The American Soul
Are you tired of hearing the myth about separation of church and state? Are you tired of being told that America is not and never was a Christian nation? Do you want to have the information to stand up for the truth and fight back against this fundamental lie that’s invading our culture and education? Each week, host Jesse Cope will dive into quotes and excerpts from our great leaders and documents throughout our history showing how in President Woodrow Wilson’s words “America was born a Christian nation.” We have the truth on our side and together we can absolutely turn our nation around. Follow Jesse @jtcope4 on Twitter and @jtcopeiv on Instagram for daily doses of the truth to help fight back. Subscribe to The American Soul and share the show with someone who needs to hear it. We're on a mission to spread the truth and get our nation back on the right track — and you can help us make this possible.
The American Soul
Reintegrating God and Bible-Centered Values in Public Education: A Path to Truth and Eternal Treasures
Can you discern truth from lies in today's education system? Join us on this heartfelt episode of the American Soul Podcast, where we explore the urgent need to place God and the Bible back at the center of public schooling. We kick off with an update from the homestead and a sincere prayer, expressing our gratitude and seeking divine guidance. Reflecting on the alarming trend where students struggle to differentiate between fact and fiction, we emphasize daily Bible engagement as a key solution. Additionally, we highlight the importance of prioritizing time with both God and your spouse, cautioning against the distractions of excessive screen time.
In our discussion, we address the theme of short-sightedness, urging listeners to shift their focus from accumulating fleeting worldly possessions to eternal treasures. Drawing inspiration from the wisdom of William Samuel Johnson, we delve into the foundational duties to God, Jesus Christ, and our fellow man as essential elements of a meaningful education. Tune in for insights that aim to enrich your faith, strengthen family bonds, and guide us all towards a more purposeful and impactful life. God bless you, your families, your marriages, and America.
The American Soul Podcast
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Thank you, folks. This is Jesse Cope, back with another episode of the American Soul Podcast. Hope y'all are doing well, wherever y'all are and whatever part of the day you're in. Excuse me, sure do appreciate y'all joining me, giving me a little bit of your time and energy, a little piece of your day. Hope it gives you all something to listen to with somebody else parent, friend, spouse, co-worker. Hopefully it gives you all some extra tools for your toolbox, as we used to say in the Marine Corps, and hopefully it helps our country, even if just a little bit, to turn back to God and Jesus Christ. I'm glad you're here.
Speaker 1:Homestead not a whole lot. Got a little more work done, recovering the garden, got some pears off of our pear tree, I think the turkeys and guineas and chickens have still managed to find and destroy all of the butternut squash that's growing. So that's disappointing. I think that's about it. It's hot. Father, thank you for today. Thank you for you, father, and your Son Jesus Christ, and your Holy Spirit. Thank you for your love, grace, forgiveness, forgiveness of our sins, father, through the merit of your son Jesus Christ. Thank you for the time to record this podcast, the people that listen to it. Be with them and their families. Surround us with your angels, father, guide us, bless us, protect us. Be with those who are hurting. Be with them and their families. Surround us with your angels, father. Guide us, bless us, protect us. Be with those who are hurting, those who feel alone and afraid. Be with Israel. Be with those who are there under attack. If they're under attack, be with us as a nation. Be with all the nations around the world. Father, help us to elect men who rule in fear of you. Guide our steps. Bless those of us who rule in fear of you. God, bless those of us in our marriages. Bless the marriages of our nation over those in our military and our law enforcement. Thank you, thank you, lord and God. My words here. Father, please, in your son's name, we pray Amen. And God, my words here. Father, please, in your son's name, we pray Amen. Have you read your Bible today? Made time for God?
Speaker 1:I was talking to a young man in our community Recently and we were talking about the fact that the devil always lies. That's his nature, has been from the very beginning. Jesus tells us that, and the world goes along with the devil, and they tell us what's evil is good, what's good is evil. They twist right and wrong, they wrap lies in just a little bit of truth, right. And if we don't spend time each day in God's Word, it's very hard for us to discern. That's one of the problems.
Speaker 1:A lot of people look at education today and they say, man, kids, just they don't understand anything. And I've talked to some people that have been educators for a long time and they've talked about the lack of logic, the ability to look at a situation and the majority or a large percentage of kids today and discern between fact and fiction, between opinion and true like facts. Well, why would we expect them to be able to do that when we've taken truth out of the school system? We're going to talk about education a little bit. But, folks, if anybody's trying to give you a solution for modern American education or really education in any country, but particularly modern American education and their first, very first part of their answer isn't to put God and the Bible back at the center of public school, whatever their solution is is temporary at best. So, make a little time for God, a little time to read the Bible, a little time to pray. You can come back and join us later today reading the scriptures. Reading through the scriptures, if you would like to. That's all we do. We just read through the Bible just a little bit, a few minutes each day. We'd love to have you come back, if you can stand the sound of my voice.
Speaker 1:And for those of us who are married, if you're married, have you made time for your spouse? Have you made sure that they know that they are your second priority after only God? Or are you just making excuses? I saw somebody post recently. They were very pleased with themselves for having not watched any of the Olympics, which is fine. That's great and I understand it. But it doesn't do us much good if we're not filling that time with what we should be, if we're not doing what we ought to be. And it doesn't do us much good if we don't watch any of the Olympics but we're still watching hours of other sports and not paying attention to God and our spouse. You think about how many hours you watch and if you're not a sports fanatic, insert whatever foible you have, whatever failing you have. Think about however many hours you give to your phone or sports the Olympics, basketball, football, softball, volleyball, baseball, whatever it is your screen time and then think how long it takes you to spend that same amount of time with God or your spouse.
Speaker 1:So we're going to go in today. We've talked about this in the past, it's been a while. We're going to talk about part of a speech from William Samuel Johnson. Johnson was a signer of the Constitution, pretty distinguished lawyer, delegate to the Stamp Act Convention, commissioner to England. He was a member of the Continental Congress, state representative, us Senator and a Connecticut Supreme Court Justice. He was also the president of Columbia College, formerly King's College, from 1787 till 1800. And he gave these remarks as president of Columbia University to the first graduating class after the Revolutionary War. This is going to give you a real good example of how far away from our heritage and history and founding, particularly of American education, we have gotten.
Speaker 1:You this day, gentlemen, assume new characters, enter into new relations and consequently incur new duties. You have, by the favor of Providence and the attention of friends, received a public education, the purpose whereof hath been to qualify you the better to serve your Creator and your country. Your first great duties you are sensible are those you owe to Heaven, to your Creator and Redeemer. Let these be ever present to your minds and exemplify in your lives and conduct. Imprint deep upon your minds the principles of piety towards God and reverence and fear of his holy name. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom and its consummation is everlasting felicity. Possess yourselves of just and elevated notions Of the divine character, attributes and administration, and of the end and dignity of your own immortal nature as it stands related to him. Reflect deeply and often upon those relations.
Speaker 1:Remember that it is in God you live and move and have your being. You live and move and have your being. That, in the language of David, he is about your bed and about your path and spieth out all your ways. That there is not a thought in your hearts nor a word upon your tongues, but lo, he knoweth them all together, but lo, he knoweth them altogether. And that he will one day call you to a strict account for all your conduct in this mortal life. Remember, too, that you are the redeemed of the Lord, that you are bought with a price, that you are bought with a price, even the inestimable price of the precious blood of the Son of God. Adore Jehovah, therefore, as serve Him as your Creator, redeemer and Sanctifier, acquaint yourselves with Him and His Word and holy ordinances Make Him your friend and protector and your felicity is secured both here and hereafter. And your felicity is secured both here and hereafter and with respect to particular duties to him. It is your happiness that you are well assured that he best serves his maker, who does most good to his country and to mankind. This is out of this particular little excerpt is out of America's God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations by William J Federer. There's also an excerpt in the American Patriots Bible edited by Dr Richard Lee, and there may be an excerpt in the Founder's Bible by the Wall Builders Association.
Speaker 1:I didn't look today and I don't remember off the top of my head but I haven't spent a lot of time in these resources lately. But we do often, excuse me. We do often on the podcast. They're great resources. I highly recommend a hard copy. They ought to be primary textbooks in every classroom in America. Certainly would help our nation a great deal if they were.
Speaker 1:So we're going to go back into the speech and break it down a little bit. You know one of the things that he's talking to these men that graduated from Columbia about all the new relationships we send our kids out today into the world. But how much have we really prepared them for those new relationships, new duties, new relationships, new duties? Particularly, I'm thinking about being a husband or a wife, a father or a mother, because that's the cornerstone of our nation. Those are the most important jobs outside of being a servant of Christ. And it's in that order. It's a servant of Christ and it's in that order. It's a servant of Christ and then a spouse, and then, after that, a parent.
Speaker 1:How much time do we spend teaching our children about some sport or extracurricular activity? Or paying somebody else to do it Right sport or extracurricular activity, or paying somebody else to do it right Versus. How much time do we spend teaching them about how to be a good follower of Christ, a good husband or wife? And how do you best teach? By example? And so you think about your own marriage, if you're married, are you exemplifying a marriage that you would want your children to have? Are you exemplifying the kind of person, follower of Christ that you would want them to be? And I'm not talking about this, the fact that everybody's fallible? Of course we are, but are we truly striving each day to follow those principles of Christ? Right? And he says they received a public education folks. So right off the bat and this is after the Revolutionary War this idea that our founders didn't want Christianity in education. It's total nonsense. And this is just one more example of many the 1947 definition of separation of church and state, which is the exact opposite of Jefferson's meaning in his letter. And that phrase again is nowhere in the Constitution or the Declaration or the Bill of Rights within the Constitution. It's a total lie, total lie.
Speaker 1:What does he say? Our first duties are To God, to our Creator and redeemer, to our God and to our country. That's where our duty lies. Each day you get up. What do you need, god? You're married. Second, what do you need, spouse? How can I please you? Third country Every day, that ought to be our goal.
Speaker 1:He talks about imprinting the principles of piety towards God to revere and fear His Holy Name. How many of our students are taught that today? To fear God? He quotes Proverbs the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, right? And what do you get out of that? What do you get out of? The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, right? And what do you get out of that? What do you get out of this fear of God.
Speaker 1:He says everlasting felicity. You know, life. My grandmother used to say life isn't fair, it's just life. There's no guarantee that life is going to be easy for all of us. In fact, if we follow Christ, he tells us pretty specifically that life isn't going to be easy, which I never have liked that part. But so what's what's Johnson talking about here? Felicity, right, how's our life gonna be filled with happiness by following Christ when we see proof each day that that's not always the case, because eternally it will be. Folks, you know, he says here that we're going to have to answer for everything that we've done, every single action, strict account of all your conduct, right. And what does he say In this mortal life? This life is temporary, this mortal existence, but our soul and the new body that will be given is for eternity, is for eternity. If you knew and I'm probably going to, I tried to think about this the other day and I didn't do a very good job I'm probably going to waste the end of the podcast trying to get this analogy out If you knew right now that somebody was going to start to give you money, let's say they were going to give you $1,000 a day and you had two choices you could either take that $1,000 and spend it immediately, or put it in a bank account that you could spend any time within the next 10 years.
Speaker 1:Right, you could spend it however you wanted to within the next 10 years. Right, you could spend it however you wanted to within the next 10 years. But as soon as that 10 years was up, it was gone. Any investments you made gone. Anything you bought gone Houses, cars, clothes, didn't matter. Every single cent of that money and any money that it earned gone, totally gone. Right, but you were getting a thousand dollars a day. Or you could take that thousand dollars a day and you could put it in a very special savings account that you couldn't touch for 10 years. But as soon as that 10 years was up, it was yours permanently for the rest of your life. You could use it however you wanted. It was always going to be yours. It would never be taken away. Right?
Speaker 1:Probably a poor analogy, but some of y'all see where I'm going. That's the way we need to think about our existence here, versus eternally. Are we each day putting our treasure in that temporary account? Are we buying things? Are we focused on the things of the world that in that 10 year span, right In the analogy, in that short time, are going to be gone and we're never going to get those things? It's all gone. Or are we building up treasure in heaven eternally? Are we using each day as a chance to add to that eternal savings account so that when we get to heaven one day we have all this treasure stored up for eternity?
Speaker 1:And I'm afraid that a lot of us and I'm man, I've been guilty, folks. I'm telling you right now, I'm guilty of this all the time. We are so short-sighted and we are so focused on the here and now and the treasure in this world, and it's all going to be gone in the blink of an eye. But all that treasure that we managed, either purposefully or by accident, to put into that eternal account, we're going to have forever. And I think that's the felicity that Mr Johnson was trying to convey to his students by focusing on their duties to God and Jesus Christ and their fellow man. That's what we need in education, folks. That's where we need to be at. God bless y'all, god bless your families, god bless your marriages. God bless America. We'll talk to y'all again real soon, folks, looking forward to it.