functionality of what happens.
And if this sort of lifestyle is true that he's talking about, like, that's what's happening. You know, a slave, like they've had their souls sold to the workforce. Yeah, that's a good point.
So I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with saying that either. Yeah. And when he's talking about dragging me back home and drawing my troubles away, obviously he's talking about getting drunk there.
Which is a sin. Which is a sin, which is wrong. And again, that's the whole mindset of a conservative Christian.
Instead of the whole goal in life shouldn't be your nine to five or for the blue-collar worker, it's probably not nine to five. It's probably more like seven to three or whatever, eight to four. And then you're striving for the weekend and you pick up a case of beer on Friday.
Drink a Friday night. Drink it all day Saturday, all day Sunday. Like, that is not a life.
And also just maybe one more thing. What's implicit in this song is that work is bad. It's a means to get money and not a means to glorify God.
Like, too, this is like, we need to have a mind change on this. We need to shift our thinking about work. Work is not just a means to get money.
It's also a means to glorify God and to derive joy from men. Men were made to work. Exactly.
He's not deriving joy from his work. And why is that? Well, his complaint is because of the Richmond North of Richmond, which is true. His complaint is also about overtime at hours, which if, you know, if anybody listening has kids, like this whole last week, I worked pretty heavy hours.
And yeah, it sucks. It sucks working full-time and then going and doing a side gig, getting home at nine, not even getting to see my daughter. You know, like, that sucks.
I hate that. You know, but we need to derive joy from work again. And we don't do that.
And the reason we don't is because we're pushed into jobs that we don't want to do. Yeah, that's good. Yeah.
Thanks for that, Bryce. I guess last thing as we wrap up here, if you listen to this song and your heart, like, I saw a ton of comments on YouTube. Oh, I'm a blue collar worker.
I'm, you know, 50 something blue collar worker. And I haven't cried in 10 years and I cried from this song. Or, you know, if your heart was soft, you're usually hard and callous to beauty, but maybe this song pricked your heart.
This is the listen to me. Listen to me. This is the solution.
The solution is not to go drown, drag you, drag, drag yourself back home and drown your troubles away with beer. Your solution is not to complain about the Richmond north of Richmond and hands off. And that's all you can do.
Even honestly, the solution is not necessarily just trying to work harder or some of this, even though that can practically maybe be a way you can help yourself or to stop getting door to ask or some all the things to talk about. Here's your solution. Believe and repent on the Lord Jesus and that will lighten that load on your back.
If you're a blue collar person that feels beat down, if you want a lighter load, you need to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. He will make your bird in light. No matter how much weight is placed on you as a man or a woman in this life, it can still feel light in Christ.
No matter how heavy it gets, Jesus will take it. He will make it easier for you to bear it. He'll give you strength.
He'll mount you up on eagles wings. He'll give you flight. He can see you in the heavenly places through his grace and mercy.
So that's, I think, the solution to what's going on here. We need to repent and believe in Christ. We need to get to work.
And we need to work in the proper way and not let it rule our lives. Like this, you know, Anthony Oliver is rightly saying there are some people where work rules their lives. You need to realize you have other work besides just your vocation.
You need to get married and then dedicate yourself to that woman and the kids that come from her womb and work for them, which includes going home and seeing your kids at times. And if you need to work overtime, you can do that too. But there's a man works in a bunch of different ways and you need to embrace that and see the beauty of that.
So I think that's my exhortation. All right. Well, thanks for listening, guys.
If there's anything, any thoughts you had, you can reach me at forthekingpodcast.gmail.com. You know, we have partnered the ads I've been running with Will Drusminski's art. The name of the website is reflectedworks.com. And you can use the promo, all caps for the king and get 10% off of his art. If you're interested in.
We partner with that brother. Will does awesome art. So that again, that's reflectedworks.com. Go check that out and use that promo code if you're interested in purchasing art.
And I did start a sub stack. If you're interested in keeping up more with what I'm writing, go to fortheking.substack.com. And I'm going to be writing more blogs there and doing something different with some book reviews. If you're interested in becoming a paid subscriber, you can partner with me in the gospel.
And I'm hoping to create a resource and archive of godly Western Canon books that we can teach our kids. So I'm trying to prepare for my kids and I'm going to archive those. And if you would like access to those, you can subscribe to five dollars a month if you're interested.
And then if you have any anything, any thoughts about this, you can reach me on Twitter, my Twitter page or whatever. And always for the podcast at email.com. Thanks so much for listening, guys. For the new the ages of world, visibility, only God be honored, glory forever and ever.
Amen. Solely day. Thank you.
Thank you.

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