The American Soul
The American Soul
The Dangers of Compromise: Why We Can't Make Peace With Evil
Every choice we make moves us either toward God or away from Him—there is no neutral ground. In this thought-provoking episode, we explore the dangerous illusion of moral neutrality in our personal lives, marriages, and national institutions.
When facing overwhelming challenges, a Navy SEAL instructor's wisdom offers surprising spiritual insight: don't focus on the entire journey—just make it to the next milestone. This powerful mindset can transform how we approach seemingly insurmountable obstacles in our faith journey.
Diving into Titus 1, we examine God's requirements for church leadership and discover universal principles that apply to all believers: living blamelessly, loving what is good, and maintaining spiritual discipline. Just as athletes understand the necessity of consistent training even when they don't feel like it, our spiritual lives demand the same commitment and dedication.
Churchill's fateful decision to ally with Stalin's Soviet Union serves as a sobering historical lesson about compromising with evil. This parallel illuminates our current cultural crossroads in America and Western civilization. Are we willing to sacrifice our principles for temporary peace?
Reagan's timeless "Time for Choosing" speech delivers the powerful conclusion that appeasement only leads to greater demands from those who oppose freedom. "If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin? Should Christ have refused the cross?" The choice is never between peace and war but between fighting for what's right or surrendering to what's wrong.
Ready to strengthen your spiritual resilience? Subscribe now and join our community of believers committed to standing firm in faith rather than surrendering to the false promise of neutrality.
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 and whatever part of the day you're in. Really 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'll help draw us all a little closer to God and Jesus Christ and hopefully it will draw our nation here in America and your nation, wherever you are around the world listening, a little closer to God and Jesus Christ. For those of y'all who continue to share the podcast and tell others about it, thank you Very grateful for that. For those of y'all who continue to pray for me and for the podcast, thank you Very grateful for that. And for those of y'all who are new to the podcast, I'm glad you're here. Hope you enjoy it, hope you come back, hope you get something out of it.
Speaker 1: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 of sins. Thank you for all the blessings you bestow upon us, both the ones that we admit and the ones that we don't. Forgive us when we try and go our own way. Forgive us when we think we know best. Forgive us when we don't turn to you for guidance and instruction. Help us to help those that have less than we do. Help us to help our country. Turn back to you and your son, jesus Christ. Be with those who are listening today, wherever they are around the world and across our nation here in America. Be with those who are listening today, wherever they are around the world and across our nation here in America. Be with their families. Comfort them, give them peace and joy. Help them to feel your presence. Help us all to do your will, father, to follow your son Jesus Christ and his commandments, to love you with all that we are and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Be with those who are scared, father, those who are anxious for whatever reason, whether it's financial or relationship or anything else. Comfort them. Help us to bring our burdens to you and lay them at your feet and trust because of your promise that you will get our souls safely home to you and God. My word to you, father, please, in your son's name, we pray Amen.
Speaker 1:Have you made time for God today, made time for Jesus Christ? Have you made time to read your Bible? Have you made time to pray? Are you talking to him and folks if you don't know what else to pray, right, just if your back's against the wall. If you've tried every solution that you know and then some maybe tried some solutions that you were pretty sure you shouldn't be trying, that's a pretty good place to be in.
Speaker 1:Often, when you look at the Bible and the history of the great figures that God used and if nothing else, you can just pray the Lord's prayer, which is the way he told us to pray, and maybe that's the point that we're supposed to get. At Our Father, who art in heaven. Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom, come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom. Come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not to temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen. I don't know what you're going through today. Folks, I have no idea what anxiety or stress that you have in your life, but let me encourage you again that you have no idea what God is bringing around the corner, and some of y'all are going to tell me well, I don't know when that around the corner is. I've been waiting on around the corner for weeks or months or years now and it's still not here.
Speaker 1:There was an interview with a Navy SEAL. I don't think I ever knew the seal's name. I think he actually became an instructor for them and some of y'all maybe, maybe you know this, maybe you've seen this clip, this video, but it reminds me of the story of chesty puller Guadalcanal that I've told on this podcast multiple times. But this, this seal that when the kids were coming in he would tell them, said look, this is a brutal school. You're going to want to quit at some point. He said I guarantee it's not a matter of if it's just when. And he said if you, if you really want to stay, develop the mentality of just making it to the next thing, don't think about how many weeks you have left it to the next thing. Don't think about how many weeks you have left If you just you just, you know you feel like you have to quit. Just make it to the next thing. Say you know what I'm going to make it to lunch, and then I'll quit. I'm going to make it to dinner, and then I'll quit. I'm just going to go to sleep tonight and get up in the morning and then, and then I'll I'll go to him and I'll quit. And he said if you'll just do that, he said you'll look up and you will have gotten to the end of the school and you won't have quit. Whatever you're going through right now, whatever it is, just tell yourself right now. Don't tell yourself about next week or next year, next month, whatever, wherever you're at today, just say you know what. I'm going to do one more, just one more. I don't feel like it, I don't want to. I'm going to do one more. I don't feel like it, I don't want to. I'm going to do one more. Tell God, talk to him, god, that's all I got. I'm going to do one more and give it to him.
Speaker 1:And if you're married, does your spouse know it? Do you act like it? Do they go to bed each night knowing that they are your second priority above all else? Do you strive to please them? Do you strive to fulfill your role as a husband or wife, not trying to convince them to fulfill theirs? Are you trying to fulfill yours? One person, folks out of seven billion, some odd. However many souls we have on this planet right now, that's not even counting history that's your one person out of all these people right now. Do you treat them that way? If you have kids, are your kids going to grow up and want a marriage like yours, or are they going to grow up and want a marriage nothing like yours? We're going to get into Titus for a few days.
Speaker 1:This is Titus, chapter 1, verse 1. Greetings from Paul. This letter is from Paul, a slave of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ. I have been sent to proclaim faith to those God has chosen and to teach them to know the truth that shows them how to live godly lives. His truth gives them confidence that they have eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised them before the world began. And now, at the right time, he has revealed this message, which we announce to everyone. It is by the command of God, our Savior, that I have been entrusted with this work for him. I am writing to Titus, my true son, in the faith that we share. May God, the Father and Christ, and Christ Jesus, our Savior, give you grace and peace.
Speaker 1:Titus', work in Crete. I left you on the island of Crete so you could complete our work there and appoint elders in each town, as I instructed you. An elder must live a blameless life. He must be faithful to his wife, and his children must be believers who don't have a reputation for being wild or rebellious. A church leader is a manager of God's household, so he must live a blameless life. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered. He must not be a heavy drinker, violent or dishonest with money. Rather, he must enjoy having guests in his home and he must love what is good. He must live wisely and be just. He must live a devout and disciplined life. He must have a strong belief in the trustworthy message he was taught. Then he will be able to encourage others with wholesome teaching and show those who oppose it where they are wrong.
Speaker 1:For there are many rebellious people who engage in useless talk and deceive others. This is especially true of those who insist on circumcision for salvation. They must be silenced because they are turning whole families away from the truth by their false teaching, and they do it only for money. Even one of their own men, a prophet from Crete, has said about them the people of Crete are all liars, cruel animals and lazy gluttons. This is true, so reprimand them sternly to make them strong in the faith. They must stop listening to Jewish myths and the commands of people who have turned away from the truth. Everything is pure to those whose hearts are pure, but nothing is pure to those who are corrupt and unbelieving because their minds and consciences are corrupted. Such people claim they know God, but they deny him by the way they live. They are detestable and disobedient, worthless for doing anything good.
Speaker 1:Talking about a church leader and an elder requirements right One. You see here just again in general, that an elder has to be a man. An elder must live a blameless life. He must be faithful to his wife and his children must be believers who don't have a reputation for being wild or rebellious. I think this was really good, though this verse 8, for us all. He must enjoy having guests in his home. He must love what is good.
Speaker 1:Do we enjoy when people come over? Are we kind to those around us in need? Do we love what is good or are we really secretly love what is evil? Do we chase after what is good or do we chase after what is evil? Do we strive to be wise and just right? Where do you get wisdom?
Speaker 1:Proverbs tells us, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Do we fear the Lord? Are we just? You know, micah tells us to love mercy, act justly, walk humbly before our God. Do we? Do we act justly? Do we love mercy? Do we walk humbly before God, or are we proud and arrogant? Are we devout? Are we disciplined in our life, in our faith, in our marriage, in our job with our children, day in and day out? Do we put our time and energy? You know, we acknowledge we talk about this often at the beginning of the podcast during our little section on faith and marriage each day talking about we realize as a society, particularly in America and probably really across Western civilization, maybe across the world in general.
Speaker 1:But in America we have a real strong understanding of if you want to be successful academically, you have to be disciplined. People might not call it that, but they know that you're going to have to study consistently, you're going to have to really listen in class to your teachers and your professors. You're going to have to focus. Same thing with athletics. You talk to any of these kids that, for example, are division one athletes or professional athletes. They're going to talk about discipline. You got to get up when you don't feel like it. You got to go work out when you don't feel like it. You got to do all the things that you're supposed to do to train to be that athlete when you don't feel like it.
Speaker 1:You know, when I've had the privilege of working with young kids in the past, one of the stories I told was from an old. I was from an old. I think linebacker is the position he played, but I don't know. I don't remember exactly. But there's a player for the houston texas texans, I think, in the nfl phenomenal player, future hall of famer for sure. And he said you know, everybody wants to be this is. This is really poor english, but you understand what he was saying. I don't know if it's poor english or not, but it's it's slang for sure. Kind of makes you cringe a little bit.
Speaker 1:He said everybody wants to be a beast until it's time to do what beasts have to do in order to be a beast. What he was getting at is everybody wants to be a star. Until it's time to do those things that you have to do. Like everybody, any kid that wants to be an NBA player, they want to be Kobe Bryant, they want to be Michael Jordan, they want to be LeBron James or whoever you know. Pick your poison Until it's actually time to do the workouts and the dedication and the focus that Kobe Bryant, for example, exemplified. Then they're not interested all of a sudden.
Speaker 1:All of us want this really strong faith. Until it's time to actually put the work in to develop that faith with God. All of us want this great marriage. Until it's time to put the work in to develop that relationship with your spouse that has that great marriage that other people envy, that other people look up to, that your kids want to emulate. So do we again, I will ask do we lead a disciplined life? Get back up here to verse two. Let's get back up here to verse 2.
Speaker 1:This truth gives them confidence that they have eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised them before the world began. God promises us that if we will believe in his son, jesus Christ, that we have eternal life. God's not like men. He doesn't lie. He's not hedging his bets. It's not.
Speaker 1:Maybe I think too often for myself at least I forget that If you choose to believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, you have eternal life. That's it, folks. There's no magic formula. Maybe some of y'all had an angel visit you in that moment. I would argue that the vast majority of us don't, and that's okay. There's nothing wrong with either one. But that's it, folks. There's nothing magical in and of itself. It's just a choice to believe in Jesus Christ of Nazareth as the son of God, who died for our sins, to put your faith in him and you have eternal life forever. You're going to spend eternity with God. That doesn't mean you're going to be perfect right all of a sudden?
Speaker 1:Verse 10,. For there are many rebellious people who engage in useless talk and deceive others. This is especially true of those who insist on circumcision for salvation. They must be silenced because they are turning whole families away from the truth by their false teaching, and they do it only for money. These two verses, 10 and 11, here out of Titus 1, struck me as some of the churches that we see today that will tell you that if you're going to have salvation, you have to be a member of their church and you have to believe in who they tell you to believe. Right?
Speaker 1:There are some churches out there that claim that there are other people besides Jesus Christ who are perfect. Therefore, logically, they can offer you salvation. That's not what the Bible says. That's not what God says. He doesn't have any other children. He doesn't tell us of any other people who lived perfectly without any sin in their life. There's not another single human being that the Bible tells us doesn't need Jesus Christ for salvation. That goes to the point, right? There's a huge difference between the false claim that all people are equally good and bad, which isn't true, and the absolutely ironclad statement, which is true, that all people equally need Jesus Christ in order to obtain salvation. And so he says here you know, there's these rebellious people who engage in this useless talk and try and deceive others. Right, he's warning us against these people.
Speaker 1:If somebody tells you that you need something else besides Jesus Christ for salvation, if they say you have to be part of our denomination, it doesn't matter whether it's one of the many different Protestant denominations or Orthodox Roman Catholic. It doesn't matter whether it's one of the many different Protestant denominations or Orthodox Roman Catholic, it doesn't matter. If they're telling you that you can only have salvation or that part of the ticket to salvation is being part of the denomination. They're not telling you the truth. They're not telling you the gospel of Jesus Christ and you should be wary of them. Verse 11, they must be silenced because they are turning whole families away from the truth by their false teaching and they do it only for money and it kind of goes along with verse 14 here. They must stop listening to Jewish myths and the commands of people who have turned away from the truth.
Speaker 1:Again, why it's so important to read your Bible every single day. You need to be able to discern. How are you going to tell truth from a lie, facthood from false, if you're not reading God's word, if you're not praying, if you're not turning, I mean. But just reading the Bible is so important, folks, so so important every day. You know you talk about junk food, right. If you sit there and you eat a bag or a box or sleeves of Oreos or bags of Cheetos every single day, if that's your meal, eventually your body's going to break down If you take in all this trash from the world and you're not feeding on the word of God, reading it each day, your spiritual body is going to break down Probably your physical body too, obviously, from the mental strain that comes with that. We're going to talk about that. Actually, that's a pretty good lead in. We'll leave Titus 1 there for today and we're going to switch over to Churchill for just a couple minutes before we try and finish up Reagan's speech. A Time for Choosing speech, a Time for Choosing.
Speaker 1:So this biography that we go back to every once in a while, by William Manchester it's the Last Lion Trilogy, it's a biography on Winston Spencer Churchill. This second book in the trilogy is titled Alone. It covers the years from 1932 to 1940. And around in 1939, there was a push by a few people, churchill in particular, to try and create this alliance, this last-minute alliance between Britain and France and Russia as kind of the big ones. There would be other smaller countries that were involved too, and Churchill had tried to do this earlier on in the 30s and nobody would listen to him right, and the idea is great. Folks, I'm not knocking the idea and I'm a fan of a lot of stuff Churchill does, so I'm not knocking him as a whole.
Speaker 1:But this was a horrible idea and we paid a price for it, and maybe, you know, a lot of people will tell you that well, their back was against the wall. There was no other choice besides to ally with the Soviet Union, and that might be true. At that point, you know, maybe God had opened so many doors and we had just shut them all in his face or rejected him for so long, or gone about our own business for so long, that we put ourselves in a hole. You know you do that sometimes. You take out all these loans, you run up these credit card bills, even though you know you shouldn't do that from a godly point of view. Racking up all this debt right, and then you find yourself with your back against the wall in this corner, and there's just some things that you just have to do financially. Maybe you have to sell a car, maybe you have to sell a house, maybe you have to sell land, whatever. That's probably a bad analogy, but the point is there's a couple of little sections I wanted to talk about here.
Speaker 1:There's a quote, and Churchill was arguing for this alliance If Herr Hitler feels that he will be overrun by Russia, that he will be fallen upon by Poland, that he will be attacked by Belgium, holland or Switzerland. He has only to declare his anxiety open to the world in order to receive the most solemn international guarantees. We seek no security for ourselves that we do not desire Germany to enjoy as well. But he said that halfway measures, which this is true, were more dangerous than none. Right, that's almost always true. Folks Doing something halfway your faith, your marriage, your parenting, your job it never works well, at least in my experience, and I've got some experience to back that up. Churchill said to stop here with a guarantee to Poland would be to halt in no man's land, under fire of both trench lines and without the shelter of either. We must go forward now until a conclusion is reached. Having begun to create a grand alliance against aggression, we cannot afford to fail. And then the author Manchester writes this line himself.
Speaker 1:But talking about Churchill's warning, it says nor, he warned the house, could they exclude unsavory regimes, provided those who ruled them sought peace. Unsavory regimes, provided those who ruled them sought peace. So a lot of people in England at this particular time. They were very wary of the communists, and rightfully so, and Churchill wasn't a fan of the communists, the Soviet Union, but he felt that their back was against the wall and it necessitated this alliance. The problem is, you see, this comment from Manchester, this last sentence they could not exclude unsavory regimes, provided those who ruled them sought peace. But Stalin never sought peace, just power. Just like Hitler, communists, socialists, leftists, they never seek peace except as a means to power, they only. Islam is the same, it's only seeking peace, it's only seeking this mythical coexistence state to buy time, to gain power. China is the same way today, north Korea is the same way, the Muslim countries, you see, so like Iran, so many other places. It's the same. It's just a delay tactic while they gain strength. And all you have to do is look at the 20th century, look at the history of just the last century alone. There's another line here from Manchester Churchill's loathing of Bolshevism was more famous than Chamberlain and had certainly been more memorably expressed.
Speaker 1:He had described Lenin as a plague bacillus and had denounced the Bolshevik cancer eating into the flesh of the wretched being and had reviled the bestial appetites and passions of communist Russia, a tyranny of the vilest kind, where thousands of people had been executed or murdered in cold blood. And there's a long paragraph here where Manchester talks about it and he ends with this sentence the wisest course was to forget the Bolshevik past and forge Britain, France and Russia in a triple alliance. You can't forget the past, folks. You can't forget evil to justify current actions, this idea that we can peacefully coexist with the left, it ignores too much history. It just ignores too much history. There's another quote here from Churchill Now, I don't care for your system.
Speaker 1:He was talking to the ambassador from Russia. I don't care for your system and I never have. But the Poles and the Romanians like it even less. Although they might be prepared at a pinch to let you in, they would certainly want some assurances that you would eventually get out. Can you give us such assurances? Of course not. And the 20th century proves that. We beat Hitler right. Which in the Marine Corps, we would argue. Maybe that was the closest alligator to the boat. But we gave this other alligator, farther away from the boat, a lot of time to grow in strength and power and we've been dealing with it ever since.
Speaker 1:And the just horrible problems that we have in the United States? Second, to Christless conservatism, often, always, I mean. Second, to people that want to take Christ out of conservative ideology. That's the greatest threat we have communism, leftism, socialism, which goes hand in glove it's always important to make that comment which goes hand in glove with Islam. We created this monster. And there's other examples right.
Speaker 1:Look at our own history in America. We didn't get rid of slavery at the end of the revolution and look what a disaster that's been since our we're still dealing with the fallout of racial tension, discrimination issues here in America. We had that opportunity to truly follow our Declaration of Independence and therefore God, and treat all men as created by God and his son, jesus Christ, as equals, and we didn't. We're paying a price. Look at what we've done for the last 50 years with abortion. We negotiated with the devil. We pretended that ripping apart a baby somehow wasn't murder, that it was a reproductive right, and the bill's going to come due for that folks, and it's going to be horribly high, because abortion dwarfs slavery. You can't ever negotiate with the devil. You can't ever, ever make peace with the devil and assume that there's not going to be blowback at some point. You see that in the 20th century with the Soviet Union and communism in general, and we're foolish today. Indeed, if we try and do that with the left, we're going to see if we can finish up this speech by Reagan.
Speaker 1:This is a time for choosing from 64. If I can find it again, there we go. We just got a little bit left. I think, yeah, we just got a little bit left. I think, yeah, we cannot buy our security, our freedom from the threat of the bomb, by committing an immorality so great as saying to a billion human beings now enslaved behind the Iron Curtain give up your dreams of freedom, because to save our own skins we're willing to make a deal with your slave masters.
Speaker 1:Alexander Hamilton said Now let's set the record straight. There's no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there's only one guaranteed way you can have peace and you can have it in the next second Surrender. Admittedly, there's a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson of history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement. And this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face that their policy of accommodation is appeasement and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight or surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we will have to face the final demand, the ultimatum.
Speaker 1:And what then? When Nikita Khrushchev has told his people he knows what our answer will be. He has told them that we're retreating under the pressure of the Cold War. And someday, when the time comes to deliver the final ultimatum, our surrender will be voluntary, because by that time we will have been weakened from within spiritually, morally and economically. He believes this because from our side he's heard voices pleading for peace at any price, or better red than dead. Or, as one commentator put it, he'd rather live on his knees than die on his feet.
Speaker 1:And therein lies the road to war. Because those voices don't speak for the rest of us. For the rest of us, you and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin? Just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the Pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools and our honored dead, who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis, didn't die in vain. Where then, is this road to peace? Well, it's a simple answer. After all, you and I have the courage to say to our enemies there is a price we will not pay, there is a point beyond which they must not advance, and this, this is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater's Peace Through Strength.
Speaker 1:Winston Churchill said the destiny of man is not measured by material computations. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we're spirits, not animals. And he said there's something going on in time and space and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, fills duty. You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We'll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we'll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness. We'll keep in mind and remember that Barry Goldwater has faith in us. He has faith that you and I have the ability and the dignity and the right to make our own decisions and determine our own destiny. Thank you very much. That last little bit there that would have been hard to be more spot on, and it reminded me of another quote from Churchill If I can find it quickly out of that same section, it's just phenomenal by Reagan there, I don't know. Yeah, so we've talked about this in the past.
Speaker 1:One of the horrible decisions in the 1930s that Britain was a part of was the Munich agreement or deal or whatever they call it. And and it had they. They gave away parts of Czechoslovakia. It didn't even involve the leaders and they just did it. It was Britain and France, and I don't remember who else was involved Germany and Italy, maybe those were the four, the Munich men. Some of y'all that know history can remember that better than I. But one of the problems on the world stage is that people didn't really believe Britain anymore. They didn't believe that they were going to stand up for liberty, for freedom. They felt like they were just going to sell people out. Anytime the Nazis demanded it, they were going to give in to them. And Churchill was talking to the House and told them the slightest sign of weakness will only aggravate the dangers which concern not only us but the whole world. And he was talking to the prime minister said do not yield another yard. Compromise with leftism, socialism, communism or Islam only leads to more compromise.
Speaker 1:Folks, you go back and you look at this last little bit of this speech by Reagan and it's so good, we'll probably read it again, maybe we'll read it again on the next podcast or somebody or somewhere down the road, but they're just simply there's. No, we keep thinking that there's this imaginary status quo, this point where we're simply treading water. We're not gaining any ground but we're not losing any, and we do this across the board in America today. We think that there's this values neutral place. Like you're driving a stick shift for any of y'all that are familiar with that right, you're driving a standard vehicle, one where you have to push in a clutch and shift the gear, and there's a neutral position. And we think in America today that there's this neutral position, spiritually and morally and even economically that comment from Reagan and there's not.
Speaker 1:There's no values-neutral education, there's no form of education where you are not moving, either closer to Jesus Christ or closer to the devil. You're going to move one way or the other. You get to pick, but you're going to move, you're not going to stay there. There's no values-neutral political institutions or policy, public policy, whether it's domestic or foreign. There's no values-neutral area where you can just kind of swim in this little eddy on the side while the current goes by. You, you, you're either moving your institutions. We're either moving our institutions in America our military, our law enforcement, our firefighters, our education, etc. We're either moving those institutions closer to Jesus Christ or closer to the devil. You're either moving your marriage each day closer to Jesus Christ or closer to the devil.
Speaker 1:In fact, there was a sermon that I read listened to actually, but I read the transcript, part of it, because this quote was so good. It's out of a church called Christ Chapel and this was a sermon titled when it Seems Like God is Hard of Hearing, which for a lot of us, it's a great sermon if you get a chance, especially if you're struggling with praying consistently and you just feel like God's just man, he's just not talking to you. But let me see if I can find this. But let me see if I can find this, because God knows I should never doubt that he understands, because God knows I should come to him boldly in prayer. Critical times call for persistent prayer to the God who cares. Are you in critical times? Our world is, our country is. Every day is a critical experience of life or death and how we make choices God's way or the enemy's way. Everything we do, folks, is a choice in our individual lives, our marriage, our nation's life and there simply isn't this just middle ground where we can kind of tread water.
Speaker 1:And Reagan was really warning about that, and Churchill was too. Back in the 30s Churchill was warning about it with Nazism and maybe he did with communism as well, but he should have thought about that. Probably we all should have a little bit more before we jumped in bed with the Soviet Union. Have a little bit more before we jumped in bed with the Soviet Union. And in America today, and, I would argue, across most of Western civilization, we need to hear this again there is no values neutral position that we can get in with the left, with socialists, communists, leftists, who again go hand in glove with Islam. We're either going to be moving closer toward Jesus Christ, which is going to put us on a collision course with them and it's going to force a fight of some kind, or we're going to be moving closer to the devil and along the path of leftism, socialism, communism, islam, but that's going to lead us toward tyranny and slavery.
Speaker 1:This quote that Reagan put into his speech from Alexander Hamilton a nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master and deserves one. And he tells us. Reagan tells us again in the speech there's only one way to guarantee peace and it's not even really a guarantee, folks but that's surrender. If we want to surrender America to the left, and the quickest way to do that, the quickest path there, is to continue to take Jesus Christ out of conservatism. That's why it's the greatest danger, because it's the fastest path to surrender.
Speaker 1:It might not seem like it, it might sound like you can still be conservative after you take Jesus Christ out, but you can't, because then there's no firm foundation for conservatism, it's just quicksand. It's moving around on you, and one day of the week the conservative principles might line up with Jesus Christ, and one day of the week they don't. And when they don't, then they line up with the world and the devil. But even that statement isn't completely true, and all you have to do is look at the 20th century to see it. Look at what happens in socialist, communist, leftist nations and their partners in Islam. Look at the genocide. Look at the tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of people that were killed by their own governments in China and the USSR and North Korea and Cambodia, right. Look at those places. Look at the genocide that's still going on against Christians, for example in Nigeria and Syria, where Islam reigns, and so many other countries.
Speaker 1:Even if you surrender, you're not buying peace long term. You might get a little peace short term. It won't be peace of spirit or peace of mind. You might get a little peace short term. It won't be peace of spirit or peace of mind. It'll literally just be physical peace for a little while, as long as you go along, but eventually, as always happens, they're going to turn on you. The left always turns on its own Socialist communist. It eventually eats its own. It eventually starts that slaughter. Its own socialist communist, it eventually eats its own. It eventually starts that slaughter.
Speaker 1:The only true hope we have is God in Jesus Christ, and you hear Reagan here again. Admittedly, there's a risk in any course we follow other than this, other than surrender. But every lesson of history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement. And this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face that their policy of accommodation is appeasement and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight or surrender. Folks, we might gain peace if we'll cling to God and Jesus Christ. We might not. There's risk, as Reagan said, in every choice.
Speaker 1:You might gain peace in your marriage if you go along to get along and appease your spouse, even when they go against God and Jesus Christ. But all you're doing is delaying the fight. All you're doing is delaying the fight. All you're doing is delaying the pain. All you're doing is surrendering to evil. You're not really gaining peace. The only way to really gain peace is to go after God and Jesus Christ and let the chips fall, let the cards fall where they may. Right In your individual life, whether it's your job, your marriage, your kids. It really all just is summed up again by John Quincy Adams duty is ours, results are God's. It might lead to a fight, folks, but that's so much better than the alternative of living life on our knees under slavery to evil. God bless y'all. God bless your families. God bless your marriages If you're married. God bless America. God bless your nation, wherever you are around the world. Listen, folks. We'll talk to y'all again real soon, looking forward to it.