The American Soul
The American Soul
Why God Must Be Central to Our Republic
Jesse Cope explores the disconnect between our claimed priorities and our actual behavior, challenging listeners to honestly evaluate whether they're giving proper attention to God, family, and country. He examines how we willingly spend hours on our phones and social media while complaining about the "burden" of prayer and Bible reading.
• Scripture study of 1 Corinthians 6 emphasizes that Christians should not seek judgment from those who reject God
• Discussion of why we should be cautious about accepting moral guidance from those who openly mock Christian values
• Examination of marriage as a sacred relationship we often take for granted despite its uniqueness
• Analysis of education reform and why maintaining high standards produces better results than lowering expectations
• Exploration of why any educational system without God at its center will ultimately fail America
• Historical examples from Fox's Book of Martyrs showing the courage of those who refused to compromise their faith
• Insights from the American Revolution on the Massachusetts colonists' refusal to accept tyranny
Have you made time for God today? Have you made time to talk to your spouse? When our actions don't align with our professed priorities, we need to be honest with ourselves and make meaningful changes.
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 you joining me and giving me a little bit of your time. A little piece of your day, I will try and use it wisely. Hopefully it will give us all some extra tools. Little piece of your day, I will try and use it wisely. Hopefully it will give us all some extra tools for our toolboxes we used to set in the Marine Corps and hopefully it will draw each of us a little closer to God and Jesus Christ, both as individuals and as a nation.
Speaker 1:For those of y'all who continue to share the podcast and tell others about it, thank you Very, very grateful for that. For those of y'all who continue to pray for me and for the podcast, thank you Very, very grateful for your prayers, 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 mercy, your grace and your forgiveness. Help us to trust you more each day, father, to trust that you want what is best for us from an eternal point of view, and to realize that the picture that you see, father, is not the picture that we see, is not the picture that we see so often, and to trust that you have things well in hand, even when we, when we, don't feel that way. Thank you for the time to record this podcast and the people that listen to it.
Speaker 1:Please be with them. Be with their families, strengthen the marriages of those who are married. Help those who have children to raise them to know you and your son, jesus Christ. Give us wisdom, courage, strong faith. Guide our steps. Wisdom, courage, strong faith. Guide our steps, guide our thoughts and our words and our actions. Help us to care for the widow and the orphan, the poor and the needy. Help us to follow the commands of your Son, jesus Christ, to love you, father, with our whole heart, mind, soul and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Be with our leaders, both in the pulpit and state. Be with our military, our law enforcement, our firefighters. Be with our military, our law enforcement, our firefighters. Comfort those who have lost loved ones. Bring the rest safely home. Father, please, and God, my words are in 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 talk to him, to pray, to listen to him a listen time? And if you're married, have you made time for your spouse? If somebody came up and asked you today what your priorities were, what would you say? What would be your list? And then, when you think about that list, do your actions each day line up with what you say? If you say God first, spouse, second, children, country, whatever else, are your actions each day lining up with that? Are your actions each day lining up with that?
Speaker 1:We've got to start to be more honest with ourselves, folks, because a huge chunk of us claim that our priorities are one thing, but we act a totally different way. We give hours each day, not even over the course of a week or a month, but over the course of one 24-hour period. We will sit and stare at our screen for multiple hours, whether it's our phone or the TV or a computer. We'll go work out an hour and a half, go run for an hour plus, scroll through social media, watch YouTube videos, tiktok, instagram, facebook X, snapchat x, snapchat, and yet, when anybody has the nerve to suggest that we need to read our bible each day and pray each day, we start to groan and complain. Children, if you're in junior high, complain Children if you're in junior high or high school even and your parents get on to you when you start to groan and complain about doing something. You need to listen to them but realize that we do it as adults too, in the most important things in our lives.
Speaker 1:Somebody tells us we need to read the Bible, talk to God. We start to look for excuses, how to get out of it. Somebody tells us that we need to love our spouse each day and make our marriage a priority. We start to talk about what a burden that is, how oppressive that is, how ridiculous that is to assume that we would give time. Do you know how ridiculous we sound when we try and make excuses for loving and pouring ourselves each day, throughout the day?
Speaker 1:It doesn't matter what it is, folks, we have one spouse. Even if you're in one of those countries around the world that lets you have more than one, maybe two or three Out of seven billion people you get one, even if something tragic happens and you lose your first spouse and you marry another. That's two, or, as I said, even if you live in one of those countries around the world where they allow more than one. That's still two, three out of seven billion, and yet we treat them so indifferently and we complain About this person that God has given us. A lot of people roll their eyes, folks, and they start making all sorts of comments when I say whatever, whenever, wherever, however often eagerly.
Speaker 1:But if you had something that everybody else in the world didn't have, which you do in your spouse but let's say that you had a particular diamond or ruby, or a particular kind of gold or one type of tree out of the entire world, or one animal that was left out of the entire world, you know, we talk. There's a lot of people out there that put a lot of effort into preserving species, whether you're talking about white rhino or something else that we've tried to preserve over the years. Imagine if you had one thing that was absolutely nowhere else in the world and you do. You have this spouse and yet we treat them. We touch our phone more often. Everybody in the world has a, not everybody in the world. Okay, let me back up. But in America, how many people have phones? How many people are on social media? How many people watch YouTube videos and Instagram and TikTok. How many people have access to all that stuff? Millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions. And yet we treat that phone and those social media apps and those TV shows and movies man, we are so excited about that. Or those baseball games or football games or volleyball games that everybody's watching. We treat those like those are the best thing ever. Wimbledon and tennis, right. And yet the spouse that we have, that nobody else in the world has, we treat like trash. And then we have the nerve to get upset that they're not doing their job. Folks, it just makes no sense. It's not logical. I wanted to before we get in. Well, no, we'll go into the Bible first. Let's do that. That's more important. Right 1 Corinthians 6, I think, pretty sure Lawsuits discourage.
Speaker 1:Does any one of you, when he has a case against his neighbor, dare to go to law before the unrighteous and not before the saints? Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? If the world is judged by you, are you not competent to constitute the smallest law courts? Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the matters of this life? So, if you have law courts dealing with matters of this life. Do you appoint them as judges who are of no account in the church, them as judges who are of no account in the church? I say this to your shame. Is it so that there is not among you one wise man who will be able to decide between his brethren, but brother goes to law with brother, and that before unbelievers? Actually, then, it is already a defeat for you that you have lawsuits with one another. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded? On the contrary, you yourselves wrong and defraud. You do this even to your brethren. Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexual, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, homosexual nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God. The body is the Lord's. All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything. Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both of them. Yet the body is not for immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. Now, god has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us up through his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be. Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her, for, he says, the two shall become one flesh. But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with him? Slee immorality? Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own, for you have been bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body. All right, there's a few things here Quite a bit, actually, but I want to talk about a few Lawsuits back at the beginning. Verse one does any one of you when he has a case against his neighbor. Dare to go to law before the unrighteous and not before the saints verse four so if you have law courts dealing with matters of this life, do you appoint them as judges who are of no account in the church? Right meaning, if it's somebody that doesn't isn't of any standing in the church, is that who you're going to appoint as your judges? Verse 6 but brother goes to law with brother, and that before unbelievers. So why these three verses?
Speaker 1:One thing that we need to do a much better job of, I think, as Christians as a whole, is allowing those who reject God and Jesus Christ in the Bible to tell us what Scripture means, what God wants, what Jesus Christ wants, right. So I think I mentioned this on the last podcast, but it's a big deal. I want to mention it again. I stumbled across somebody that was obviously super supportive of illegal immigration, which absolutely goes against God's Jesus Christ who commands love God.
Speaker 1:Well, the second one for sure, love your neighbor as yourself, because illegal immigration hurts the widow and the orphan, the poor and the needy. It steals resources and representation away from members of our own american family. It encourages child trafficking, sex trafficking, increases violence. I mean it's just, it's bad across the board. There's no way to square that with loving your neighbors yourself, caring for the widow and the orphan, the poor and the needy, and so when you see somebody that supports something like that, or abortion or child trafficking, sex trafficking, which the left, all of their values, encourage those things when you see somebody like that and they say they try and tell you something about the Bible, folks, that's immediately null and void. If there's somebody out there, regardless of what they say about whether they follow Christ or not, if they're telling you how you ought to live, what your morality ought to be based on the Bible, and they support abortion and things that encourage sex trafficking, their opinion is immediately null and void. Their commentary is immediately null and void.
Speaker 1:There's no reason for us, as Christians, to listen to people, on any subject, that openly reject and mock God and Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit and God's Word about God's word. There's no reason to listen to them and we've given them way too much power as Christians. Somebody comes along that obviously rejects God, mocks God, and they find some little verse in the Bible and they say well, you don't do this very well, no, no, no, no, You're not a Christian. You're supporting openly evil things. You don't get to talk to me about how to interpret scripture or what scripture means. You have no right to talk to me about scripture because you openly reject God and his son and the Holy Spirit and scripture and folks. By extension. The same ought to be true with people that try and tell us about what America really was or wasn't, or should be or shouldn't be. You can't love—we haven't gone through this. We need to. I keep saying this.
Speaker 1:Over the years we've gone through a children's book back from the turn of the 19th into the 20th century, and one of the things one of the authors wrote is that in order to really love a country, you have to love the values, the founding values of that nation. People who openly reject God and Jesus Christ and the Bible, those are the founding. You know, fdr and Truman both made so many of our presidents made comments like this Ulysses S Grant, the Bible's the seat anchor of your liberties, our liberties, our laws, our constitutions, our institutions, our freedom. All of that goes back to I don't like to use the word freedom. I got to stop here, folks. It's liberty, right? That's different than freedom. Our liberty goes back to God and Jesus Christ in the Bible.
Speaker 1:And so if you've got somebody that openly rejects that, that openly reviles God and Jesus Christ in the Bible and really openly pretty openly reviles America, talks about how bad, how horrible America is, what a horrible place this is, they just immediately took themselves out of the argument for those of us that truly love America, of the argument for those of us that truly love America. This is a huge point. I'm probably going to talk about it again, but let me try another angle, besides just scripture. If you've got somebody out there that's trying to tell you about the Constitution or about state's laws or institutions or whatever else, the very first thing you need to do is you need to make sure that they have an understanding of that tie between America and God throughout our nation's history. Waldorf, for example, is a phenomenal organization, barton. They go around the country. They give a lot of talks about our history as a nation.
Speaker 1:If they come up and they say, well, this is actually what the Constitution meant, or this is actually what these states' laws mean, or how the institutions were created, and it's not quite what you thought it was, those are people that you really ought to take a listen to and be like, oh, maybe I had this wrong, maybe I need to rethink that, maybe I got it all messed up to begin with, right. But then if you have somebody else, even like some of the Supreme Court justices that we have right now, that openly reject and revile America and God and Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit and the Bible, and they tell you well, this is what the Constitution did like full stop, immediately you have no reason to listen to them In fact, listening to them unless you're doing counterintelligence right, unless you're doing research specifically under the. You know the understanding that you're looking at what the enemy does, which is a valid point. I know some men that I trust a great deal that will listen to, for example, cnn or MSNBC specifically to make sure that they're keeping tabs on the talking points of people who hate America. That's legitimate. But if you're really trying to be the best citizen you can be, you don't want to listen to the world and the devil. You want to find somebody. You want to listen to God and Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit and you want to listen to people that understand that connection. We could talk about this for a lot longer. I want to talk about one more thing out of 1 Corinthians 6 before we move on Verse 9,.
Speaker 1:Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor adulterers, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor the drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God. Okay, so the bad news first.
Speaker 1:A lot of us fall into one of these categories. One thing to note here is being effeminate, being a feminine man and being a homosexual, of idolatry, adultery, stealing, drunkenness, swindlers. So they're not good things, folks, no matter what the modern world says. Being a feminine man or being part of the LGBTQ lifestyle group those are not positives. Those are to the point, right where God says "'Do not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God and don't be deceived None of us who continue to cling to those evils will enter the kingdom of God. Right, we'll inherit the kingdom of God. Okay, so that's the bad news, and we need to make sure that we understand that those things today that a lot of people try and claim are good are not. The good news is such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified.
Speaker 1:In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God, we have hope. We have Jesus Christ. That's the only of our God. We have hope. We have Jesus Christ. That's the only way into heaven. That's the only hope I have is that his blood, his sacrifice, will stand in place for me on the day of judgment. He's already done it. He's wiped away my sins before God, the ones I've already committed in this timeline on earth, the ones I'm going to commit today, the ones I'm going to commit in 20 years from now, if I'm still alive, even if it's the same one Now.
Speaker 1:That's not an excuse to just go out and keep on sinning. Folks, we have a responsibility to fight against evil, to fight against sin, especially immorality in our own bodies, which 1 Corinthians 6 talks about here later. It's a great, great little chapter, very humbling, but Jesus Christ paid it already, and so give yourself a little bit of grace perhaps there, and I think that will make it a little easier to fight against. I'll use myself as an example here. At least In my life, it has made it a little easier to fight against evil. I've done a little better job when I don't put all the weight on myself Right, when I put all the weight on Jesus Christ and he's already. He's already done it. And then all of a sudden, those things that I know I shouldn't be doing but I really want to do, they're not near as hard to walk away from. If that makes sense, let me see. All right, I'm going to talk about this anyway, because it's a huge deal.
Speaker 1:So one thing that the left has understood for a long time is that whoever controls education controls the future of the nation, and we have not done a very good job. The Muslims understand it too, but on the conservative Christian side we seem to either be too scared to acknowledge it or we just simply don't understand it. So Epic Times is a newspaper that I highly recommend, and this is an article out of the oh. Where's the date? Oh, july 1st to the 8th issue. Okay, why? Charter schools received $60 million boost by Aaron Gifford.
Speaker 1:This is not a plug for charter schools or against them, but there's some interesting comments here. You look in they talk about a couple schools Signature School, evansville, indiana, average SAT score of 1316 versus the national average of 1050. Success Academy Charter Schools in New York City 83% in English language arts, 93% in math passing rates. That is, compare with 49% in English and 53% in math in the public schools in New York City. There's quite a few other statistics here. Let's see. I had some more outlined Louisiana basis charter schools. They're actually in Arizona, louisiana and Texas and the District of Columbia. Louisiana and Texas and the District of Columbia 94.5% AP exam pass rate in 2024. Compared with the average national average of around three points. Their average was 4.18 out of five points, if you know anything about the AP scoring system, and so you've got an improvement in a lot of charter schools across a wide range of academic abilities, from your low achievers to your high achievers, and that's great.
Speaker 1:There's also some stories in here that aren't so good about charter schools. They did a pretty good job, I think in this article they talked about one, for example Memphis Academy of Health Sciences. Opened in 2010,. Closed in 2022. The administrators there were using the money to take trips to Las Vegas, buy a hot tub, pay for child care, purchase NBA tickets, right. So there's there's definitely some mismanagement opportunities in these charter schools, but so is there in public school, all right. So here are the things that really stuck out.
Speaker 1:The whole. This is a quote that the author of this article put in here. The whole premise is by keeping the bar high, everyone does better. We have absolutely not done that in public school. We have lowered the bar and lowered the bar and lowered the bar, trying to get to the point where everybody passes. Instead of worrying about what's best for the student, instead of acknowledging that not every single kid in the United States needs to graduate high school and go to college, we have tried to lower the standards, and you see this in the college.
Speaker 1:Look at the acceptance rates now for a number of our colleges. They're not just taking the top 10 or 15 percent, they're taking the top 30 percent, 40 percent, 50 percent, whether they openly acknowledge that or not. You just look at their enrollment and you see the kids that are getting into a lot of these large state universities across multiple states. They're kids that should never be there. They don't have the academic ability to survive a rigorous course, and so what has the college done in order to make money, and it doesn't matter whether it's private or state funded. They've lowered their standards so they can keep the kid there, so that they can keep getting money, and then they produce a kid with a four-year degree that's worth the same amount as a piece of toilet paper. Right, because we're not keeping the bar high, we're lowering the standards across the board. Huge problem, and anybody that knows anything about kids or just leadership in general you keep the bar high and kids respond to that. And if they can't respond to that academically, folks, then we need to acknowledge that there's another path for them vocational training, something and we need to let them go down that path and not when they're a senior in high school, eighth grade, ninth grade and Lord, I'm going to use a story from my family, don't tell me that these kids can't achieve. The state of Oklahoma hired my grandfather back in the 30s 1930s to drive a bus and he was an eighth grader and he drove the bus and picked the kids up. We baby these kids today. They have the ability to go out and function far earlier than we allow them.
Speaker 1:It's one of the things that made the Marine Corps function so much better than some of the other branches? Is that we pushed responsibility down to the lowest levels. Is that we push responsibility down to the lowest levels? What would be the responsibilities of a staff sergeant, perhaps in another branch? Were the responsibilities of a lance corporal or a corporal in the Marine Corps? And it's not that those other branches couldn't do it, it's that they didn't and they should have.
Speaker 1:And again, another place where you can see this lowering standards the military and the whole nonsense of women in the military. You're not. Women aren't getting in because they're meeting the standard. They're getting in because we're lowering the standard. Getting in because they're meeting the standard. They're getting in because we're lowering the standard. Every single slot in a military academy or the military in general, or law enforcement or firefighters that a woman takes is a slot that could be filled by a man who has exactly at least as good mental, emotional qualifications and is faster and stronger. It's just facts, folks. Whether you want to hear that or not, whether that makes you mad or not, it's just the simple truth. There is a guy out there somewhere that is equally mentally capable, that is stronger and faster, that could fill that slot that that female is taking in the military academies or the military, or law enforcement or firefighters and no, you don't have a right to be one of those things. That's a nonsense of the left.
Speaker 1:The job is not to make everybody feel good and have a warm, fuzzy folks. The job is to protect and serve. Your job as a firefighter is to kick in doors and get people out of burning buildings. That's the ultimate job. I mean, at the end of the day, that is your job is to save people and property too, if you can. Law enforcement same thing. At the end of the day, the basic job of law enforcement is to fight against evil men and women. However, they can do that. At the end of the day, the basic job of the military is to break things, destroy things and kill people.
Speaker 1:A lot of people don't want to hear that today. That makes a lot of people uncomfortable. I'm so sorry, too bad. I'm not sorry yet. So this article again.
Speaker 1:Why charter schools? The whole premise is by keeping the bar high. Everyone does better, of course, and we ought to know that. But there's some problems here, folks, even as good as some of these statistics seem to be for these charter schools, and the problem is here. In another area. They say charters, often formed by parents or teachers who are dissatisfied with their neighborhood schools, operate independently of local districts but still follow state and federal conditions to receive public funds. That's a huge problem, folks. We don't need more education like we've got today. We need education that goes back to God and Jesus Christ, whether you're talking about public schools, starter schools, private schools, home schools, whatever you're talking about in America especially, though, if it's got any public funding, it needs to be centered on God and the Bible.
Speaker 1:Fisher Ames again the guy that actually wrote the Establishment Clause that the left has used so well to separate God from the state he said that the primary textbook in our school should be the Bible Primary textbook Not just a textbook, but the primary textbook. Anything we do, folks, if we don't have God, it's going to fail, and it doesn't matter what the skin color is, it doesn't matter what the gender is, it doesn't matter what the socioeconomic background is. If we don't put God and the Bible back in the center of our publicly funded education, our republic's going to fail. Homeschool isn't going to cover the entire nation. Folks, I'm sorry for those of y'all that love homeschool I'm a big fan of it too. You're not going to homeschool the entire nation. It's just not going to happen. You're not going to homeschool the entire nation, it's just not going to happen. You're going to have to have some form of public education in a republic to maintain an educated citizenry, which a republic has to have in order to function. And if you don't want to be a pagan republic like Rome which we are not we were founded as a Christian republic that actually produces liberty that publicly funded education has to be God-centered.
Speaker 1:One other comment here it talks about the fact that these schools, these charter schools that have failed. This is in the negative part of this article. The NEA, which I'm not a huge fan of, if you all know anything about the National Education Association it's a teacher's union has indicated that it would support only those charter schools overseen by local voter elected boards. It's a teacher's union has indicated that it would support only those charter schools overseen by local voter elected boards, but that they got right. Folks, so much of the control needs to go back to the local level, the local school boards, the local superintendents, not the state level and not the federal level. And a lot of people are going to say well, some of these places are going to fail. Well then, those people in the community need to step up and they need to get involved and they need to change what's going on.
Speaker 1:But a large part of the problem whether you're talking about the military or whether you're talking about the military or whether you're talking about education is that we have too much centralized control and too little local involvement. Too many people today want to pass the buck, to push the responsibility to somebody else. They want great results but they don't want to put in any effort. Kind of like marriage and faith. We want to ship our kids off to daycare at public schools and not be involved at all and then get mad when those public schools aren't doing a great job in raising our children. Our local school boards, our local superintendents, need the power, not the state board, definitely not the feds need the power, not the state board, definitely not the feds. It's a great article if you get a chance. It's got some really interesting other statistics about cost per year per average per student and charter versus public schools and just it's some pretty little history on charter schools. It's pretty interesting. I learned some things reading a great article why charter schools received 60 million dollar boost, again by Aaron Gifford.
Speaker 1:All right, I know we took all of the time today, and so we will Get into Style sermon on the next podcast, get into style sermon on the next podcast and we will go ahead and go into Ox's Book of the Martyrs for today. So every once in a while we go back and we read the title page, and so I think we will do that today. I can find it quickly. This is Fox's Book of the Martyrs, or A History of the Lives, sufferings and Triumphant Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs, from the introduction of Christianity to the latest periods of pagan, popish and infidel persecutions, embracing together with the usual subjects contained in similar works, the recent persecutions in the cantons of Switzerland, the persecutions of the Methodist and Baptist missionaries in the West India Islands and the narrative of the conversion, capture, long imprisonment and cruel sufferings of Assad Shaddik, a native of Palestine. Likewise a sketch of the French Revolution as connected with persecution, compiled from Fox's Book of the Martyrs and other authentic sources printed Philadelphia E Claxton Company, 930 Market Street 1881. And we are in. If I can get back there, maybe way off, I'll get there, folks. Yeah, there we go. So we're in chapter six an account of the persecution in Italy under the papacy. And we will pick back up with Dominicus.
Speaker 1:Dominicus, a learned soldier, having read several controversial writings, became a zealous Protestant and, retiring to Placentia, he preached the gospel in its utmost purity to a very considerable congregation. At the conclusion of his sermon one day he said if the congregation will attend tomorrow, I will give them a description of Antichrist and paint him out in his proper colors. A vast concourse of people attended the next day, but just as Dominicus was beginning his sermon, a civil magistrate went up to the pulpit and took him into custody. He readily submitted, but as he went along with, the magistrate made use of this expression I wonder the devil hath let me alone so long? When he was brought to examination, this question was put to him Will you renounce your doctrines? To which he replied my doctrines. I maintain no doctrines of my own. What I preach are the doctrines of Christ, and for those I will forfeit my blood and even think myself happy to suffer for the sake of my Redeemer.
Speaker 1:Every method was taken to make him recant from his faith and embrace the errors of the church of Rome, but when persuasions and menaces were found ineffectual, he was sentenced to death and hanged in the marketplace. Folks, every time we read this, it's just astounding that any church would claim to be following Christ and hang somebody, not because they wouldn't follow Jesus Christ, not because they were following the devil, but because they wouldn't follow the doctrine the man-made doctrine of that particular denomination, particular denomination. It's mind-boggling, especially when that denomination claims infallibility. In the very act of doing that, galatius, a Protestant gentleman who resided near the castle of St Angelo, was apprehended on account of his faith. Great endeavors being used by his friends, he recanted and subscribed to several of the superstitious doctrines propagated by the Church of Rome. Becoming, however sensible, of his error, he publicly renounced his recantation. Being apprehended for this, he was condemned to be burnt and, agreeable to the order, was chained to a stake or he was left several hours before the fire was put to the faggots in order that his wife, relations and friends who surrounded him might induce him to give up his opinions. Galatius, however, retained his constancy of mind and entreated the executioner to put fire to the wood that was to burn him. This at length he did, and Galatius was soon consumed in the flames, which burnt with amazing rapidity and deprived him of sensation. In a few minutes, soon after this gentleman's death, a great number of Protestants were put to death in various parts of Italy on account of their faith, giving a sure proof of their sincerity in their martyrdoms.
Speaker 1:How sincere are we today, folks, those of us that claim to follow Christ, and I'm not even talking about being tortured or burned at the stake. I share my father's sentiment in that regard that there is no condemnation for those who recant, so to speak, under threat of torture or death, so long as they go back to Christ afterwards. And even more to the point, we have a responsibility to defend the widow and the orphan and the poor and the needy. And I certainly am not saying that these martyrs did what they shouldn't have, but abandoning our wives and children to evil. You know, god gave us whatever resources he gave us for a purpose, and I think often that purpose is to be willing to trade our lives not omissions, not the word I'm looking for, but not by passive submission, but by being willing to fight to defend those who can't defend themselves, even if that does cost us our lives.
Speaker 1:But the point here I got way off track here. What are we willing to give? How sincere are we? Are we willing to fight? Are we willing to die defending the widow and the orphan, the poor and the needy, following Christ and caring for the least of these? Following Christ and caring for the least of these, and before you go down the path of telling me that it requires pacifism, you go back and you look at so many of the heroes in the Bible who were not pacifists. You look at David, who was a man after God's own heart. You look at Christ himself. At the very end, he told his disciples that they had to have a sword, that they needed to sell whatever they needed to sell in order to get a sword Right.
Speaker 1:But what are we willing to suffer, to give so that the ability to worship Christ is maintained here in the United States, in America? Because, folks, that ability will be lost in a heartbeat under leftism, socialism, communism or Islam or Islam. The ability to freely share the gospel of Jesus Christ and to spread light and hope to those dark places around the world, like North Korea or China or Iran or Syria or Nigeria. That will be gone under leftism, socialism, communism or Islam. It will not be here, that will not exist. You will not have the ability to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. The political candidate up in New York, the Muslim, the socialist, slash really communist leftist right. If people that subscribe to those ideologies and the ethnicities are relevant, it's the ideologies that matter. If they are able to gain total power, you won't have the ability to share the gospel of Jesus Christ there freely Freely, I think.
Speaker 1:Too often today we're afraid to even upset our family or our friends, much less really suffer or fight and risk our life On account of the persecutions of Calabria. Let me see how much time we've got before we go into this. Well, this is a long one. Well, we can start it. An account of the persecutions of Calabria.
Speaker 1:In the 14th century, many of the Waldenese of Pergella and Dauphine immigrated to Calabria and settling some wastelands. By the permission of the nobles of that country, they soon, by the most industrious cultivation, made several wild and barren spots appear, with all the beauties of verdure and fertility. The Calabrian lords were highly pleased with their new subjects and tenants, as they were honest, quiet and industrious. But the priests of the country exhibited several negative complaints against them for not being able to accuse them of anything bad, which they did do. They found accusations on what they did not do and charged them with not being Roman Catholics, with not making any of their boys priests, with not making any of their girls nuns, with not going to mass, with not giving wax tapers to their priests as offerings, with not going on pilgrimages, with not bowing to images. The Calabrian Lord Tower requited the priests by telling them that these people were extremely harmless, that they gave no offense to the Roman Catholics and cheerfully paid the tithes to the priests, whose revenues were considerably increased by their coming into the country and who, of consequence, ought to be the last persons to complain of them. Things went on tolerably well after this for a few years, during which the Waldenese formed themselves into two corporate towns, annexing several villages to the jurisdiction of them. At length, they sent to Geneva for two clergymen, one to preach in each town, as they determined to make a public profession of their faith. Intelligence of this affair being carried to the Pope Pius IV, he determined to exterminate them from Calabria.
Speaker 1:We'll come back and pick up there with Pope Pius IV and his desire to exterminate these people Again. Why? Not because they weren't following Scripture, not because they weren't following Jesus Christ, but because they weren't Roman Catholics. They didn't make their boys priests or their girls nuns. They weren't going to Mass, they didn't give wax to the priest as offerings, they didn't go on pilgrimages and they didn't bow to images of Mary or anything else, none of which is in the Bible. And so the problem again with this denomination is not people not following Christ, but not following their particular denomination. We'll pick up there again on the next podcast. So we're going to go back into Mercy, otis Warren and the history of the rise, progress and termination of the American Revolution. We'll pick up in chapter five where we left off.
Speaker 1:Not long after the dissolution of the last assembly ever convened in that province on the principles of their former charter, admiral Graves arrived in Boston with several ships of the line and a number of transports laden with troops, military stores and all warlike detriments. The troops landed peaceably, took possession of the open grounds and formed several encampments within the town. Took possession of the open grounds and formed several encampments within the town. At the same time arrived the bill for new modeling of the government of Massachusetts. By this bill, the former charter was entirely vacated. A council of 36 members was appointed by mandamus to hold their places during the king's pleasures. All judges, justices, sheriffs, etc. Were to be appointed by the governor without the advice of counsel and to be removed at his sole option. Jurors and future were to be named by the sheriff instead of the usual and more impartial mode of drawing them by lot. All town meetings without express leave from the governor were forbidden, except those annually held in the spring for the choice of representatives and town officers. Several other violations of the former compact completed the system, for whatever reason.
Speaker 1:When I read this paragraph, it strikes me to remind us that the best way we can strengthen our communities is to strengthen our churches, to make sure that our churches are following Scripture, to encourage those around us, not to condemn them, but to encourage each other in our walk, in our faith, in striving to follow Christ and, as Patrick Henry said, to practice virtue ourselves and to encourage it in all those that are in our sphere of influence. The new mode of government, though it had been for some time expected, occasioned such loud complaints, such universal murmurs, that several of the newly appointed counselors had not the courage to accept places which they were sensible would reflect disgrace on their memory, on their memory Two of them. These were James Russell, esquire of Charleston and William Vassal Esquire of Boston seemed really to decline from principle and publicly declared that they would have no hand in the dereliction of the rights of their country. Several others relinquished their seats for fear of offending their countrymen, but most of them, selected by Mr Hutchinson as proper instruments for the purpose, were destitute of all ideas of public virtue. They readily took the qualifying oaths and engaged to lend their hand to erase the last vestige of freedom in that devoted province. Again, folks practice virtue in ourselves and encourage it in others. Particularly, we need to encourage virtue in our young men, older men, our boys, but women too. Just, we need to make sure that we're following our different roles and responsibilities virtuously in both cases. They're not the same, they're different Virtuously in both cases they're not the same, they're different. What I was really getting at is we need men who rule in fear of God, but we need men and women who live in fear of God.
Speaker 1:The people, still firm and undaunted, assembled in multitudes and repaired to the houses of the obnoxious counselors. They demanded an immediate resignation of their unconstitutional appointments and a solemn assurance that they would never accept any office incompatible with the former privileges enjoyed by their country, some of them, terrified by the resolution of the people, complied and remained afterwards quiet and unmolested in their own houses. Others, who had prostrated all principle in the hope of preferment and were party enough to go every length to secure it, conscious of the guilty part they had acted, made their escape into Boston where they were sure of the protection of the king's troops. Indeed, that unhappy town soon became the receptacle of all the devotees to ministerial measures from every part of the province. They there consoled themselves with the barbarous hope that Parliament would take the severest measures to enforce their own acts. Nor were these hopes unfounded. Some similarities there, folks. Some similarities there, folks.
Speaker 1:And when you look at our cities today and the clustering of those who support the evils of leftism, socialism, nazism, fascism, communism, Islam, with the hopes that they can consolidate power in those cities and then reach out across the land, it has been observed that by the late edict for the better administration of justice in Massachusetts, any man was liable, on the slightest suspicion of treason or misprision of treason, to be dragged from his own family or vicinity to any part of the King of England's dominions for trial. It was now reported that General Gage had orders to arrest the leading characters in opposition and transport them beyond sea, and that a reinforcement of troops might be hourly expected, sufficient to enable him to execute all the mad projects of a rash and unprincipled ministry. Hence the reason we need to be building up our local law enforcement, firefighters, ems, state militias and conservative Christian areas. Though the operation of this system and training, just in general, with arms, though the operation of this system in its utmost latitude, was daily threatened and expected, it, made little impression on a people determined to withhold even a tacit consent to any infractions on their charter. They consider the present measures as a breach of a solemn covenant which, at the same time that it subjected them to the authority of the King of England, stipulated to them the equal enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of free and natural-born subjects. They chose to hazard the consequences of returning back to a state of nature rather than quietly submit to unjust and arbitrary measures continually accumulating.
Speaker 1:This was a dangerous experiment, though they were sensible of the necessities of man, will soon restore order and subordination, even from confusion and anarchy. On the contrary, the yoke of despotism once riveted, no human sagacity can justly calculate its termination. There's a lot in these last couple lines here, folks, that we've talked about recently, and that is, we have a responsibility to follow Christ in the way that we see best fit, and for some that is going to be passive submission and for others it's not, and that's fine either way. Our job is to follow Christ in whatever manner we see best fit to God and to Jesus Christ. But this last part here, the yoke of despotism if, if we fight and there's anarchy and chaos for a while, at some point order is going to return. But if we go and the 20th century shows this so clearly once you get under that yoke of despotism whether you're talking about leftism, socialism, communism or Nazism or fascism or Islam once they get total power, there is no telling how long that yoke is going to stay on and how heavy it's going to get. And it is much harder to get that yoke off than it is to put it on.
Speaker 1:God be with y'all. 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. Listening I'm glad you're here. We'll talk to y'all again. We'll send. Looking forward to it.