The American Soul
The American Soul
The Comforting Promise: Rest for the Persecuted
What does your schedule reveal about your true priorities? Not what you say matters, but what actually gets your time and attention? The American Soul Podcast cuts through our comfortable excuses with this challenging question: Have you made time for God today?
Drawing from the wisdom of personal experience, this episode explores how our daily choices reveal our genuine commitments. Just as someone who repeatedly cancels fitness training doesn't truly prioritize health, we often profess spiritual priorities our schedules don't reflect. This honest self-examination forces us to confront the disconnect between our claimed values and actual behaviors.
The most powerful moment comes when examining a profound quote about rejected love: "Nothing hurts so much as to go to someone and offer love and have that offer spurned." This reflection creates a dual perspective – both understanding Christ's experience of continued rejection by humanity, and examining our own tendency to reject love offered by family, spouses, friends, and ultimately God Himself. The warning is clear: "To reject God's love is, in the end, to be in peril of his wrath."
Through an exploration of Second Thessalonians, listeners find encouragement that their perseverance through hardship serves as inspiration for others facing trials. Your suffering has purpose – it strengthens the faith community around you. The promise that "God will provide rest for you who are being persecuted" places present difficulties in their eternal context.
The episode concludes with a powerful reflection on identity, challenging the hyphenation of both national and religious affiliations. Daniel Webster's words resonate: "I am an American...and I am wedded to the fortunes of my country for will or for woe." Similarly, our primary identity must be in Christ, not denominational labels.
Ready to recalibrate your priorities? Listen now and discover how making time for what truly matters can transform not just your schedule, but your entire approach to faith and life.
The American Soul Podcast
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Hey folks, this is Jesse Cope, back with another episode of the American Soul Podcast. Hope y'all are doing well, wherever y'all are, whatever part of the day you're in. Sort of appreciate y'all joining me and giving me a little bit of your time and attention, a little piece of your day. I will try and use it wisely. Hopefully it'll give us all some extra tools for our toolbox. Hopefully it'll help us draw our country back a little bit closer to God and Jesus Christ and ourselves as well. Even more importantly, for those of y'all who continue to share the podcast with others, tell others about it. Thank you so much. I'm very grateful for that. For those of y'all who continue to share the podcast with others, tell others about it. Thank you so much. Very grateful for that. For those of y'all who continue to pray for me and for the podcast, thank you so much, very, very grateful for that. And for those of y'all that are new to the podcast, I'm glad you're here. Hope you get something out of it. Hope you come back, father, thank you for today. Thank you for back, father. Thank you for today. Thank you for you, father, and your Son, jesus Christ and your Holy Spirit. Thank you for your love and your mercy, your grace and your forgiveness. Thank you for clothes to wear, food to eat water to drink, a roof over our heads. For those of us who have those things, father, be with those who don't. Thank you for sunshine and rain. Thank you for the blessings we don't admit for whatever reason. Forgive us our sins, father. Forgive us our greed and our selfishness, our pride, vanity, judgment of others, gossip, slander, hypocrisy, for not loving others and forgiving others the same way you have loved and forgiven us. Help us to follow the commands of your Son, jesus Christ, each day. Help us to seek to do your will with actions and not just words, to love you, father, with our whole heart, mind, soul and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.
Speaker 1:Be with those who are listening to the podcast across the country, around the world and their nation, wherever they are. Thank you for them. Be with their families, guide them, bless them, surround them with your angels. Give them peace, comfort, take away any anxiety or fears that are there, father. Give them your peace. Be with those who are injured, those who are sick, comfort them. Help us, father, to keep your priorities in view, to keep what's important actually important. Help us to view life through the lens of eternity, and not this short time period that we have here. Please give us assurance and strengthen our faith. Be with our leaders, both politically, civilly and in the pulpit. Give them wisdom and courage and a strong faith. Help them to turn to you for guidance and help us to choose men who rule in fear of you, father and God. My words are Father, please, please your son's name. We pray Amen.
Speaker 1:Have you made time for God today? Have you made time to read his word? Have you made time to pray? Or, as I am so good at doing, are you making excuses?
Speaker 1:I started to ask this, I don't know, a week or so ago, on the podcast, I don't remember, and for whatever reason, it has started to strike me every day. What did you do? What have you already done today? Or, if you're listening to this first thing in the morning, what did you do yesterday? Look at your schedule, folks. If you really so, it feels like a lifetime ago, I guess it was maybe when we were in the Marine Corps, my wife and I. She worked at a little workout place while we were stationed there, and she did this a couple of times as a trainer over the years and one of the things that I remember her talking about.
Speaker 1:There's a couple of cases. One in particular I remember is these people would say you know, we really want to get in shape, we want to lose weight, whatever it was. I don't remember what their particular angle was, but uh, but then they would schedule a time to come meet with her and then frequently they would call just a little bit before and say, hey, we can't come today. And of course that's irritating If you're scheduling your day around that person and if that's your livelihood and income, that's really frustrating, right. Some of y'all know that. You experienced that. But the thing that I remember her talking about, us talking about was those people didn't really want to get in shape, they didn't really want to lose weight because if they did, they would have showed up. Even if it wasn't with her, they would have showed up with somebody somewhere, right? You know this is true. True. If you're listening to the podcast right now, you know somewhere in your heart of hearts that that's true.
Speaker 1:So what did you do yesterday or today? If you're listening to the podcast later, what have you done? How much time have you given to what, and does it line up with your priorities? Are you really acting on what you claim is important? If you are, that's great, that's phenomenal. Keep doing what you're doing each day.
Speaker 1:If you're not, when we don't, folks, we really need to take a hard look in the mirror at ourselves and go okay, am I? And I'm not talking about being perfect, I'm not talking about getting 100% right every single day, although that's our goal, right? You strive for perfection. You don't ever strive for mediocrity. So if we're not, we need to look in the mirror and go okay, am I not? Because those really are my priorities and I'm just doing a really bad job and I need to fix some things in my life. Or are they not my priorities? Right? Is God really my priority? And if he is, if he's first in my life, am I acting that way throughout the day, not once a week, not once a month or once a year? Each day and we talk about spouse always each day, if you're married or if you plan on being married someday, you can think about this Is your spouse your second priority each day? Do you treat them as if they really are one out of seven billion? Or how many souls we have on this planet right now? And if you're not, then you really need to ask yourself the question is it because I just am not paying attention and I really need to fix some things and work on it, or is my spouse not really that important to me, and then you can adjust and act accordingly.
Speaker 1:I've got a lot of housekeeping to do today. There's a lot of little things that I wanted to get into over the past week or two and I've just kept building up and building up, and so we're going to talk about some of them off and on today, some of them off and on today. But one of the things is a quote that, if I can find it, there we go. I thought I had it from my pastor, from I don't know, last weekend or the weekend before, and man, man, it's rough. So there's two quotes. The first one is not the one to me that's really rough, but it is very interesting.
Speaker 1:This was a quote that he used in a sermon by NT Wright and he said it's been said that the task of prophets is to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. Are we comfortable? Are you comfortable in your life? I've talked about this in a different way before. I had a phenomenal pastor years ago and he would say if you're going through life and you don't have any struggles, you don't have any storms, then I really question whether you're following Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1:And when you look at the Bible, you look at the history of the church, there's struggle constantly. Even for these great men and women of faith there's struggle. And so this modern idea I feel like it's modern. Maybe it's not, but this idea that's really taken hold, at least in America and much of Western civilization, inside the church in particular, is if we follow Christ, we ought to have this easy life, we ought to get all the things we want, we ought to make all the money we want, we ought to have all the health we want. Our children, our spouses, our friends ought to have all the health that we want them to have and they ought to love us in the way that we want to be loved and we ought to love them in the way that we want to be loved. They need to be loved. Right, and that sounds great, but it's just not history, it's not the Bible, it's not even Jesus Christ, the son of God, it's not his life. The Bible clearly tells us multiple times that know that if the world hates you, it hated me first. When we're attacked for being Christian, right, we're just following in Christ's footsteps.
Speaker 1:Again the same pastor from years ago. He had a wonderful analogy. He said look, if you go to work at this business and you show up and you work really hard every day and you're doing your best to follow Jesus Christ, being patient, kind, loving your neighbors yourself, and your employer starts to harass you, give you worse and worse tasks, cut your hours or give you really bad jobs, right, whatever, because you're Christian, that's one thing and you ought to rejoice in that. But he said but if you're going to a job and that job requires you to wear blue pants every day to work and you constantly come to work in white pants and they fire you? He said don't go around claiming to be suffering for the name of Christ. He said you're not suffering for the name of Christ, you're suffering because you're an idiot. That always made me laugh.
Speaker 1:But anyway, this NT Wright quote right, it's been said, the job of prophets is to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. Are we afflicted in our comfort, especially in America today, folks, very few of us have real problems that we didn't either create, or real problems compared to the rest of the world, ie Syria right now. If you're a Christian in Syria, you have people knocking on your door to rape your wife and your little girls, kill your sons and you. Wherever you're listening around the world right now England, france, canada, america, a couple other places that I see every once in a while on a pretty regular basis do you have anybody coming to knock on your door right now to do those things to you because you're Christian? Not because they don't like your skin color, not because they're mad at the amount of money that you have or don't have, or whatever, but because you're a Christian? Do you go to bed at night wondering if, in the middle of the night, somebody's going to knock on your door to shoot you, to rape your wife and your little girls and to kill your children, your boys, right? So a little bit of perspective. Are we afflicted in our comfort and do we seek to comfort those who are afflicted when we see those around us that have heartache, that are going through a nasty divorce, that are a single parent, that are sick with cancer or a heart problem, that have their names splashed all over the news, for whatever reason, right Do we try to comfort those in their affliction?
Speaker 1:This, however, is the quote that just absolutely rocked me when my pastor was talking about it last week or the week before, and it's from a man named Barclay. Nothing hurts so much as to go to someone and offer love and have that offer spurned. It is life's bitterest tragedy to give one's heart to someone only to have it broken. That is what happened to Jesus in Jerusalem. And still he comes to men and still men reject him. But the fact remains that to reject God's love is, in the end, to be in peril of his wrath, man. So I took this two ways when he said this one was, I think the author's intended way, like for the whole quote, really is to focus on Jesus, and the other, I think he also intended, was to talk about love just in general love, uh, of a friend right To a brother or sister, love of a parent to a child or vice versa, a child to a parent.
Speaker 1:And then most, maybe the deepest is or should be, I guess, in this world, love of one spouse to another right. We need to think about this, folks, when we're the one that's doing the rejecting. There's not a whole lot we can do if we give our heart to our kids and they reject it, or we give our heart to our parents and they reject it, except to pray to God and ask for mercy and grace and, uh, his perseverance in our affliction. Know that other people realize if you're one of those that's going through that and you've given your heart to someone, know that you're not alone, that Jesus Christ did the exact same thing, that often we're guilty of rejecting him ourselves in moments. And know that, as Psalms tells us, he's close to the brokenhearted, close to those who are crushed in spirit. Right, I think it's Psalms, might be Proverbs, I can't remember right now. But please realize you're not alone, it's not unique to you and I know that doesn't help heal your heart any right now. But know that there are other people out there going through the same thing that understand your pain. Know, most of all, that Jesus Christ understands your pain of unrequited love, of giving your heart to someone and having them jump up and down on it and smash it and not return that love.
Speaker 1:But for those of us who are in that position, we really need to think about that, folks. As a parent when a kid gives us their heart, as a kid to our parents, when our parents give us their time and their heart, and as a spouse, when our spouse gives us their heart. There is nothing so bitter as for those people to give us their hearts and for us to break it and reject them. You need to be real careful today and each day. Careful today and each day.
Speaker 1:And if you've been that person for a while, you need to take a real hard look in the mirror and make some emergency changes in your life. If you're the one rejecting your kid or your parent or your spouse, you need to make some emergency, like whatever red, green, yellow, whatever warning the military has when it goes to high alert. You need to make some immediate changes in your life, because that bitterness is going to lead to tragedy, folks. It's going to lead to some rash decisions, it's going to lead to some poor decisions, but there's something that's going to break almost always and we need to remember when we do that to Jesus, still he comes to men and still men reject him. And if you've accepted Jesus, you don't have to worry about that part, but if you have, other than the fact that we need to try and not hurt him as much as possible humanly possible, and ask for his help in doing so. But if you haven't accepted Jesus Christ, folks, this last sentence is the one that really hurts. But the fact remains that to reject God's love is, in the end, to be in peril of his wrath. If we're going to choose to reject him, folks, we don't have anybody to blame but ourselves for what happens, and you're going to have an eternity to blame yourself in hell, in a horrible situation, with no hope of escape, ever, no chance of parole. There will never be a second chance. I cannot encourage you enough to find Jesus Christ today, to make that commitment to him, to turn to him. You have no idea if you're going to make it to bed tonight.
Speaker 1:Second Thessalonians, chapter one, verse one. Fourth chapter. This letter is from Paul, Silas and Timothy. We are writing to the church in Thessalonica, to you who belong to God, our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. May God, our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, give you grace and peace, encouragement during persecution. Dear brothers and sisters, we can't help but thank God for you, because your faith is flourishing and your love for one another is growing.
Speaker 1:We proudly tell God's other churches about your endurance and your faithfulness and all the persecutions and hardships you are suffering, and God will use this persecution to show his justice and to make you worthy of his kingdom, for which you are suffering. In his justice, he will pay back those who persecute you, and God will provide rest for you who are being persecuted, and also for us. When the Lord Jesus appears from heaven, he will come with his mighty angels in flaming fire, bringing judgment on those who don't know God and on those who refuse to obey the good news of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with eternal destruction, forever separated from the Lord and his glorious power. When he comes on that day, he will receive glory from his holy people, praise from all who believe, and this includes you, for you believed what we told you about him. So we keep on praying for you, asking our God to enable you to live a life worthy of his call. May he give you the power to accomplish all the good things your faith prompts you to do. Then the name of our Lord Jesus will be honored because of the way you live, and you will be honored along with him. This is all made possible because of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1:So we could pretty much go back through each verse here almost in this chapter. It's short but it's got a lot. Verse two may God, father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace. How often do we pray for grace and peace for those around us who we love? How often do we look at those who are going through heartache or pain, illness, injury? Heartache or pain, illness, injury, divorce, etc. Loss of a child, loss of a spouse, and pray for them to have peace? Maybe you all do it much more often than I do, and if you do good for you, if you don't, I would encourage you, as I'm trying to encourage myself, to think about that more often and pray purposely for the peace of those who are suffering in our lives. Not just merely to get through the situation, folks, not even for healing of an injury or sickness so much, or healing of a broken heart. Those are all great things to pray for, but peace and the grace to get through the situation. And why is that so important? He talks about it later in this letter and you've got to remember that, paul. They've suffered, they know suffering, they know suffering, they know pain. Verse 4,.
Speaker 1:We proudly tell God's other churches about your endurance and faithfulness and all the persecutions and hardships you are suffering. How much, folks. Whatever you're going through right now. Let's say that you've got financial trouble, maybe you lost your job. Let's say that your spouse left you or you're in a marriage where they don't care about you. Let's say that you're sick, you've got some illness, you've got cancer, right. Or somebody that you love dearly is injured, sick. They have cancer, they have some other disease. I just cancer is the one that always I throw out there. If you have someone in your life that you love that committed suicide, if you got someone that you haven't seen in years because they refuse to talk to you, right, whatever the situation is and people know about it right situation is and people know about it right. How encouraging is it to those people, particularly your brothers and sisters in Christ, to see you go through these persecutions and hardships and suffering and still endure and still have faith in Christ? Do you ever stop to think about the fact that, whatever that pain is and I know this doesn't make the pain any less but stop to think about the fact that going through this pain and having others know about this pain that you're going through encourages them to continue through whatever pain they may be going through.
Speaker 1:I go back so often to this story. It had such a big impact on me I wish I knew the kid's name when I went to the officer candidacy school OCS, in the Marine Corps the first summer and that young man told me look for somebody that's struggling more than you and help them and it'll make your struggle easier. Right, it's kind of like that. How many people struggle do we make easier? Because they see us going through these persecutions, these hardships, this suffering, and we continue to endure and we continue to have faith in God and Jesus Christ. I know it's not easy, folks. I don't like it, it's not fun. But just think about that and really and I struggle with this so much, folks, I don't like it, I don't want to do it. I tell God that quite often. But think about the fact that we can be an encouragement to others.
Speaker 1:Verse 5, and God will use this persecution to show his justice and to make you worthy of his kingdom, for which you are suffering. In his justice, he will pay back those who persecute you. Verse 6,. This is probably human of me and not very Christian, but that's kind of comforting to me that in God's justice he's going to pay back those who persecute you, those who hurt you. Again, folks, I know this is probably juvenile and a little bit childish, but it is comforting to know that at some point those people who knowingly hurt you are going to get paid back. But the bigger thing verse 5, and God will use this persecution to show his justice and make you worthy of his kingdom, for which you're suffering Again.
Speaker 1:Why are we suffering, folks? Right, are we suffering for the right reasons or are we suffering because we're an idiot? Are we suffering for Christ? Are we suffering for self instructions he gave to us about the difference between how we were supposed to fast versus how the hypocrites, the Pharisees and the Sadducees some of them fasted. You know, they made this big show and they put on this face and oh well, it's me and I'm so hungry and I'm so, look at me, I'm so noble, right. And they made this big show about it. And Christ told us don't do that when you fast. Don't let people know that you're doing it. Put oil on your head, smile, go around with a happy face, right, when we go through this persecution, whatever it is, if it's pain, even if it's not of our own doing.
Speaker 1:You get cancer. You probably didn't cause yourself to get cancer, although you know smoking, drinking depending. You go through a marriage and you've got a spouse that you love dearly and they cheat on you, or they just don't care about you at all Right. You've got a kid that dies in a car crash, minus parenting choices Probably not your fault, at least not much of it right. But then what about the times when you know but in those times this is what I was getting at. In those times do you still continue to follow Christ? Are you suffering? But you're still continuing to follow Christ. Let me see how much time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one more, verse 7. And God will provide rest for you who are being persecuted, and also for us when the Lord Jesus appears from heaven. Take that as a comfort today, folks. And God will provide rest for you who are being persecuted, and also for us when the Lord Jesus appears from heaven. There's going to come a day when he's going to give us rest for eternity. No more sadness, no more sorrow, no more tears, no more pain, no more broken body, no more broken heart. Be comforted by that and comfort and encourage those around you. There's somebody somewhere in your life today, folks, I guarantee you it may be somebody that is super close to you a spouse, a friend, a child, a parent. It may be the cashier or the barista at the local coffee shop who just needs a smile and a little bit of encouragement from you.
Speaker 1:All right, so, as I said, a little bit of house cleaning, see if I can go through this. It's not going to be in any great order, folks, and I apologize for that. It's just stuff that I've been collecting over the last week or so and I kind of want to go through it. The first is a quote that my father sent me, if I can find it, from a pastor, I believe from a pastor named Alan Jackson, not the singer. There it is. You better understand what orients your life, and if it's a political party, you are in deep weeds. Please, please, folks, do not hang all your hopes on a political party or a particular politician. Don't hang them on this last election cycle. If you're hanging your hopes, as Pastor Jackson said here, on a political party, you're in deep weeds, deep trouble. On a political party, you're in deep weeds, deep trouble. Your hope needs to be based, grounded on Jesus Christ. Again, just kind of random going through stuff here, folks. The left and Islam aren't going anywhere. The last election cycle didn't change that. We've got a little reprieve, perhaps. And so what do we need to be doing, folks? We need to be.
Speaker 1:When you're in the middle of a war and you get a win, you don't sit back and rest. You use that opening right. One of the things in the Marine Corps that they always taught us when we got into a defensive position is we kept hardening that position. Always as long as we were there, we kept doing it man Digging deeper, filling more sandbags, putting more cover over our heads, putting more camouflage on anything we could do to make ourselves a harder target, anything we could do to make ourselves a harder target, because at some point the enemy is going to counter strike, they're going to come back, they're going to attack, and there's no possible way. You have never, ever finished hardening a defensive position. You could be there for years and there's still something you could find to make that position more defensible.
Speaker 1:We need that mentality right now in America, particularly Western civilization in general, with the left and Islam. We got a little reprieve, folks. Now is not the time to sit back. We ought to be strengthening our police. We ought to be strengthening our police. We ought to be making better connections with them in our local area, our local community, giving them support and encouragement, making sure that we're hiring candidates that are moral and virtuous. We ought to be strengthening our firefighters, our EMS. The same thing Talk to those people, sign them, make a connection with them, let them know that you support them. A connection with them. Let them know that you support them, that you encourage them, let them know that you expect them to uphold the law and strive for excellence. Be there for them, be there with them. We ought to be resurrecting militias, particularly in conservative states and cities across the nation. Folks, we were founded this way. We had militia in all of our colonies. Right, go back and read through the Second Amendment. Go back. We need that counterbalance. It may not seem like it right now. You may think I don't see any purpose in that. We you know we're gaining ground Pardoning folks, pardoning. You ought to be encouraging your representatives, your senators, your city council, your mayor, whatever. Putting more money into quality individuals and training police, firefighters, ems, militia.
Speaker 1:Now is the time to use this break in the storm, folks to prepare, folks to prepare and, most of all, most of all, we should be using this time to evangelize to those who don't know Jesus Christ and to strengthen our churches across the board spiritually, physically, financially. Door up the defenses. If you've got financial problems in the church, address it. If you've got structural problems in the building or your campus, address it. If you don't have a deacon elder board set up for your church, address it. If you've got problems and morality in your church that's been going on for years, address it. If you have female pastors in your church, address it. If you have female pastors in your church, address it. If you've got acceptance of LGBTQ issues going on in your church, address it. Whatever else it might be, address it. Use this time wisely, folks.
Speaker 1:I got an analogy from a church that we had the blessing to be at years ago. A young pastor and he was talking about he used the term this is a recent sermon. If some of y'all are familiar with this church, you'll know it and he was talking about the school of hard knocks and that's where we all live. Right, and it has a hundred percent admission, which is interesting because one of my daughters was just talking about the fact that one of our local schools has a hundred percent admission, and what a great thing. That was Right. Well, the school of hard knocks. As many of y'all are aware, you don't want in that school and yet we're all automatically enrolled in that school. But he was talking about. It matters who our guidance counselor is. Is our guidance counselor the world, the devil, or is it Christ? And that makes all the difference in how we get through the School of Hard Knocks. And it was a great analogy and it led me to some other things, one of them being right who's our guidance counselor? Is it Christ or not?
Speaker 1:We ought to have the same kind of mentality with our leaders, folks. Every single election, our very first criteria in our primaries should be is this person a Christian? Every single time, without fail. That ought to be the top priority. And not a fake Christian or a wannabe Christian or an I'm a Christian on the outside, superficial kind of Christian, but a Christian whose actions and political record, if they have one, back that up. That ought to be the first, the very first criteria for us inside the church every time, not whether they're a Democrat or Republican or Independent or Green Party or anything else. Nothing else should trump our first questions Are they a Christian? If that's not possible, if you're sadly in a situation which we put ourselves in as a nation in America, if you're sadly in a situation which we put ourselves in as a nation in America where we don't have any Christians in that particular election, then our choice ought to be the candidate. That's values, or values act that they act upon at least are closest to Christ. And that ought to be true in every single election, whether it's a primary where you don't have any Christians, or a general election. And it ought to be true from mayors and school board members all the way up through the president. And this is based on the instructions of our very first Supreme Court Chief Justice.
Speaker 1:We've read this quote so many times. I'm going to read it again, not to mention the fact that the Bible tells us to choose men in the Old Testament who rule in fear of God. But, john Jay, very first Supreme Court Chief Justice, providence, God has given to our people the choice of their rulers. We get to choose folks still for now, and it's the duty as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers. Not only do we have the privilege of doing this, folks, we have the duty, we have the responsibility to choose Christians in our elections. We need to remember that, as Christians, we have a responsibility, folks. We have a responsibility, folks, we have a responsibility to choose for ourselves rulers who rule in fear of God, who look to God for guidance and wisdom. You shouldn't take that lightly. It shouldn't be something that you kind of just brush off. It ought to be a very serious weight on your shoulders when you step into that voting booth.
Speaker 1:All right, and then a proverb, a couple more things and we'll move on. If we have any time left, we're going to go back to Daniel Webster for a few minutes. Let me see if I can find this proverb real quick. It's, it wouldn't be too bad. Yeah, I don't know if it's going to do it. Alright, here we go. This is Proverbs, chapter 3, verses 27-28. Do not withhold good from those who deserve it when it's in your power to help them. If you can help your neighbor now, don't say come back tomorrow and then I'll help you, right? How does this apply? Some of y'all are going to love this.
Speaker 1:There's an article in the Epoch Times and I haven't talked about it in a little while. So for those of y'all who are new, if you're looking for a good paper to read, I highly recommend the Epoch Times. It's a great newspaper, one of the best that I've read in recent years, for sure. They usually have four sections news, opinion and then health, and then the last section is lifestyle. They'll have some stuff about marriage, family, but just a great newspaper overall. Highly recommend it. It's once a week, it's pretty good. So they've got an article in the last and the title is well, nope, I lied, I'm looking at the wrong thing. It's just a little bitty blip, actually, and I thought I had it. I apologize. There we go.
Speaker 1:Small business administration. The small business administration has announced an initiative to cut $100 billion in regulatory burdens. So let me give you an example that happened at a company I worked for, an oil company years ago. We had a rig that was running and they needed to because of regulations. They needed to repaint some guardrails on some stairs and, for whatever reason, as they were painting it, the young man that was painting it walked away from the paint can for a few minutes and in that time a inspector from OSHA walked up and saw that the paint can didn't have the lid on it and they shut the thing down. And we had to do basically like you would think of in communist China and North Korea we had to do re-education to make sure that those people knew that they couldn't take the lid off of a one-gallon paint can and leave it because it might spill and hurt the environment. Right, okay, at that time and my memory is getting a little shady the longer I am away from this event, folks but at that time I'm pretty sure we were spending somewhere in the neighborhood I'll be conservative of $50,000 to $75,000 a day for this rig to operate. And the way I remember it is this little safety stand down Set our rig down for somewhere between a day and a half and three days, somewhere in there. I can't remember exactly, but it was noticeable. That's ridiculous, that's stupid, it makes no sense. It's completely unacceptable. That's stupid, it makes no sense, it's completely unacceptable.
Speaker 1:This little clip and this brief little article in the Epoch Times about the small business administration, folks, they could have done this over the last couple of decades, cutting 100 billion. That's what the V folks is in Bravo in regulatory costs. They could have done this at any point in regulatory costs. They could have done this at any point. The reason they're doing it now almost assuredly is because they're getting pressure from the current administration and particularly from, probably, the Department of Government Efficiency I'm reading in between the lines here but for whatever reason, they could have done over the last several decades and they're only doing them now because they're forced to.
Speaker 1:And as soon as people who don't care how they spend our money get back in control, they'll go back to business as usual how they spend our money get back in control. They'll go back to business as usual as soon as the left or rhinos right, republicans in name only, and I hate that because I should say with a C, conservatives in name only. And I'll say again here the greatest threat to our nation today is Christless conservatism, people who try and pretend that they're conservative or patriots but they want to take Christ and those unchanging principles out, because then they're really just conservative as long as they feel like it. When they don't feel like it, then they'll change because their standards aren't unchanging. But as soon as the left gets back in control, these organizations like the Small Administration, will go back immediately to what they were before.
Speaker 1:It's the same basic principle that we talked about earlier a few podcasts ago about the left and Islam folks. It ties in. They only want and cry out for quote-unquote coexistence when they're in a position of weakness. As soon as they gain control, they're going to treat the left, particularly Christians, the same way that Christians are treated in China, in North Korea and the old USSR Same thing with Muslims. Old USSR Same thing with Muslims. Likewise, as soon as they gain total control in any place, they're going to treat Christians the same way they're treated in Iran, syria, nigeria and so many other places around the world, anywhere that they don't feel the need that they have to quote, unquote, coexist or barter until they end up in a position of power. That's what they're going to do. And so even some of those Muslim states, for example, or some of the places that are socialist, communist, if they don't feel like they're in a really strong position, they're going to pretend to care particularly about Christians, but really any minority, until they get total power.
Speaker 1:Folks and this article just struck me that way the SBA could have cut these regulations at any time over the last several decades, almost assuredly almost assuredly, I'll be hopefully humble enough to admit that maybe, just maybe, they couldn't have done it, but almost assuredly they could have fixed a lot of these things. A hundred billion dollars, folks. You know how many zeros that is. You know how many people could have used that money in their own personal lives? You know how much of that money could have been sent to the hurricane victims over in North Carolina? Or the fire who are homeless and drug addicted on the streets, or the teachers and firefighters and police and military who have given so much to our country. $100 billion. If that doesn't make you irritated, folks, I don't know. I don't know. We've got a little bit of time left left and we're going to finish up. Um, man, I hate it when I do that. Um, I've done that a lot today. I feel like we are going to finish up the works of Daniel Webster, volume one.
Speaker 1:I've got one more little section I wanted to read through. This is a little talk he was giving. He went over to England, to Britain. But apart from this subject, I beg leave to make a short response to the very kind sentiments which went near to my heart, as uttered by the noble Earl at the head of the table. The noble chairman was pleased to speak of the people of the United States as kindred in blood with the people of England. I am an American, I was born on that great continent and I am wedded to the fortunes of my country for will or for woe. There is no other region of the earth which I can call my country, but I know, and I am proud to know, what blood flows in these veins. I am happy to stand here today and to remember that, although my ancestors, for several generations, lie buried beneath the soil of that of the western continent, yet there has been a time when my ancestors and your ancestors toiled in the same cities and villages, cultivated adjacent fields and worked together to build up that great structure of civil policy which has made England what England is.
Speaker 1:When I was about to embark for this country, some friends asked me what I was going to England for. To be sure, gentlemen, I came for no object of business, public or private, but I told them I was coming to see the elder branch of the family. I told them I was coming to see my distant relations, my kith and kin of the old Saxon race, with regard to whatsoever, is important to the peace of the world, its prosperity, the progress of knowledge and of just opinions, the diffusion of the sacred light of Christianity. I know nothing more important to the promotion of those best interests of humanity and the cause of general peace, amity and concord than the good feeling subsisting between the Englishman on this side of the Atlantic and the descendants of Englishmen on the other. So a few comments here.
Speaker 1:One realize diffusion of Christianity so often today and for the last several decades the left has done a great job, for example with Columbus and propagandizing the fact that Columbus purposefully came here only for rape, pillage and plunder. And when you go back, like we do each year, and read through a lot of Columbus's own writings and supporting evidence, you see that that is not true. He was not a perfect man by any means, but certainly one of his very top, if not most important, goals was to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ when he came over here to people that didn't know it. The other two things that I find interesting here, really interesting and important, are this one's actually a minor one, folks, there's nothing wrong with being proud of where we came from, or where our ancestors rather came from. That's what I should have said, but we need to make sure that we have. You know, why are we proud of it? Are we just proud of it because we like the name? Are we proud of it because they gave some light to the world via Christianity, via the principles of Christ, even if they didn't perhaps follow Christianity, it's those principles that are important. If that's where our pride comes from, then that's okay. If our pride comes because of our skin color or because of our accent, that's not okay. And then the last thing here is even if we are proud of the heritage of our ancestors not ours, but the heritage of our ancestors, whether it's from Asia or Africa or Europe or South America or Australia we need to remember what Webster said here, and that is I am an American, I was born on that great continent and I'm wedded to the fortunes of my country.
Speaker 1:For will or for woe, right, for better or for worse. There is no other region of the earth which I can call my country. Call my country. If you're listening to this and you're an American citizen and you have ever even for a minute thought about hyphenating your American citizenship, you need to listen to this again, I am an American. I was born on that great continent. Whether you were born here or not, folks, is irrelevant. If you're a citizen here, you're a citizen of America. I am wedded to the fortunes of my country, for better or for worse. You pay taxes here. You have the option, if you're a man, of being drafted here. Your children, your sons, will be drafted here. Your daughters, their husbands, will be drafted here. You pay taxes here. You are a citizen of this country. You have sworn loyalty to this country, or you should have. There is no other region of the earth which I can call my country. You can hyphenate yourself all you want. You can be Mexican-American, latino-american, german-american, african-american, nigerian-american, spanish-american American, chinese American, asian American, vietnamese, american, whatever you want to Colombian American, brazilian American.
Speaker 1:When you hyphenate, you don't become a citizen of that nation that you've hyphenated yourself to. They're never going to treat you as a native. You're going to be an American who wants to pretend to be one of them. I treat you as a native. You're going to be an American who wants to pretend to be one of them. And you lose your right to citizenship here, if not literally, then figuratively, because you've given away basically your birthright. You've said, ah, being an American is not enough, I want to be special, I want to be this over here. Well, when you hyphenate American, you're no longer American. You're that hyphenated group and that group alone. Same thing, folks. And then I'll leave you alone today, because we don't seem to be able to remember this inside the church, which is pretty damning You're not a Catholic or a Baptist or a Methodist or a Orthodox or a Lutheran Christian.
Speaker 1:You're either a Christian or you're not. You may go to one of those churches, you may belong as a member to one of those churches, but if you're hyphenating Christ, then you're not truly devoting yourself to Jesus Christ, and that's pretty dangerous. If you want to identify more as your denomination, right, because how many people do you know that tell you that they're Catholic or Orthodox or Methodist or Baptist ever say, well, I'm. They don't even say this much. They don't even say, well, I'm Methodist Christian. Well, I'm Catholic Christian, I'm Orthodox Christian, it's just whatever the domination is. That's even worse. At least hyphenated, you would throw Christian in a little bit. And certainly none of them that claim their denomination so willingly ever say well, I'm Christian Catholic, I'm Christian Orthodox.
Speaker 1:You get the point, folks, we really need to make sure our loyalties are in the right spot. We need to make sure we remember Daniel Webster's words I'm an American, I'm a Christian and I'm an American. And we need to remember John Jay's word that, as Christians in a Christian nation, it's not only our privilege but our duty to elect Christian men who will, in fear of God. God bless y'all. God bless your families, your marriages. God bless America. God bless your nation. Wherever you are around the world Listening, we'll talk to y'all again real soon. Folks looking forward to it.