The American Soul
The American Soul
The Marriage Cornerstone: Strengthening Family and Nation
The American Soul Podcast tackles the profound connection between marriage, family stability, and national strength in this thought-provoking episode. Marriage isn't just a personal arrangement – it's the bedrock upon which our entire society stands. When marriages falter, everything built upon them weakens: families, communities, and ultimately our nation.
Consider how we protect financial investments that grow over time – the savings account we've nurtured for decades becomes increasingly precious. Yet marriages, which should become more treasured with passing years, are often taken for granted. This parallels how Americans have come to treat religious freedom – as something expected rather than a privilege that countless people throughout history died to secure.
Scripture provides clear guidance in 1 Timothy 3 about the qualifications for church leaders, emphasizing they must manage their households well. "If a man does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of the church of God?" This principle extends beyond church leadership – strong households create strong communities.
Troubling statistics reveal the consequences of our cultural shift away from marriage: marrieds couples comprised 71% of households in 1970 but just 47% by 2022. Meanwhile, deaths are projected to exceed births in America by 2033. The contemporary mantra "my body, my choice" epitomizes our culture's radical individualism, conditioning women to prioritize self above family and God.
Justice Joseph Story's writings remind us that America's founders never intended to separate God from public life. The First Amendment wasn't designed to create "indifference to religion in general, and especially to Christianity." Rather, the founding generation believed Christianity should "receive encouragement from the state" as compatible with religious freedom.
Strong marriages aren't just about personal fulfillment – they're about national survival. If we hope to preserve liberty for future generations, we must reclaim the foundational truths that established America's unique experiment in freedom. Join us in exploring how spiritual revival, one marriage and family at a time, might be our only path forward.
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. I sure do appreciate y'all joining me, giving me a little bit of your time and 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 will help us, each individually, to draw a little closer to God and Jesus Christ. Hopefully it will help our nation here in America and wherever you are around the world, draw a little closer to God and Jesus Christ. For those of y'all who continue to pray for me and for the podcast, thank you so much. I'm incredibly grateful for your prayers. For those of y'all who continue to share the podcast and tell others about it, we hope the word to spread. Thank you for those of y'all who are new to the podcast. I'm glad that y'all are here. Hope y'all get something out of it and enjoy it.
Speaker 1:Come back, father. Thank you for today. Thank you for you, father, and your Son, jesus Christ and your Holy Spirit. Thank you for your word. Thank you for the ability to read your word without fear of persecution. Forgive us. Forgive me when we take that for granted, when we don't appreciate your word, when we don't make you our top priority. Forgive us when we make spending time with you a check in the box instead of the point of our life. Forgive us when we get entangled in the desires of this world and the treasures of this world as opposed to focusing on heaven and eternal treasures there with you. Forgive us when we make light of prayer, when we treat it as an option or disregard it as ineffectual. Please hear our prayers, forgive us our sins and help us to turn to you, first and foremost, each day. Please be with our farmers and our ranchers and our fishers. Give them success, give them bounty. Please be with our educators, whether in public school or private school or at home. Please be with our marriages across the nation, father, and in whatever countries are listening around the world. Strengthen our marriages. Help us to better exemplify to the world the relationship between Christ and the church, and please guide my words here, father, and please watch over, father, those who are listening and their families. Be with them. Surround them with your angels. Protect them. Watch over, father, those who are listening and their families. Be with them. Surround them with your angels, protect them from evil of any kind, calm their spirit, remove whatever anxiety they have, heal them, but most of all, father, bring us all home to you and your Son, jesus Christ, in your timing. In your Son's name, we pray Amen. Have you made time for God today? Have you made time to read his word? Have you appreciated the fact that you get to read his word?
Speaker 1:You know, folks, there were a lot of people over the years who were murdered, not only by the state but by the church itself, simply for reading and sharing scripture. I think for at least in America. There's places around the world where that's not hard to understand, but here in America we have had that privilege for so long that we've taken it for granted. We've treated it indifferently. It's a lot like so many marriages that I've seen over the years, in America in particular, where one spouse takes the other for granted. They just assume that they're always going to be there and they don't have any real desire to improve themselves or to follow scripture themselves because the spouse has been there. And I think often the really hard part comes when they lose that spouse for whatever reason. And the same would be true for us folks and don't think for a second, do not think for a second, that if the left gains control in America, that they will not treat Christians in the Bible the same way that it is treated in North Korea and China and the same way it has been treated in the past in Soviet Russia and other communist socialist countries. And the same comment made about Islam and how they will treat Christians if other than Christians in America, is going to turn out really bad for a bunch of people, and history shows that.
Speaker 1:All you've got to do is look around in the 20th century. It's not hard and it's true every single time. There's not an exception to that. An exception to that, the only one I can even remotely think of, is Israel, and there's not a whole lot of liberty there, necessarily. But their back is so against the wall that they don't have often, at least militarily. They don't have the ability to deal with political correctness, and they do manage to have different groups of people live together in some semblance of peace at times. But then again you still get back to God, right, because the God of the Jews is the God of Christians, the Father of Jesus Christ, the Son and the Holy Spirit and if you're married, do you act like it folks? I mean, are you taking your spouse indifferently? Have they always been there for you? Do you have a good spouse, a good husband, a good wife? Do you appreciate them? Do you treat them like a treasure? One out of seven billion.
Speaker 1:I go back to different versions of saving account analogies from time to time for different reasons, and I'll go back to this one again. If you had put money in your account year after year after year and it grew and grew and grew, would you treasure that more or less than you did at the beginning? Would you treasure that more or less than you did at the beginning? Would you put more effort into protecting, guiding that account and you can think of it as a savings account or a mutual funder Would you put less? You'd put more. Of course, you'd put more If you were dealing with an account that you had really worked hard putting money into for years and years. You started with zero dollars in it and now you have 15, 20, 50, 100, 200, 500,000, a million, 10 million, whatever it is. Now you have that amount of money in there.
Speaker 1:You're going to pay attention to that account. It's going to be on your mind constantly. If you've scrimped and saved for years to build that account, you're going to think about it constantly. And remember this is analogy for marriage. I'm not saying that we ought to think about money constantly. We ought to think about God constantly. We ought to think about our spouse constantly. We ought to pray constantly. Talking to God, talking to God of our spouse, do we?
Speaker 1:1 Timothy 3, overseers and Deacons. It is a trustworthy statement. If any man aspires to the office of overseer, it is a fine work he desires to do. An overseer, then, must be above reproach, hospitable, able to teach, not addicted to wine or pugnacious, but gentle, peaceable, free from the love of money. He must be one who manages his own household well, keeping his children under control with all dignity. But if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how will they take care of the church of God? And not a new convert, so that he will not become conceited and fall into condemnation incurred by the devil. And he must have a good reputation with those outside the church so that he will not fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.
Speaker 1:Deacons, likewise, must be men of dignity, not devil-tongued or addicted to much wine or food or fond of sordid gain, but holding to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. These men must also first be tested. Then let them serve as deacons if they are beyond reproach. Women must likewise be dignified. Not malicious gossips, but temperate, faithful in all things. Deacons must be husbands of only one wife and good managers of their children and their own households. For those who have served well as deacons obtain for themselves a high standing and great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus.
Speaker 1:I am writing these things to you, hoping to come to you before long, but in case I am delayed, I write so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth by common confession. Great is the mystery of godliness. He who was revealed in the flesh was vindicated in the spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory. I don't know if we're going to get to all this today. There's a ton here. Verse two an overseer right, and some of these are common, for the overseer and the deacon Must be above reproach. The husband of one wife, right? Same thing for a deacon. Later on it says deacons must be husbands of only one wife.
Speaker 1:We don't have the polygamy issue here in America, as we have it past, as there are in other places in the world. And this isn't a knock on polygamy. And before you all get all riled up, folks, I'm not saying that men ought to go out and marry more than one wife or vice versa. But I think CS Lewis's quote on mere Christianity is the point really here. The point he said was you know that you're supposed to be faithful to your wife. And he said there's been places around the world where men thought that they only could have one wife or two or even four. But he said in everywhere around the world, everybody's acknowledged that they couldn't just have any woman that they wanted. Right, there had to be some loyalty, there had to be some restraint. And the only reason I mention that here is we maybe don't have the problem with polygamy that they have in other places around the world, but we have other problems.
Speaker 1:Right, he says the husband of only one wife. So if we're out sleeping around, we're not. I mean, we might be the husband to only one wife, but that doesn't really fit this criteria. Still, right, when you go back above reproach temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach. I guess what I'm getting at and I'm going to say that this is my opinion here, although I think it's pretty backed up by this scripture about temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, even if you are a husband to only one wife, if you're not breeding that wife, the way that scripture tells you to you, disqualify yourself as a deacon or an elder. And again, folks this is me saying it because I don't see it here necessarily explicitly, although I think it would be very hard to be temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, above reproach if you're not loving your wife as your own body, if you're not loving your wife as Christ loved the church.
Speaker 1:But either way, an overseer and a deacon, they have to be the husband of only one wife, which means that it can't be a woman, because you can't marry a woman, because that's not marriage, right? So, again, like the female pastorate folks, it's just an oxymoron. You cannot have females that are pastors, deacons, overseers I'm not addicted to wine Gentle, peaceable, free from the love of money, free from the love of money, folks. If you've got somebody out there that wants to be a deacon or an overseer, a pastor, in your church and they are super concerned about money constantly all the time, that's probably a red flag that you need to look at. He must be one that manages his own household well, keeping his children under control with all dignity. But if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of the church of God?
Speaker 1:I would argue here again, folks, my commentary this includes the relationship between a husband and wife. If you've got a pastor, a deacon, an overseer who is not able to lead his wife, control right, and a lot of people aren't going to like that. But if you go back and you look at Scripture, what does it tell? That relationship between Christ and the church is the relationship between the husband and wife. Specifically, it says the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church. If you've got somebody folks, that can't control their household, their children, right, or if their wife is unruly, probably a pretty huge red flag, not a new convert, so that he will not become conceited and fall into the condemnation incurred by the devil, and he must have a good reputation outside the church so that he will not fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.
Speaker 1:The only reason I read these two verses is I've seen this quite a bit. There's a lot of people who have led some pretty poor decision lives lately over the last few years in popular culture and they've come out as new converts to Christianity. And then they immediately start to have their own brand right, which you could make the argument that that's love of money and that's totally a different but but kind of ties in. But there are, they're new to the faith. They'll tell you they're new to the faith and yet they. It's not that they're trying to bring other people to the faith, it's that they're trying to teach. And that's really dangerous folks.
Speaker 1:I think Scripture lays it out here real clearly, right. It says where did it go? Not a new convert, so that he will not become conceited and fall into the condemnation incurred by the devil. And he must have a good reputation with those outside the church so that he will not fall into reproach in the snare of the devil. Folks, we can do some really stupid things in our life and that doesn't remove us from salvation and God's grace. But that also doesn't necessarily mean it's a great idea for us to start to teach immediately about God and Jesus Christ. If we're a new convert, or even if we're not, but we've got a horrible reputation because of some of those past decisions that we've made. We've kind of taken ourselves out of the running. Women must likewise be dignified not malicious gossips, but temperate, faithful in all things. Be dignified, not malicious gossips, but temperate, faithful in all things.
Speaker 1:I put this in here for sure because one of the topics that the church hammers sometimes, and rightfully so, is sexual immorality, pornography, and they really hammer men about it, because I think men are more, at least in the past. I've seen some studies recently that say that a lot of women are starting to turn to porn too, but that has been a bigger issue for men in the past, and probably still is today, than women Great. However, what we don't talk about often in the church is one of the failings of women, two actually, that tie in here. One is failure of wives that claim to follow Christ and following 1 Corinthians 7. And so if we're going to talk about sexual immorality and adultery and infidelity and refusal to follow Hebrews 13, 4, which says keep the marriage bed pure and undefiled, we've also got to hammer failure of a spouse, which it's mostly wives in this case failure to follow 1 Corinthians 7 that says your body's not your own, you give it to your husband and you only refrain from sex during times of fasting and prayer. Right, that's scripture, 1 Corinthians 7. You can go look it up.
Speaker 1:The other part of this is you read this verse again. What strikes you? Women must likewise be dignified. Not malicious gossips, but temperate faith on all things. What are women often, although there's a lot of men that I would argue, fall into this category too? I've fallen into it myself more than once over my life, more frequently than I would like to acknowledge.
Speaker 1:But that is gossip. If we're going to instruct men inside the church, as we should, we also need to instruct women inside the church, as we should. You're going to talk to men about their responsibilities and requirements. As a man, you need to talk to women about theirs as well. How many churches have you been to that talk specifically to women about gossiping? I've been to two over my life that have actually broached that subject. I have been to none, though, in my life that have broached one Corinthian seven with women, and my whole point here folks is inside the church, you know.
Speaker 1:It says God doesn't show any partiality. One of the things in the Marine Corps that they hammered was that the leader's always ultimately responsible. So if the man's going to be the leader, they are ultimately responsible and they do need to be hammered more. But that doesn't mean that you don't tell your Marines what's expected of them and require them to meet that standard. The leader at the end of the day is going to be the one that's going to be responsible, good or bad. They're either going to get the credit if something went wrong or they're going to get a right, or they're going to get the credit and the consequences if something went wrong.
Speaker 1:But that doesn't mean that you don't still teach your Marines what's required of them, what they're expected to do. The same is true in the church. You need to hold men to the standard hard and fast, but you also need, inside the church, to teach women what is expected of them, and that probably is stepping on some toes. I think we need a lot of toes stepped on these days. Some toes, I think we need a lot of toes stepped on these days. Let me see how much time. Yeah, this last part. It just makes me smile every time I read it. But in case I'm delayed, I write so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth. Right. The church Jesus Christ says I am the truth.
Speaker 1:That's why, folks, when you see what's happened in education and our nation in America over the last 80 years and you see so much blatant disregard for truth, revisionist history, the idea that things that are obviously evil and bad are good, right Feminism, abortion like that, abortion isn't murder. That men and women are the same. That LGBTQ lifestyles are healthy and wholesome and can be marriage. Lgbtq lifestyles are healthy and wholesome and can be marriage. That men and women literally are interchangeable right. That you can pretend to be one or the other. Not just that we're the same. We took it even a step further that illegal immigration isn't a crime, even though illegal is the first word. When you look at all these things, you see they don't make any sense. Obviously, none of those things are true. Illegal immigration is a crime. Men can't pretend to be women. Women can't pretend to be men. Abortion is murder. Men and women are not interchangeable. They don't have the same set of skills, strengths and weaknesses, right?
Speaker 1:You look at the history of our nation and what's taught today and it's very revisionist. Well, why? Because we have rejected God and Jesus Christ. We've rejected the truth right, the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth of scripture. We've taken the Bible out of schools, out of the education of our youth, which Fisher Ames, by the way. Again the guy that wrote the establishment clause. He told us the Bible ought to be the primary textbook in our schools. So why would the guy that worded the establishment clause say that the Bible should be the primary textbook but at the same time intend to separate God away from the state? He wouldn't? Obviously it makes no sense, it's not logical, it's not true.
Speaker 1:And then the last verse 16, by common confession, great is the mystery of godliness. He who was revealed in the flesh was vindicated in the spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory. Thank you, god for Jesus Christ. I didn't get to it the other day. There were two more articles from the Epoch Times that I wanted to talk about, two more articles from the Epic Times that I wanted to talk about.
Speaker 1:This is again from the March 12th to 18th issue. In the opinion section. This is on page 818, there's two Our birth dirt is becoming our death meal and my body, my choice, is giving girls the wrong idea about life. The first one is authored by Timothy S Goglin and the second by Molly Englehart, and they're both phenomenal. The first one basically talks about the problem of us not having kids.
Speaker 1:There's a quote in this article by James Q Wilson, harvard University. It is not money, but the family. That is the foundation of public life. As it has become weaker, every structure built upon that foundation has become weaker. The entire nation is built upon it. Reagan said the cornerstone of the nation is the family, right? Well, what's the cornerstone of the family? The marriage. Well, what's the cornerstone of the marriage? Their relationship with God and Jesus Christ. So if you can weaken that relationship with God and Jesus Christ it's like a set of dominoes Then you, or a house of cards, would probably be better. If you weaken that first level, then you weaken the second, which is the marriage itself. If you weaken the marriage, you weaken the family. If you weaken the family, you weaken the institutions of our nation. Right, it makes sense.
Speaker 1:Folks, think about it. If you've got a police officer, for example, and their marriage is really weak and they're having just bad day after bad day after bad day, do you think that that's going to help them do their job as a law enforcement officer better or worse? And just spread that out over every industry features firefighters, military politicians doesn't matter what it is plumbers, electricians, lawyers, judges right? If you've got a rough life at home, if your marriage is weak, if it's brutal, if there is not love and nourishment going to make, that's going to affect the job that you do outside of the home A hundred percent. It's going to affect the way you raise your children One hundred percent.
Speaker 1:Folks, this is one of the things that I've noticed over the years when I've had the opportunity to work with children in different capacities. It's not just so. If you really want a clue, go talk to a counselor administrator that you trust that's honest, and they're going to tell you that 99% of the issues that they see in schools go back to broken families of some kind or another. Right, it's not that all kids that come from broken families cause problems, but 99% of the problems that you have in school come from kids from broken families. Just find one. If you don't trust me, find a counselor, administrator that you trust and talk to them. And if they give you a number other than that, then you need to ask for facts, you need to ask for receipts, and they won't be able to give them to you folks. But I'm telling you, if you could actually look at the numbers of discipline problems and the percentage of those kids that come from broken families, it would be 99% broken families. It would be 99%.
Speaker 1:But the little hidden statistic in there that I have noticed and this is just my own personal observation is that even the kids that come from marriages where mom and dad are still together, if that marriage is dysfunctional at home, that affects the kid almost like a broken marriage. It's not quite the same, at least in my experience. But if that marriage is not functioning the way it's supposed to, if that relationship between husband and wife is not mirroring that relationship between Christ and the church, it affects those kids. It affects those kids and let us that that that man. If you're in a marriage and your marriage is just kind of okay and you think, well, we're still together. At least hear that your kids see the dysfunction. They know something's wrong and it bothers them. They're supposed to have this safe place to come home to. They're supposed to have this example in their parents.
Speaker 1:Folks, one of the most condemning quotes that I've heard in the last number of years is our kids will either grow up wanting our type of marriage or not wanting it. What kind of legacy do you want to leave? So some more of this article. This is again Timothy S Goglian our birth dirt that's becoming our death knell. In America, as a result of these changes, deaths are expected to exceed births in 2033. So that's seven years earlier than the nonpartisan agency predicted a year ago. So what's this year? This is 2025. So in eight years, we're supposed to get to the point in America where deaths exceed births. The CBO projects that the fertility rate will be about 1.7 births per woman by 2054, right, so less than 30 years below the replacement levels of 2.1.
Speaker 1:In 1970, married couples made up 71% of US households. By 2022, that percentage had decreased to just 47%. In 1962, 90% of all 30-year-olds were married, but that percentage has dropped to 51% in 2019. Peter H Shook, yale Law School, quoted the family is the essential core of any society and the steady decline of two-parent households is probably the single most consequential social trend of the half century. Okay 2024,.
Speaker 1:The Pew Research Center reported that 57% of adults younger than 50 who say they're unlikely to ever have kids say a major reason is that they just don't want to. 31% of those ages 50 and older who are without children cite this as a reason that they never had them. I just don't want to. We don't want to. I don't want to. I don't want to get up and go to work. I don't want to get up and read my Bible. I don't want to get up and love my spouse as my second priority. I don't want to. I don't want to go work out. I just want to magically be in shape. I just want to magically have this great relationship with God and Jesus Christ. I don't want to have kids. It's too much work. They're too much trouble. I just want to do what I want to do. I want to make my own money. I want to rebuild my house. I want to build a new part of it. I want to get a new car. I don't want to help build the nation. I don't want to help build the nation. I don't want to stay home with those kids. I want to go do what I want to do. I want to follow my dreams and my aspirations. I don't want to help build the future generations of our country. I don't want to pour my time and energy into those children. I don't want to pour my energy into my spouse. I hope my voice sounds as petulant and spoiled as that attitude is. We're killing ourselves, folks, because we've turned away from God and his command to be fruitful and multiply his commands from marriage and how husband and wife are supposed to work together. The second article, my Body, my Choice, is giving girls the wrong idea about life, by Molly Englehart. When we tell young girls over and over again that their bodies belong only to them, are we preparing them for the immense sacrifices of motherhood? Are we equipping them for the reality of pouring themselves out for others? Or are we training them to believe that their comfort, their convenience and their personal autonomy should come before everything else, including their family and, ultimately, god? Regardless of where one stands on the abortion, the phrase my body, my choice has become a cultural mantra that conditions women to prioritize the self above the whole. This is her lead-in here. Folks, when I woke up this morning, before I brushed my teeth or had my coffee, I changed diapers, I wiped butts, I breastfed a baby, I held my five-year-old so that he could regulate his emotions. Nothing about this morning was about my body. My choice, in fact, to be a wife and a mother is to accept that your body is no longer just your own. It becomes a part of something bigger. It belongs, in a way, to the people who depend on you. Mine belongs to my husband, with whom I share a covenant, and to my children, who were knit together in my womb and now find nourishment and comfort in my arms. Why are we dying? Why are we killing ourselves? Why are we losing our country? Why are we being flooded by illegals? Why? Why? The list goes on. Every single bill you see in this country today, in America and across Western civilization, in every country, goes back to one poor truth over and over and over again, and that is rejection of God and Jesus Christ. In America particularly, that is separation of God from the state, from life, from family. Folks, if you don't want to give right, her comment there about my body belongs to my husband. If you don't want to give your body to your spouse, as God tells us to do in 1 Corinthians 7,. Don't get married because you're just a sham. You're just a charlatan. You're a cheater and a thief. You're taking something. You're getting something outlatan. You're a cheater and a thief. You're taking something. You're getting something out of that marriage, whatever it is, don't know. It might be money, might be security, might be safety, might be social status. But if you're not willing to meet those requirements that God puts on us 1 Corinthians 7, right, that's what we're talking about now. But Ephesians 5, titus 2, 1 Peter 3, hebrews 13, 4, do not get married. At least have enough honor and decency to not suck somebody in and drag them down with you. And if you're not willing to pour your life and time into your children, if you're going to drop them off at six weeks old to be raised for the rest of their life, their childhood, by someone else, including your parents folks there's so many people today that think that somehow that dropping their kids off instead of at daycare at their parents' house is better, you're still not raising your kids, and now you're taking away from your parents a part of their lives that they really should have gotten to enjoy as a grandparent so that you can go, run down the road and chase your own dreams or money. If you're not willing to pour your time and heart and soul into children, then don't have them. If you want somebody else to raise your kids for you, then don't have them. I have some very, very good friends had them for a long time who made the decision when they got married not to have kids. I think it's a tragic decision. It hurts my heart personally and I've seen multiple cases of this. But one of the things that really rang true to me from this couple is they said we wanted to do what we wanted to do and we made the decision that if we ever had kids, we would be the ones to raise them, not somebody else. If you don't want to give all of yourself to your spouse, don't get married. Don't steal, don't be a cheat, and if you don't want to pour everything you have into your kids inside of that marriage, don't have kids. Folks, two great articles Again. If you get a chance, if you don't, take the Epic Times, I would highly recommend it. My Body, my Choice, by Molly Englehart, and then Our Birth Dearth by Timothy S Gogolin out of the March 12th to 18th issue of the Epic Times, joseph's story. We don't have as much time today, but I wanted to go through those. I've wanted to for a few while a couple weeks I guess but we are going to spend a little bit of time with Joseph's story today and perhaps tomorrow also. Joseph Story was a US congressman 1808 to 1809. He was appointed in 1811 as a justice to the United States Supreme Court by President James Madison. Madison, of course right is the chief architect of the Constitution, being the youngest person ever to serve in that position. Joseph Story continued on the bench for 34 years until his death in 1845. So 1811 to 1845, he was. This is an excerpt from America's God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations. Joseph Story is quoted in all three of those I'm pretty sure. Yeah, the Founder's Bible by the Well Builder Association, the Patriot's Bible edited by Dr Richard Lee. In this America's God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotes. You can, of course, find quotes in this information all over the internet from the story. He was instrumental in establishing federal supremacy Martin v Hunter 1816, and establishing the illegality of the slave trade in the Armistead case. He was a professor at Harvard Law School from 1821 to 1845. States which we've talked about frequently on the podcast in 1833, equity Jurisprudence 1836, and A Familiar Exposition of the Constitution of the United States, 1840. This first excerpt is out of that, a Familiar Exposition of the Constitution of the United States 1840. We are not to attribute this prohibition of a national religious establishment in the First Amendment to an indifference to religion in general, and especially to Christianity, which none could hold in more reverence than the framers of the Constitution. Probably at the time of the adoption of the Constitution and the amendment to it now under consideration, the general, if not the universal, sentiment in America was that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the state so far as it was not incompatible with the private rights and conscious freedom of religious worship. Any attempt to level all religions and to make it a matter of state policy to hold all in utter indifference would have created universal disapprobation, if not universal indignation. I have read that I think I thought out of commentaries on the Constitution of the United States in 1833. Maybe it's in both, I don't know. I can't tell you, but it's in one or the other from Joseph's story, either commentaries on the Constitution of the United States from 1833 or a familiar exposition of the Constitution of the United States, 1840 or both. The point is, folks, we have forgotten. So this is one of our great Supreme Court justices, very close to the founding of our nation, right 1811 to 1845, joseph Story, and he's telling us that the purpose of the First Amendment was not an indifference to religion in general, especially to Christianity. The purpose of the First Amendment was not an indifference to religion in general, especially to Christianity. The purpose of the First Amendment, folks, was not to equalize all things. It was not to support the bumper sticker coexist. It was not to pretend that Christianity and Islam and Judaism and Hinduism and Buddhism and athetheism and Mother Nature-ism and Satanism were all on a level playing field and all were equally valuable. They aren't. That was never the way that our framers of the Constitution and our founders and those before them viewed Christianity. You go back to the pilgrims and you look at why. What led to the pilgrims eventually leaving Britain? Intense persecution by the state and the church. Right, don't forget, don't let anybody deny the truth. Right, it wasn't just the Anglican church, bloody Mary, catholic all the way. Intense persecution, not because they didn't follow Jesus Christ, but because they did, because they went back to Scripture, as opposed to the doctrine of men in a particular denomination. They fled across an ocean into the wilderness you can't even. It would be like putting us on a rocket and shooting us out into space and we had very little idea what was on the other side, because we were being persecuted here for our faith in Jesus Christ and reading scripture. Right, these people had an intense, intense passion for God and Jesus Christ and the Word of God and Scripture. That's why they came here To think that they would view Christianity as the same as Islam and Judaism and Hinduism and Buddhism and everything else. Folks, it just doesn't make sense. It's not logical. It is not logical. It continues here. Right, probably at the time of the adoption of the Constitution and this particular amendment, right, the general, if not the universal, sentiment in America was that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the state so far as was not incompatible with the private rights of conscience and the freedom of religious worship. General principles of Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the state. It ought to be taught in our schools. The Bible ought to be the primary textbook. And no, that doesn't mean you have to give equal time to the Quran and other holy books. We're not a Muslim nation, we're not a Hindu nation, we're not a Buddhist nation, we're not a pagan nation, we're not a secular nation. We are a Christian republic. And if you're going to have any company in the world that makes a widget, then you need people in that company that make that widget, that know that widget, that understand that widget and that support and strengthen that widget, even if they don't use the widget themselves. If you're going to have a Christian nation, which is the only way we can have liberty, which everybody wants liberty, whether they acknowledge it or not. They want the freedom to do what they want. The problem is we have some people that want freedom to do whatever they want, even if it hurts other people. That's not liberty. Liberty is the freedom to do what we want, so long as it doesn't hurt other individuals. That's what we want, that's the lifeblood, that's the purpose of a republic. The only way you get liberty is with the Spirit of God. Our founders would never have allowed 1947 Everson versus Board of Education, which was separation of God and state. They claimed it was separation of church and state, but it wasn't. What they were really getting at was separation of God and Jesus Christ from state, and they've done a bang-up job over the last 80 years the left has. It wasn't what they were really getting at was separation of God and Jesus Christ from state, and they've done a bang-up job over the last 80 years the left has. Don't ever forget that the First Amendment was not written to equalize religion, that our founders viewed Christianity above all others and that they wanted the state to encourage Christianity. That didn't mean—our founders understood two sides of the same coin. They understood that they couldn't force a person to faith. They had fled because they had been trying to force into a particular denomination. But they also understood that without Christianity, america would fail. But they also understood that without Christianity, america would fail. You can't have an America led by Muslims or Hindus or Buddhists or atheists, communists, leftists. You can't, you won't. We'll have some absolutely horrible evil beyond imagining country here, just like you did in Russia, just like you did do in China and North Korea with the slaughter of tens. And to hold all and utter indifference would have created universal disapprobation, if not universal indignation. I always struggle with that word, disapprobation To level all religions. Universal disapprobation, if not universal indignation. Our founders would have rejected the Constitution. If they thought that the First Amendment was leveling all religions, putting dragging Christianity down to the level of false religions, they wouldn't have ratified it. And you go back to Madison or Hamilton I never can remember which one saying that the only way that they saw the ratification of the Constitution was possible was the hand of God. You go back to Harriet Beecher Stowe's comment at the end of Uncle Tom's Cabin, talking about the church has a high bill. Right, we've got a high bill, folks. We've got a high bill because of LGBTQ relationships, because of feminism, because of abortion, and we've just kind of stood by and gone along with it. But we've got a really high bill, perhaps most of all because we went along inside America as the American church, with separation of God and state which led to all of those other things. Although you can make the argument feminism hard to say what came first there, because feminism certainly started before the separation of God and state Supreme court decision but it's separation of God from individual that leads to feminism. Interesting Chicken and the egg. Right which one comes first? Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States in 1833. This is out of volume three, joseph's story. Again, it yet remains a problem to be solved in human affairs whether any free government can be Joseph's story again, I'm going to read that one more time. It yet remains a problem to be solved in human affairs whether any free government can be permanent, so can at last where the public worship of God not private, not individual, but the public worship of God and the support of religion and he's talking about Christianity, folks, you just go back up. Our founders weren't talking about all religions, they were talking about God, the Father and Jesus Christ, the Son and the Holy Spirit, where the public worship of God and the support of religion constitute no part of the policy or duty of the state in any assignable shape. The policy and duty. This isn't something private, that happens just in your own life. This is our laws, our courts, our constitutions. If we have no public policy proof of our obligation as a nation to God, then we last. And of course the answer is no, and we see the proof of that over the last 80 years. The farther we've gotten from God, the closer we've gotten to chaos and destruction and ending the American Republic. The sad thing is, if we finally falter, there are going to be a lot of people who try and write history books about the United States and make it something secular about our failure, when the truth is that we separated ourselves from God. And when you do that, you can't have liberty and therefore the American Republic failed. If we fail, folks, that's why it's not going to be because we didn't have the right politicians in charge. It's not going to be because we didn't have the right politicians in charge. It's not going to be because we didn't have the right policy. I mean, those things are true because we separated from God, but it's, it's not like we could have stayed separate from God and just gotten a little bit better policy or a little bit better politician and survived. If we fail, we will fail because we rejected God, 100%, zero caveats. And if we survive, whether we go through a third civil war or not, folks, if we survive, if God gives us the grace to survive for one more generation even we need to remember why. It's not to serve our own selfishness. It is to seek to save lost souls for eternity. It is to be a shining beacon, lighthouse, light on a hill for others around the world to turn to and look to in their darkness and despair. Don't ever, ever, ever forget that If God gives us the grace to survive, even for one more generation, please don't think it's so that you can go out and buy a fancier car or build a bigger house or buy more land or put more money in your savings account Now. It is 100% so that we can serve God, save lost souls and be a light in this dark world to people who are suffering, leading them to God and Jesus Christ as a nation. God bless y'all. God bless your families. God bless America. God bless America. God bless your marriages, if you're married. God bless your nation around the world, wherever you are listening, we'll talk to y'all again real soon folks looking forward to it.