The Slap

The following program is recorded content created by Truth Network. Okay, I hope you had a relatively uninteresting, uneventful weekend, especially relative to the Oscars last night. Of course, it was the slap heard around the world. Everybody's talking about it. One side of me is like, this is a waste of time. It's just a cultural moment. It's Hollywood, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

On the other side of that, I know as a Christian that I'm going to use whatever I can that's out there happening in the culture to discuss God's truth. This is just another example of what human nature can do. Is it good? Is it bad? One party's good. One party's bad. Were they both wrong? Is somebody the hero and somebody the villain, the sinner, the saint, the attacker, the defender, especially if you start talking about somebody's wife.

How do we deal with these types of things as Christians? A couple of my friends on Facebook today as things were going back and forth, just some great insight. For me, you guys all know this, I'm pigmentally challenged. Does that matter?

Does an African-American perspective matter when it comes to this situation given that it was Will Smith and Chris Rock, two African-Americans? Yes and no. I think it depends on what kind of questions you have. One of my friends, Pastor Rodney Finch from Calvary Chapel here in the area down in the Cary-Apex area, just had some great insights. Pastor Rodney grew up in a tough part of Philadelphia, same area that Will Smith grew up, and so looking forward to hearing what our buddy has to say. Pastor Rodney, how are you doing, my friend? Hey, man. How you doing? Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Interesting days as always, Pastor Rodney.

You've got a unique perspective on this because you grew up in a tough part of Philly like Will Smith did, but then as a pastor and somebody that is supposed to be leading us down the road of the truth of Scripture, how do we look at this? Yeah, let me ask you real quick, can you hear me just fine? I hear you fine. Yeah, you sound great. You're good.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, man, good to hear. Yes, you are pigmentally challenged. And I am not.

Listen, yeah, I'm from Philadelphia, originally actually from the same community as Will Smith and Jada are from West Philadelphia. It's a very, very, you know, this is what we call the hood. And yeah, I don't, you know, I just, you know, people have been asking me all day, what do I think about it? And I, of course, it's polarized. That's just the way nature is, communities are nowadays, politics are, everybody's polarized, left the right. And I think, you know, quite honestly, we all I think can agree that could have been handled much differently.

Yeah, that certainly could have been handled much differently. At the same time, as a pastor, here's my perspective. I believe we have to be mindful, concerning free speech. And we have to be careful that we aren't getting ourselves down the slippery slope of free speech. Now, if you follow the Oscars, of which I really don't, but I have seen it in years past, and comedians such as Dave Chappelle, I don't listen to him, but I do know about the argument and the position of even silencing him for his speech towards certain communities. And I think that if we're not careful, we start to censor, you know, what is appropriate speech, and what can be said and what can't be said, then we will eventually move into the ability for preachers to preach the Word of God, because that may not be socially acceptable. I might even argue that even today, there are many places where it's just not, you know, people don't want to hear the gospel. They want to silence preachers.

They want to censor certain words, you know, it's like the word police. And when you start getting down that path, we are on a slippery slope, bro. So my feeling is that Chris Rock is a comedian. Me personally, my mother has alopecia. My mother is an African American woman, 70 million Black women in our country deal with alopecia.

I don't know if I'd use the word suffer with it, but let's just say deal with alopecia. And Chris Rock is a comedian. It was, in my opinion, it's my opinion, Steve, it was a joke about G.I.

Jane. You know, I didn't, I didn't watch it last night. I watched the clips today. And I just think that, you know, comedians, they make laughter out of real life situations. This is what they do. This is what the Oscars do every single year.

Why is this something that should be defended by the Oscars? I'm not really sure what the position is, but I'm just careful not to, I may not like, you know, someone's speech. Someone may call me the n-word. Someone may call you a derogatory name. I don't know that we need to go down the path of telling people what is and what is not inappropriate speech.

Yeah. Let me ask you this question right quick, Pastor Rodney. Well, let me ask you this. Does it change the scenario at all that it was Chris Rock cracking a joke about Will Smith's wife? Because at first it looked like Will Smith was kind of going along with it, laughing. Then he looked at Jada. She was obviously not pleased.

And then, and then, and then, and then he kind of stood up and did what he did. But does it, does it change the scenario because he was quote unquote defending his wife's honor? No, violence should never be tolerated. Violence should never be accepted. Violence should never be excused. I come from Philadelphia is like a murder capital in our country. I mean, literally my neighborhood that I grew up in, I'm afraid to go there and I still have friends and family there. So, you know, we can't, you know, we can look in our, in our neighborhoods, for example, in my neighborhood and our crime rate is skyrocketed. We have, you know, black or black crime is a real problem.

We have to send a message to our youth that violence is never the answer. I don't care what happened. It's your wife. And yes, you may have taken it defensively, but we are adults.

Will Smith is over 50 years old. I know that for a fact. So as adults, we don't walk on up to each other and slap them. Steve, I don't care what happened. You can never sanction and never condone violence under any circumstances. Not, not unless your wife was physically being attacked. And then that's not violence. That's defense. Right? Exactly. You have a right to defend yourself.

The second amendment. Yeah. I think that's a great point. That's a great point. And I appreciate you bringing up the thing about alopecia and yeah, it's like 70% of black women in America struggle with that. And that can be a touchy subject. And for me as a white guy, I don't necessarily understand that. Uh, but there's a lot of things about hairstyle. There's, there's a history there.

And so these are one of the reasons that we continue to talk about these things to try to learn and become more like Christ. Rodney Finch. I appreciate you being on buddy. I'm up against the break, but thanks so much for calling in.

Go, go, go, man. Thanks for having me on. We'll talk to you again. Thanks pal. All right. We'll be right back. 866 34 truth. What do you think?

We'll be right back. Did you hear it? Did you hear it? Did you hear it last night? Maybe you didn't hear it about it until this morning. The slap heard round the world at the Oscars last night.

This is the most press the Oscars have gotten in 10 years. And of course there's a lot of people that are like, ah, they did it on purpose. I'm not buying that.

I don't think that was on purpose, but you see what you want to see. I'm going to set that aside. But I am curious. We heard from pastor Rodney Finch in the first segment. We'd love to hear from you and this segment of the next segment.

Open up the phones. What do you think? Do you think that was justified? That, uh, Will Smith was just defending his wife's honor. Chris Rock crossed the line and salted his wife right there in front of everybody. And so it was, it was just fine that about time a man stands up and be a man, right? Maybe that's your position.

Maybe you just thought they were both wrong. Chris Rock shouldn't be cracking jokes like that. And Will Smith lost control of himself. I'm sure alcohol is a factor at some level. Uh, but you know, what do we take away from this as, as, as individuals, as Christ followers, that how should you view this as a Christ follower? That's what I was writing about this morning on Facebook, uh, before I had to dive into a bunch of other stuff. And today I was prepping for teaching us history this week, world war two.

So I'm, I'm, I spent probably a good six hours a day prepping for world war two, teaching world war two this week to my students, my high school homeschoolers in. And on the other hand, there's the Will Smith, Chris Rock thing going on. And I'm like, Whoa, okay. These are in totally different worlds. These are like in two different universes. This thing over here with Chris and Will, uh, it's a teachable moment in many ways, but certainly not a monumental moment over here, a world war, world war two.

Yeah, that's monumental. So that was a good perspective shift for me. But what about you? What do you make of this? Who's in the right? Who's in the wrong? Did he do the right thing? Was that honorable?

Will Smith stood up and you know, he's got a little violent, but he was defending his wife's honor. Maybe you think that, or maybe you just think the whole thing was a sham, whatever. I'm curious to see what you think. And again, my, my goal here is for us to try to see it from Jesus's perspectives, from Christ's perspective, through a biblical lens eight, six, six, three, four, eight, seven, eight, eight, four is the number eight, six, six, three, four, eight, seven, eight, eight, four, or eight, six, six, 30 for truth calling and tell me what you think about that incident last night. And yes, I know, cause I know there's several of you out there.

They're probably Steve. There's so many things going on in the world. Why are you talking about this?

Well, I do do 260 radio shows a year with four segments within each show. So I feel like I have the freedom to run a little bit and engage things, cultural moments when they happen. And this is one of them.

And I think there's some, uh, I think there's some validity in talking about it. How do you handle conflict? You and I aren't Will Smith and we're not these people living at the live in these people's lives, but we have conflict. Uh, we get insulted. How do you handle an insult? How would the Lord have you handle an insult? How did Jesus handle insults? He was, he was insulted. He was slapped. He was mocked. He was spit upon. He was nailed to a cross. How did he handle it? Are we patterning ourselves after that?

Eight, six, six, three, four, eight, seven, eight, eight, four, or eight, six, six, 30 for truth. Pastor Rodney is like, yeah, violence never called for. Now if he's, if Chris Rock is assaulting Jada Pinkett Smith, okay, that's one thing. Then it's self-defense. But in this case it was offensive, uh, violence, right? Does that matter? Does that change your mind on the issue?

Eight, six, six, three, four, eight, seven, eight, eight, four. And by the way, I'm asking you because we know what mainstream media, we're getting all their stuff. We're getting all the Twitter stuff.

We're getting all the stars stuff. We're getting, but I just want to hear from regular people that are trying to follow the Lord as best as you can. And let's have a conversation amongst ourselves cause we're never going to get our type of opinions through the mainstream media, right? It's just not going to happen.

And for the most part, you're not going to get it through conservative media either where we're trying to saturate our positions in the word of God. Eight, six, six, three, four, eight, seven, eight, eight, four is the number. Eight, six, six, three, four, eight, seven, eight, eight, four, or eight, six, six, thirty-four truth.

Uh, and we'd love for you to call in and share that. The Oscars that Dana Lemo tweet last night, but then they came out, I think earlier today, this was in the BBC. A statement said it would explore further action and consequences in accordance with California law and the body standards of conduct. Chris Rock, by the way, at this point has not filed. He refused to file, uh, charges as blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The incident cast a pall on what should have been Hollywood's biggest night to celebrate and overshadowed others' achievements. One member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said, which puts on the ceremony, told the BBC quote, I woke up so bummed about what Will Smith did, said the member.

To me, he stole the limelight. I don't think that that was the place to be so violent. Most people were shocked. There were children. There was a place to celebrate. So we'll see where it goes from there.

But setting aside the BBC and anybody else, what do you happen to think? Eight, six, six, three, four, eight, seven, eight, eight, four or eight, six, six, thirty-four truth. Let's go to my friend Cindy calling in here in North Carolina. Cindy, thanks for calling.

Go ahead. Hey, I think it was totally wrong. It was not, it was not called for and it was an assault. It was assault.

And if anybody else had done it, they probably would have been arrested. But because it's Will Smith, it was an international television and to just walk up and slap somebody regardless of what the joke was, those jokes are always offensive. That's the whole problem with comedy in Hollywood. All of those jokes are offensive.

Wanda Sykes is very offensive. And so for him to smack him and then go back into the audience and swear using the F word twice on live television and then to have everybody just laugh it off like, haha, isn't this funny? I mean, the Academy handled it so wrong and I'm sure they were just, didn't know what to do.

Yeah. And they came out to the statement saying violence is never whatever. But still, I think Will Smith looked like he was having a nervous breakdown when he got up there and accepted the award and they let him go on for five minutes. I mean, he seemed like he was cracking up.

They should have given him the music to say, listen, you need help, pal. But as Christians, we should definitely be against it because nobody else would have gotten away with that. You don't walk up and slap somebody in the face. Period. Period.

Yeah, I think there's some definitely some unequal weights and measures going on there with that one. And another point in and Pastor Rodney, when he called in earlier, Cindy alluded to this, this especially now this is going to trigger some folks, especially in the African-American community. Do we really need the the example of a successful black man feeling apparently OK on live television in front of a, you know, decent sized audience going up there and assaulting another guy? Like the answer here is violence.

That's the last that's the last message the young African-American community across this country needs from two of its. Well, one of its quote unquote leaders like Will Smith is, hey, you know, when you get ticked off, when you get offended, here's how you handle it. You go slap the tar out of somebody. Right. And then he specified it by saying, you know, hey, I played this role of, you know, Richard Williams. And as a result of being in that moment and protecting all these people, I felt like I had to do this.

Really? That's how you protect people. You protect people by showing them that assault is acceptable behavior. I mean, it was terrible all the way around. And the academy should have given him the hook. And I think we all should use it as a teachable moment to say, don't drink when you're out in public.

And if you can't handle it, if you can't handle it, don't go listen to people that are rude and obnoxious and vulgar as a matter of practice. I mean, Chris Rock is the kind of comedian where nothing is off limits. Oh, that's right. Yeah. Hair and black women's hair. I mean, he did a whole documentary on black hair.

He has a whole documentary on black women's hair. So for him, you know, like you tried to say, it's just a joke for having to say. And, you know, I mean, I think the person who I think the person who tried the hardest was P Diddy when he said, you know, we're going to work it out. Yeah. After the party, let's pronounce it. Hug it out, you know? Right. Yep. Yeah.

At least somebody was speaking some sense at that point. Yeah. Good show. All right. Thanks, Cindy.

God bless you. Thanks so much for calling. I'm going to go to hey, Mike's calling in from North Carolina as well.

Mike, I'm going to get to you after the break because I don't want to give you 20 seconds and then have to give you the hook like they probably should have given Will Smith the hook last night. And by the way, when I said a leader, I don't think Chris Rock is any kind of a leader, although he is by definition because he's a successful African-American, which gives him a unique platform in the African-American community. And then Will Smith, who in many ways seems to be a good guy, decent guy.

You know, as far as I know, although there's some screwy stuff with his marriage, but you throw that all in there. But really, that's the message you want to send to people watching, especially young African-American men. This is the way you solve your problems.

Go smack somebody. We don't need any more of that. We'll be right back.

Welcome back at Steve Noble to Steve Noble Show. Who was right? Who was wrong? Was one of them right? The other one wrong?

Were they both wrong? You hire somebody like Chris Rock to come in and host your show. Guess what? You're hiring a kind of a cultural comedic assassin. And there's been a lot of people over the years and all these award shows, as soon as you hire one of the more crass type comedians out there. It's like going to Vegas.

You're just going to roll the dice and see what happens. And it's live television. Can't get it back. You got like a ten, seven, ten second delay. And you do that. Why do they do that? Why do they hire somebody like Chris Rock hoping to get ratings?

Because everybody knows. We'll see what Chris says. Well, there you go. You got what you paid for.

And then you got a little extra because of the way Will Smith handled it. What do you think about all this? And how should we look at this as Christians?

I appreciate it. Cindy calling in and people calling in and sharing that. Again, we have to filter this through a biblical worldview if you're a Christian. How do we look at it? OK, not what does the world tell us and what do we feel like justifies our own actions? But what does the Lord think?

866-348-7884. Uncalled for. Totally wrong.

Or do you kind of like, hey, I'm going to give Will some props for defending his wife in public, man. I would have done the same thing. And if that's your position, that's fine. You can call in and share that as well.

866-348-7884 or 866-34. Truth. Let's go to Mike calling in from North Carolina. Mike, sorry I had to hold you through the break, man. Go right ahead. Thanks. No, you're good. You're the man, Steve.

Well, I don't know about that, but thanks for calling. I don't think Chris is all that funny personally. I just want to comment that it goes without saying that we don't we don't agree with violence is the answer to the problem. But there's so much backbiting in the world. And Jada and Will have been through a lot of stuff considering that they're still together. Yeah. So what I want to say is I think there's something to be said for the fact that he he was determined to draw a line in the sand because the world just accepts backbiting.

People say all kinds of things about your friends, you know, especially behind your back. And people are afraid to speak up and they just let it go on. So in a twisted way, I support that he that he was willing to do something about it. But I don't think violence is the answer. I agree. I agree with that. But yeah, but do something.

Don't don't let it go unaddressed or unattended to do something. But violence isn't the answer. And I'm with you there.

Yeah, violence is the easy lesson. I'm just saying, yeah, we should we should speak up more for what's right and not be quiet. That's all I'm saying.

Yeah, I think that's a great point to a great application in this point. Mike, thanks so much for calling in, man. I appreciate it. Yes, sir. Have a good one. You too.

Thanks. Eight six six three four eight seven eight eight four is the number eight six six three four eight seven eight eight four or eight six six thirty four truth. And is that a question? I mean, if we if we're going to go to the scripture about this stuff, Psalm thirty seven eight, refrain from anger and forsake wrath, fret not yourself, attends only the evil.

OK, well, that can be a problem. But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger. So we're going to follow the Lord. We should be slow to anger. Proverbs fourteen twenty nine. Whoever is slow to anger is great understanding. But he who has a hasty temper exalts folly.

We've talked about this in our own house. I struggle with my own temper and a fool gives full vent to his wrath. Right. Or Proverbs fifteen one, a soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up stirs up anger.

Well, that's not helpful. Proverbs fifteen eighteen. There's a lot of this in Proverbs. A hot tempered man stirs up strife, but he who is slow to anger quiets contention. Proverbs twenty two twenty four. Make no friendship with a man given to anger, nor go with a wrathful man. And then another Proverbs and another Ecclesiastes. Be not quick in your spirit to become angry for anger, anger lodges in the heart of fools. And then Second Timothy two twenty one, jump over the New Testament, so flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart, pursue peace.

That's what we're called to do as Christians. We're supposed to be peacemakers, right? We're supposed to be pursuers of peace. Isaiah fifty seven, there is no peace, says my God for the wicked.

Yikes. So as we see this, I mean, here's my question for all of us. And especially for me, when we see this, what's your reaction?

Do we and I think Mike makes a great point. We live in a society where people are so afraid now to speak up for fear of backlash, retribution, maybe even losing your job. You know, we saw it with covid just the other day on Twitter. I saw somebody else got banned from Twitter shut down because it's simply asserting that Rachel Levine, the man who serves in the in the Biden White House, is a man because he's got, you know, man chromosomes in man parts. He's a man who has gender dysphoria and likes to try to present himself as a woman. And so I just like, oh, this is funny, let's just try it. So on Twitter, that's all I did.

Rachel Levine is a man. And then within 24 hours, I got the note and I was never I read stuff on Twitter. I don't post. So I go on there and boom, there it is. Your account is suspended for false information.

You're violating one of our rules and you have to delete it and then we'll reinstate your account. And I was just it's just an experiment on my part. So I appreciate what Mike said. Too many of us are willing are not willing to say anything. Too many of us are not willing to stand up. Too many of us are not willing to speak a hard truth.

And not every truth has to be a hard or angry or forceful. But. Wow.

I mean, what do you do with that? Right. And yes, to Catherine on Facebook live, Denzel gave good advice. He told him, hey, man, when you get to the top, that's when the devil comes after you.

And Denzel Washington, who's been married almost 40 years. Who seems like a great guy, has been more open with his faith the last couple of years. I'm glad that he inserted himself in that situation again. From my perspective, I'm like, hey, Will, I appreciate it. What are some other things he could have done?

What do you think he should have done? 866-348-7884. Call quickly, though, because we're going to have to get moving on in the fourth segment. But if you want to call in and share your opinion, I'd love to hear it.

866-348-7884 or 866-34 truth. What other choices? Well, he could have just grabbed his wife's hand and walked out, given the fact that he was nominated for best actor. That would have been a big statement. I would have I would have been OK with him walking on stage and taking Chris Rock about four feet to the right and speak to him forcefully.

Say what you need to say. These guys have known each other for years and then go sit down, kiss your wife on the way back, sit down, apologize to your wife for that jerk. And that would have made a big statement. But the slap thing, especially and again, I just so trigger some folks, especially given what's going on in the African-American community with violence. I think the last thing that they needed to see was a very uber ultra successful black man deal with his conflict, regardless of the motivations, with violence. I don't think the world needs to see that. I especially don't think the African-American community needs to see that. Now, it's not like they're going to trip all over themselves and follow Will Smith.

But when you have that platform, you have a responsibility to use it. And then, you know, when he won best actor, he gets up there and starts talking about family and love and God. And he was obviously kind of messed up. I have no idea whether he was drinking or not. Odds are pretty good.

They all had some champagne beforehand, whatever. But you see these things. And as us as Christians, I think, remember, there's the right, there's the left, there's the blue, there's the red, and then there's us. And yes, sometimes I most of the time I fit in that red camp occasionally on a certain subject here and there. I might have a little overlap with the blue camp, but ultimately I belong to neither. If you're a Christian, you belong to neither. You belong to Christ. And so we toe that line.

We seek peace and pursue it. But again, I'm going to come back to what Mike said earlier. I think far too many of us refuse to say anything in any situation, regardless of what's going on, because we're cowards. The one thing you can say about Will Smith last night, he wasn't a coward.

Now, that might have been totally self obsessive. I don't know. I can't judge the guy's heart.

I don't know what's on his head in his head. But he wasn't a coward. He was willing to stand up. He was willing to, you know, how much he was thought through that. I don't know. Again, there's very little that we know other than watching.

And yeah, Kratos on Facebook. How about that? If Will wanted more attention, he should have walked up to Chris, laid his hands on him and prayed for him. Yeah, I think that would have been more offensive to people actually up there doing that Christian stuff as opposed to defending your woman. Right. It's an interesting one, and I think it's one that it's fine if we discuss it and try to learn from it.

Right. Let's go to David, who's calling in on the show today. Appreciate that. David, thanks for calling. Go right ahead. Actually, this is David from Landmark Capital.

Oh, that David. He sent me on early, so I'll let him and I'll take this. All right, pal. I'll be right back to you in a minute. All right. Hold on, David. I'll come right back. Oh, it's that David.

It's not the other David. It's funny. And then, yeah, and then Sarah on Facebook Live, and some people say I'm a staged, which I could understand that too because the Oscars ratings, a lot of those ratings in the last 10 years are in the toilet.

Terrible. I don't know why they bothered. It's all inside baseball anyway. It's just all these Hollywood muckety mucks giving each other awards. Most of us aren't that interested anymore. We know enough about them and see enough about it from social media, popular media, digital age, yada, yada, yada.

Why did they even still do it? Just do it privately. The next day you send it out and say, hey, here's who won. Oh, that's nice. Cool. I like that movie.

Oh, I like that actor. That's good. And then you're out of there. Right? You're done.

See ya. And that's it. Just get them off of there. But again, I think the two big lessons. How do you resolve conflict? Seek peace and pursue it.

That's always the deal. If it's possible, Paul wrote, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. With everyone. What if they insult you and malign you? What if they spit on you?

What if they hit you? Well, I think we already have somebody to look to for an example on that. Not Will Smith, not Chris Rock. We have Jesus Christ to look to on that one. Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. He was able to think about forgiveness and peace with people that were killing him.

Along with people that insulted him and said all kinds of wicked things about him, like Chris Rock did about Jada Pinkett Smith. So which way are you going to follow? Man's way or the king's way?

Pretty obvious on this point. You can defend your honor without being violent, without sinning. This is Steve Noble.

We'll be right back. They probably could have used a little chilled out music last night at the Oscars, but setting that aside again, whenever these crazy things going on in the news, just try to filter through a biblical worldview and grow in your Christ likeness and sanctification. That's what you do with the breaking news of the day. That's what I try to do here on the show and try to use the things that the culture is throwing out there to grow in our faith and grow in our understanding and application of God's word. It's not that complicated. That's what an active biblical worldview does. It doesn't stop there, though.

It also transfers over into how we manage and be good stewards or bad stewards of the things that God allows us to have, whether it's time, talent, treasure. In this case, talking about treasure with our good friend David Fisher on a Monday Monday update from Landmark Capital, landmarkgold.com is the website, as always, landmarkgold.com. David, back on for the second time. That was funny. I've never done that to you before where I accidentally pulled you into the wrong segment. No, that's okay. I'm armed and ready whenever you're ready for me. I know you are.

So I appreciate you calling and great to hear from you. And we always on our Monday Monday updates with David always start with a passage of scripture to get our compasses set on true north. So 1 Peter 4. Let's start there, David.

Thanks. Says this chapter verse 12. Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you.

I love this verse, because it can be applied in so many ways as believers. Our worldview of, you know, what's happening in the world, and it's all crazy socially, economically, financially. Also what's happening in a person's life that, you know, there's this, as young believers, I believe that, okay, well now I accepted Christ, I don't want to have any more problems, you know?

That's so completely far from the reality. It's God using our challenges in life to make His character be known in us and through us. So if you're going through fire, don't fight it, embrace it, and let the Lord do His will in your life. And I think there's so much economic, this relates to economics, there's so much economic challenge that came out since last week today. We'll get into it more in depth next Monday with a full show, but I am so disturbed, I guess is the word, by what is happening here financially in the world. Yeah, and disturbed is the right word, but we live in the here and the now, we shouldn't make sure our house is not built on sand so that it gets rocked by the news of the day. But we do live in the here and the now, we look forward to the there and the then when we're all in heaven together, those of us that are in Christ. But we live in the present, and that's why we need to be knowledgeable and engaged, and we need to be good stewards of everything.

So I appreciate you getting us started that way. So I was mentioning earlier, President Biden's big budget buster came out, he used the word unleashed, $5.8 trillion, I was saying during the commercial break, David, that you wait, he's gonna wrap this thing all up in red, white and blue and pro-military and pro-defense, it'll have like a camouflage bow on it. But once you open the box up, you're just gonna get more of this crazy green new deal, leftist stuff. So boom or bust, give us a brief summary of what's going on with this beast. Boom, if they pass it, as far as a spending boom, bust, well, it's gonna bust in Congress, I hope, and I hope it won't get passed.

If it does get passed, it's gonna be a detrimental thing. Just the number alone just scares me, $5.8 trillion. It's the largest investment in our national security history. $31 billion are adding to the tune of now $813 billion toward defense. And I believe we should have a strong military and we should apply the funds to have that. So I'm not against that. It's just the overall ticket, how we're gonna pay for it.

That's where the rubber meets the road. We're giving a billion dollars to Ukraine, I think we should do that. Almost $7 billion to NATO. This budget is gonna target raising tax hikes on ultra wealthy, which I think they should pay a little bit more to fare the share, but also corporations, which 53% of all corporations is small businesses. So it's gonna hurt the small business owner.

That's where the bottom line is. And they say they're gonna raise the corporate tax rate from 21 to 28%, another tax hike, totally against President Reagan, President Trump, and those types of policies. The administration is also saying, and this is where I just like want to vomit, it's gonna reduce the federal budget this year by $1.3 trillion this year.

I don't even see how that's even plausible yet even even reducing the penny. And then he says over 10 years, $1 trillion is gonna be reducing the budget. I don't see where there's a whole lot of facts and truth to this except for it's just a lot more spending. Yeah, a lot more spending because that's all they know how to do up there. And again, that's mostly on the left, but we have a problem on the right as well in terms of looking to the government and big spending. They just want to spend a little bit less but continue to increase spending, which is untenable, but they don't care because once that all collapses, they'll all be dead anyway.

So who cares? Just leave it behind you walking down the road. So now there's talk of the R word. We look at recession. Is that possible that we could go into a recession?

How do we know if we're in one when we arrive or are we moving towards it? Help us understand that, David. Well, Peter Bockvar, he's an economist. He says any further correction in the markets could possibly cause a recession now.

And he's a managing director of a fund. He expects it to happen in the next six months. Goldman Sachs says that they see this happening possibly as early as next quarter, where we have what you call a yield curve inversion, which that's what a recession is, is when, not to get all technical, the 10-year yield, we'll get into this next week, when it is lower than a two-year yield.

It should always be higher because the longer you have debt holding out, you should be paid more. So when it inverts, goes upside down to 10 years lower than the two, 100% of times it has caused a recession. Goldman Sachs says that's going to happen in the next quarter and it's going to last for three years.

Bank of America, Michael Harnett says it's going to happen the second half of this year. There's others that have come out and said recession, recession. Deutsche Bank says that by the Fed hiking rates in this cycle, it will cause some sort of a major financial crisis. So we're headed there.

Technically, we're not there yet. But if they do this interest rate hike in high inflation, 7.9%, threading that needle, getting away from a market correction, getting away from a recession is going to be severely problematic. So as they do more rate increases this year, which they've said they're going to do, they're going to keep doing them, does that increase our, does that accelerate us towards a recession? Is that kind of the natural progression there? That's the natural progression because it pushes the long-term yield, 10-year yield down. Okay.

Got it. Yeah. So will there be any kind of a shockwave that happens if we know we've entered a recession, kind of like breaking the speed of sound? Well, they're going to make a big deal of it. They say, don't be alarmed. This is what will happen.

Of course. Like transitory inflation. It'll be over by Christmas.

Exactly. And the financial news will not make a big deal of it. We're talking about it on financial news, but they're saying it's just not going to happen. Yet the biggest banks in our country are saying it's inevitable.

So I would just take it with a grain of salt. It's not going to be a sonic boom, but it'll be a wake-up call, but it will take, once that inversion happens, it takes 12 to 18 months for actual recession to be felt. So it will happen first, the announcement, and then the feeling of the results of that. So there'll be some time of a gap there.

Yeah. Well, we're going to talk more in depth about this next thing next week, but we've been talking about Russia and China and switching, getting away from the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency. And then there's the ruble out there, which is not doing so hot. And then the yuan, which is the Chinese currency. Give us a little update on that.

So we only have a couple of minutes. Last Wednesday, Putin said he demanded his unfriendly countries, United States, U.K. and European Union, they must pay for gas in rubles now. Even though the contract was written in either euros or dollars, he will no longer accept payment in dollars or euros.

So then the G7 pushed back, and they said, you can't do this. He pushed back this morning while we were sleeping, the Russian morning, and said, he's going to demand this, and if you don't like it, he's going to cut Germany off. Germany said, the financial minister, Robert Habeck, economic minister, says that you can't breach this contract.

It was written in euros. And so he fires back and he says, if you don't want to play by our rules enough, and he says, gas will indefinitely lead to a halt of supplies. So he's saying, we're going to cut you off.

Turn the valve off. And that announcement is going to happen in the next couple of days. Russia also said to the friendly countries, China and Turkey, you can pay in rubles, you can pay in one, you can also pay in gold, he said.

And then he went on to say, we're not going to accept any sort of payment from the United States except for gold. So this whole thing that I said a year, two years ago, watch gold, and the yuan, and Russia, and gold, and oil, and countries going away from the dollar all get connected. A whole bunch of pieces of the puzzle came together from last Monday until now.

We'll have more time next. We'll be talking about it in the ramifications. This is not good news. This is a fiery ordeal economically.

Yeah, scary stuff. So real quick, we got about a minute. So what's going on in the gold market? Is it reacting yet or is this just kind of waiting to bubble over?

Well, it's pulling back. It's in the $1,900 to $2,000 trading range. Experts are saying like Chantelle Sivan, she's the head of a research company, $2,100 gold by the end of the year, $3,000 gold in the next three to five years. Countries are going to be massively buying gold now is what they're saying. Gearing up for a diversification out of dollars. Pretty wild stuff. And we need to understand what's happening.

People want to get more education, want to get informed, David, what do they do? Give us a call, 844-604-2575, 844-604-2575 or landmarkgold.com. All right, buddy. Thank you so much. Looking forward to a full Monday Monday with you next week, but have a great week in the meantime. God bless you. You too, my brother.

All right, pal. We'll talk real soon. Heaven looks better every day, doesn't it? I sure hope it does. It's looking better to me every day. Hope it's looking better to you as well.

This is Steve Noble on The Steve Noble Show. God willing, I'll talk to you again real soon. And like my dad always used to say, ever forward. Ever forward.