The American Soul
The American Soul
There is No Middle Ground Between Christ and Chaos
What happens when we truly grasp the extraordinary value of our closest relationships? Jesse Cope opens this powerful episode with a mathematical revelation: out of approximately four billion potential spouses in the world, we've been entrusted with just one. This staggering perspective transforms how we should view marriage—as a precious, irreplaceable gift rather than something we take for granted while chasing entertainment, careers, or social media dopamine hits.
The conversation shifts to fundamental questions about America's identity and direction. Drawing from historical documents and forgotten wisdom, Jesse challenges the popular notion that political centrism represents some elevated moral position. "There is no magic middle ground," he argues, echoing former Senate chaplain Peter Marshall's stark assessment that "it's either Christ or chaos." This observation extends beyond individual faith to our national trajectory.
Particularly moving is the episode's exploration of religious persecution that drove so many Europeans to America's shores. Reading from Fox's Book of Martyrs, Jesse recounts harrowing stories of Christians tortured and killed—not for rejecting Christ but for refusing to embrace man-made religious traditions that contradicted Scripture. These accounts serve as powerful reminders of why religious liberty was so central to America's founding and why it remains worth defending today.
The final segment offers practical guidance for listeners feeling overwhelmed by national challenges. Jesse introduces the concept of "spheres of influence"—the idea that regardless of your station in life, you have relationships where you can practice virtue, strengthen faith, and encourage others. From raising children who understand biblical principles to supporting local institutions and building community resilience, these seemingly small actions collectively shape our culture.
Whether you're concerned about America's spiritual condition, seeking to strengthen your marriage, or simply trying to live faithfully in challenging times, this episode provides both the historical context and practical wisdom to navigate with purpose and conviction. Join the conversation and discover how ancient truths can illuminate our modern 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 you joining me and giving me a little bit of your time, energy, 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, as we used to say in the Marine Corps, and hopefully it will draw us all a little bit closer to God and Jesus Christ as individuals and as a nation. For those of y'all that have been around the podcast for a while, I'm very grateful that you've stayed. For those of y'all that are new to the podcast, I'm glad you're here. Hope you get something out of it. Hope you come back and enjoy it. I hope y'all are able to share it with somebody else, to listen to it with somebody else and probably get something more out of it than I have the capability to put there. Hopefully, maybe God's will, Most of all for those of y'all who continue to pray for me and for the podcast. Thank you so much. Very, very grateful for that. Father. Thank you for today. Thank you for you, Father, and your Son, Jesus Christ and your Holy Spirit. Thank you for all the many blessings you bestow on us as individuals and as a nation. The resources that you've given us, the talents and skills that you've given us and the people that you have put into our lives Help us to be good stewards of all. Thank you for the time to record this podcast. Thank you for the people that listen to it and share it. Thank you for the people to record this podcast. Thank you for the people that listen to it and share it. Thank you for the people that continue to pray, Father, for the podcast and for me. Please be with them. Be with their families, Surround them with your angel, Protect them from evil of any kind, Guide our thoughts and our words and our actions. Be with those who are brokenhearted, Father. Be with those who've lost loved ones or who have some other kind of struggle, Father. Whatever it is that causes them heartache, please draw near to them, as you have promised to do. Be with those who are crushed in spirit. Forgive us our sins, Father. Forgive us our pride, our arrogance, our vanity and thinking that we don't need you, our judgment of others, our rash words and actions, our cowardice and our unbelief. We do believe. Father, we do believe. Be with our leaders, both in the pulpit and in the state. Give them wisdom and courage and a strong faith. Help them to lead in fear of you. Be with our military, our law enforcement, our firefighters. Keep them safe. Bring them home safe. Father and God, my words are in place In your son's name. We pray Amen.
Speaker 1:Have you made time for God and Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit today? Have you made time to read the Bible? Have you made time to pray, To talk to him? It doesn't have to be some convoluted, fancy prayer with a bunch of really long words, folks. You're just talking to God. Hopefully, maybe my prayers here with you all each day for those of you all that are struggling with that particular aspect of your faith. Hopefully that helps. But just tell him thank you for some things in your life that you're grateful for. Ask his forgiveness for whatever areas that you're struggling, and we're all struggling somewhere.
Speaker 1:Folks, Don't let anybody tell you they're not. Maybe it's greed, Maybe it's lust, Maybe it's pride, gossip, slander. There's something. It's just our human condition. There's something somewhere that each of us is struggling with. And the Bible.
Speaker 1:I don't subscribe at all to this theory that all people are equally good and bad. That just doesn't seem to be what Christ says. He talks very clearly about it's going to be easier or harder on the day of judgment for certain people, and that we need to store up for ourselves treasures in heaven. And you know from your own life. You look around and you see certain people that you have a pretty good idea of have not stored up very much for themselves in heaven, and there's some people that you look at and you're pretty sure that they're going to have a pretty big mansion in heaven for eternity. But what I do absolutely 100% know from scripture is that none of us get to God and eternal life, the tree of life, None of us have our names written in the book of life without going through Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1:Your denomination cannot assure you of that, just simply because you're a member. There's no other person in the history of the world, including Mary Joseph, the disciples, the thief on the cross or any other pope, priest, pastor, cleric, bishop, superintendent, that can guarantee you salvation. No celebrity, no political figure. There is no other way to God and eternal life besides through Jesus Christ, and you would think that that would make it simple and easy for us to make God our top priority each day, because that's pretty important. And yet, and yet, we struggle, we struggle. At any rate, you know, tell God thank you, Asking for some forgiveness for whatever it is that you've done, and pray for those around you. Pray for your nation, Pray for yourself. Doesn't have to be complicated, folks.
Speaker 1:If you're married, does your spouse know it? Do you act like it? Do they go to bed each night knowing, when their head hits the pillow, that they are absolutely the most precious thing in the world to you outside of your relationship with God and Jesus Christ? I talk about this often because we don't act like it so much, but especially in the American church, you can see it in our marriages, and I'm sure that that is true across the world, wherever you are listening Canada, England, France, Norway we have every once in a while I think the number now is like 8 billion people in the world, right, and you have one spouse. That's it out of the entire world, even if you want to play the game that 50% is male and 50% female. So 4 billion people out of those 4 billion, you've got one spouse.
Speaker 1:That's it, and that coin ought to work both ways. Folks, we ought to realize that we're the only spouse our spouse will ever have and try and do the very best we can to be the best spouse for them we can be. The flip side of that is we ought to treasure our spouse as a one out of four billion treasure. I mean, if you've got one thing that nobody else has out of four billion possibilities, thing that nobody else has out of 4 billion possibilities, you would treasure that. If you have one coin, if there was one coin out of 4 billion coins in a pile and that one coin was worth the world, how much would you treasure that? And our spouse is this living, breathing human being.
Speaker 1:And what do we do? We tell them we need me time. I need to go sit in front of the couch for a while. I need to lay in bed and scroll my phone. I need to go watch sports. I need to go play sports. I need to go work out for an hour and a half, two hours. I need to watch TV for a while.
Speaker 1:Whatever it is, folks, we and then the really, really sad thing is and I know I'm not just talking to myself here we get so excited about a particular actor or actress or singer, songwriter, politician, entrepreneur, something, somebody and man, we get all excited. We start yelling and screaming and clapping at the TV or going to these talks that these people give. They're not our spouse. Most of them couldn't care less about us as individuals. They might have some good information for us, they might even be a good example for us in some areas, but they don't care about us. I give you a little piece of wisdom before we move on, from my grandmother, who lived quite a long time and she said in your life, if you have one truly bloodthirsty friend, meaning one friend that will stick with you through thick and through thin, all the time, Anytime you need them, you should consider yourself blessed. And if you have two, exceptionally lucky. And she was talking at that particular comment about friends. But how much more our spouse folks? How much more our spouse folks? How much more our spouse? That's our closest neighbor?
Speaker 1:Christ tells us his second great command is to love our neighbors as ourselves, and yet so many of us treat our spouse as disposable man. All right, I believe we are in 1 Corinthians 8. Take care with your liberty. Amen to that.
Speaker 1:Now, concerning things sacrificed to idols, we know that we have all knowledge. Knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies. If anyone supposes that he knows anything, he has not yet known as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by him. Therefore, concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that there is no such thing as an idol in the world and that there is no God but one. For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things and we exist for him, and one, Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things and we exist through him.
Speaker 1:However, not all men have this knowledge, but some, being accustomed to the idol until now, eat food as if it were sacrifice to an idol and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. But food will not commend us to God. We are neither the worse if we do not eat nor the better if we do eat. But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak, For if someone sees you, who have knowledge, dining in an idol's temple, will not his conscience, if he is weak, be strengthened to eat things sacrificed to idols. For through your knowledge, he who is weak is ruined the brother for whose sake Christ died. And so by sinning against the brethren and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ, the brethren, and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food causes my brother to stumble, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause my brother to stumble.
Speaker 1:I feel, like the times I have read this chapter and these verses, that there's probably a lot here that's deeper than my simple brain. So I'm not going to try and delve that deep into it. But there's a few things here that make absolute sense. Verse six and actually also verse four there's one God. There's no God, but one. It's God, the Father of Jesus Christ, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1:And you know we talk about, you see, so much of this coexist stuff today politically across Western civilization. You know peace and tolerance and all faiths are equal and that's just simply not true. And as Christians we are not doing anything at all loving by buying into coexist, that mentality. It's not loving to tell a Jew hey, you know what, You're good, Don't worry about it. It's not loving to tell a Muslim that somebody a Hindu, Buddhist, atheist, it is not loving to look at those people and be like you know what? We just want to sit around a campfire together and sing Kumbaya, and everybody's the same.
Speaker 1:I remember years ago watching a extremely famous personality in the United States one that's just a household name talking about the fact that they were Christian, which was super encouraging. And then later on in this interview, they talked about the fact that there were multiple paths to God. Well, that's not Christianity. You can say whatever you want. It's kind of like pretending that you're married, when between two men and two women, you can say whatever you want and the state can say whatever they want, but it's never going to make it true. It's not a marriage. You can claim to be Christian, but if you claim at that same time that there are multiple paths to God besides through Jesus Christ, putting our faith in him as the risen son of God, you're not following Christ, and it's not fine to pretend otherwise to anybody else. You're risking their soul, Right, you're risking their soul trying to pretend to be kind. Is it any wonder that the devil would work that angle, try and make us feel like we were being kind by not being quote-unquote judgmental.
Speaker 1:It's not judgmental to tell people the truth, folks. It's not judgmental to tell somebody that living an LGBTQ lifestyle is harmful. It's not judgmental to tell somebody that supporting illegal immigration is hurting the widow and the orphan and the poor and the needy the least of these. It's not judgmental to tell somebody that abortion is murder, is taking away life, murder is taking away life. It's not judgmental to tell someone that feminism is a reversal of God's order and destructive to marriage and family and children and our nation. Now, there's ways to do it that are not very loving and there's ways to do it that are a lot more loving, but it's never loving to go along with a lie or the sin.
Speaker 1:And so we go back to these verses one true God, right? You look at verse six. Yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all are all things, and we exist for him, and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things and we exist through him. There is only one God the Father of Jesus Christ, the Son and the Holy Spirit. That's it, folks, and that ought to be pretty much. Our major talking point is that there's one God, the Father of Jesus Christ, and the only way to get to God is through his Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, and the only way to get to God is through his son, Jesus Christ, Verse 9,.
Speaker 1:But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak, and it kind of goes along with verse 13. Therefore, food causes my brother to stumble. I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause my brother to stumble. There are some things that we can do. Obviously, when you read this to me, it sounds like there's some things that a lot of people think are sins, that aren't really sins. But, folks, if we're doing something right and it causes another Christian to stumble in their walk, then it would be better to deny ourselves that and not do it right.
Speaker 1:There's probably a ton of angles that you could talk about this for a long time and get really deep, I think. Well, I don't know a good analogy, folks, but I think a lot of times we get so caught up in this modern idea of I'm going to get mine, what are my rights, what am I entitled to, what do I deserve, and we don't think near enough about our brothers and sisters in Christ. How can we set a better example for them? How can we follow Jesus Christ more closely? Because anytime you get closer to Jesus Christ, it's going to be better for everybody yourself, everyone around you. Right, and I guess that's it before I get in trouble.
Speaker 1:The only other thing I'll leave you with here is I'm sure some of y'all have seen Elon Musk talking about this new party that he wants to start, the American party, and a lot of people that are really excited about this are people that claim to be centrist, moderates, however you want to label it, socially liberal, but fiscally conservative Folks, there's no such thing as a centrist. There's no such thing as values, neutral education or politics. And again, being honest and maybe there's a better way, I could say this but the people that use that term, they're really just trying to make themselves feel better about their lack of decision, riding the fence, or they're kind of arrogantly wanting to look down their nose at other people as if they are worse off for making a decision. But really, the centrist is almost the worst of the three options, folks, and I think it really is, because at least if we're hot or cold, we've made a decision.
Speaker 1:This fantasy land of sitting in the middle of the river treading water and pretending that's somehow noble. It's not noble and you're not really. There really is no middle ground. Where you're treading water. There's no like magic Island in the middle of the river, in the middle of the stream. Moderate is just kind of a slow way to go to the left, To go to the left, Anything less than striving to toward God and Jesus Christ as individuals In particular, and then as America, as a nation that was founded as a Christian republic. Anything that's not going toward. As Peter Marshall, who was a Senate chaplain back at the end of the 40s, 1940s, said, it's either Christ or chaos. There is no magic middle ground. We're either moving toward one or the other.
Speaker 1:And so this party that Musk is going to start theoretically and I'm sure he will he seems to do what he says most of the time, as far as I can tell, If it's not centered around God and Jesus Christ, it definitely will not be better. It might not make things that much worse. It might make them a lot worse, but it's not going to make them any better. The only thing where this party, this American party, would make things better if it is centered around God and Jesus Christ in the Bible and getting back to our founding values, which are based on the general principles of Christ. As John Adams told us, those were the only principles that everybody in the colonies the 13 colonies, those men, could unite around were the general principles of Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ. So one more thing before we get into Medal of Honors today is the state motto of Ohio.
Speaker 1:And the state motto of Ohio, which is official right, is with God, all things are possible, which is Mark 9.23. Jesus said to him if you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes right, All things are possible with God. There's a couple places in the gospel where Jesus makes this, in the gospels where he makes this comment all things are possible with God. If we were a secular society, if we were a pagan republic, like Rome was, there would be absolutely no place for a state motto like this, just like there would be no place for presidents to put their hand on the Bible to take an oath, just like there would be no place for presidents to put their hand on the Bible to take an oath, just like there would be no place for God in oaths in general, but we're not a pagan republic.
Speaker 1:We may be today, but we weren't formed that way. And if we are, we seem to be leaning that way. That's why we're having so much trouble. That's why our society isn't functioning the way it's supposed to. Our government, our constitution, our supreme court, our houses of congress, our military, our law enforcement, our education, that's why those institutions are not functioning the way they should. Because we can't function in America without God and Jesus Christ, because nothing else produces liberty, and that's the, I believe Benjamin Rush's comment was. That's the lifeblood of any republic is to produce liberty. The only way you can produce liberty is by drawing close to the spirit of God. Right? So Medal of Honors, let's see. I think we left off with Thomas Barton, Civil War, so we're going to go to John Manilla.
Speaker 1:John Barcelona, World War II Sergeant. Highest ranked gunnery sergeant World War II, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division, US Marine Corps Medal of Honor. Action date October 24th through 25th 1942, Lunga area, Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands. For extraordinary heroism and conspicuous gallantry in the action against enemy Japanese forces, above and beyond the call of duty, while serving with 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division, in the Laguna area, Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, on 24 and 25 October 1942.
Speaker 1:While the enemy was hammering at the Marines' defensive positions, Sergeant Bassalone, in charge of two sections of heavy machine guns, fought valiantly to check the savage and determined assault. In the fierce frontal assault, with the Japanese blasting his guns with grenades and mortar fire, one of Sergeant Bassalone's sections, with its gun crews, was put out of action, leaving only two men able to carry on Moving an extra gun into position. He placed it in action, then, under continual fire, repaired another and personally manned it, gallantly holding his line until replacements arrived A little later. With ammunition critically low and the supply lines cut off, Sergeant Bassalone, at great risk of his life and in the face of continued enemy attack, battled his way through hostile lines with urgently needed shells for his gunners, thereby contributing in large measure to the virtual annihilation of a Japanese regiment. His great personal valor and courageous initiative were in keeping with the highest traditions of the US Naval Service.
Speaker 1:Accredited to New Jersey, not awarded posthumously. Accredited to New Jersey, not awarded. Posthumously Presented. May 21, 1943, Balcombe, Australia. Presented by Major General Alexander A Vandergrift, commanding General, First Marine Division, Born November 4, 1916, Buffalo, Erie County, New York, United States. Died February 19, 1945, Iwo Jima Volcano Islands. Buried Arlington National Cemetery. Mh-12, TAC-384, Arlington, Virginia, United States. Location of Metal National Museum of the US Marine Corps, Bonico, Virginia.
Speaker 1:Two things what do you think this young man, as he grew up from November 1916 until World War II, thought? Do you think that he thought he would receive the Medal of Honor? Do you think that he thought he would die after receiving the Medal of Honor in the same war? Right, you got to kind of think a little bit. Man, I got a Medal of Honor, Okay, I've done my job. And yet we've read multiple of these men where they did something unbelievably heroic, won the Medal of Honor, continued in that war and were killed later in that war. This Marine fought on Guadalcanal, got a Medal of Honor and then died in Iwo Jima Right After fighting this war. That's another. And then died in Iwo Jima right After fighting this war. That's another thing, folks, that we don't understand, and I remember thinking this not infrequently when I was both in Afghanistan and Iraq. This Marine won this medal for his actions in 1942, in October. He died on Iwo Jima in February of 1945.
Speaker 1:And there's a number of people who have this kind of mentality, a number of people who have made this comment. There's one bouncing around in my head right now and I cannot remember the guy. But the bottom line is, if we are not willing to go to all-out war, we shouldn't go to war period. There should be no half measures in a war. If we're not willing to go all-out in a war, then we should not send the sons of men and women, the fathers of boys and girls and the husbands of wives overseas to die. If we're not willing to go all out, we owe them that they're risking their life. They're risking their limbs, their ability to walk, their ability to talk, their ability to have all of their body functioning correctly, To live, to come back and be a husband, be a father, be a son.
Speaker 1:It is condemning that we ever walk into a war where we are not prepared to absolutely go all out and where we do not have very specific, very hard goals. Afghanistan and Iraq are two great examples today, the goals that have at least been. We're going to take over this huge chunk of territory out of your country because you can't seem to get your act together and maybe, maybe in a hundred years, if you act right, we'll give it back to you and if you even think about coming and attacking us while we're here, we will absolutely wipe out wherever it is that that attack came from. And if we're not willing to say that, which is fine, folks, if we can't stomach that as a society, then we ought to sit back and take whatever the enemy gives us. And if that's another 9-11, then we ought to take it. If we don't have the stomach to go and do what needs to be done in a war, then we shouldn't go, and we sure as heck shouldn't be such cowards that we're willing to send others to die. Shouldn't be such cowards that we're willing to send others to die while we sit back and drink our lattes at Starbucks and wherever else.
Speaker 1:It is you like to go? John Manila, John, Barcelona? Alright, a little bit, yeah. Manilajan Barcelona All right, A little bit, yeah, we have time. A little bit of our sermon from Ezra Stiles. And this is where did it go? The United States elevated a glory and honor. A sermon by Ezra Stiles. Pick up where we left off.
Speaker 1:We stand better chance with aristocracy, whether hereditary or elective, than with monarchy. An unsystematical democracy and an absolute monarchy are equally destable, no, detestable Equally. A mm magormisabib? No idea the terror to all around them. An elective aristocracy is preferable, for America as it is, rather to be a council of nations agreeable to humane, liberal and grand ideas of Henry IV and the patriot Sully, than a body in which resides authoritative sovereignty. For there is no real secession of dominion, no surrender or transfer of sovereignty to the national council, as each state in the Confederacy is an independent sovereignty In justice to human society.
Speaker 1:It may perhaps be said of almost all the polite and civil institutions in the world, however imperfect, that they have been founded in and carried on with very considerable wisdom. They must have been generally well administered. I say generally, otherwise government could not proceed. This may be said even of those governments which carry great defects and the seeds of self-destruction and ruin in their constitution, For even an Ottoman or an Ahron Zebi must establish and prescribe to himself a national constitution, a system of general laws and dominion. But the abstract rationale of perfect government remains still hidden among the desiderata of politics, having hitherto baffled the investigation of the best writers on government, the ablest politicians and the sagest civilians.
Speaker 1:A well-ordered democratical aristocracy, standing upon the annual elections of the people and revocable at pleasure, is the polity which combines the united states, and from the nature of man and the comparison of property resides the aggregate of original power. They cannot, however, assemble from the territory of an empire and must therefore, if they have any share in government, represent themselves by delegation. This constitutes one order in legislature and sovereignty it is a question whether there should be any other and sovereignty it is a question whether there should be any other To resolve which it may be considered that each of these delegates or representatives will be faithful conservators of local interests but have no interest in attending extensively to the public further than where all particular local interests are affected, in common with that which one delegate represents in particular. It should seem, then, that the nature of society dictates another, a higher branch, whose superiority arises from its being the interested and natural conservator of the universal interest. This will be a senatorial order standing not on local but a general election of the whole body of the people. Let a bill or law be read in the one branch or the other, Everyone instantly thinks how it will affect his constituents. If his constituents are those of one small district only, they will be his first care. If the people at large, their general or universal interest will be his first care, the first object of his faithful attention. If a senator, as in Delaware, stands on the election of only the same district as a deputy, the upper house is only a repetition of the lower. If, on the election of several counties combined, as in Virginia, each member of the upper house stands and fills himself charged with a greater and more extensive care than a member of the house of burgesses, but not that it is his duty of each deputy to attend to the general interest.
Speaker 1:Georgia, Pennsylvania and Jersey have each a Senate or legislature of one order only, for, although in Jersey it seemeth otherwise, yet that interest which will determine a vote in one, will determine it in both houses. The same is true of the two Carolinas. The constitutions of Maryland and New York are founded in higher wisdom. The constitutions of Maryland and New York are founded in higher wisdom. The polity of Massachusetts is excellent and truly grand. It retains, indeed, some of the shadows of royalty which may give dignity but never operate an essential mischief in the hands of a chief magistrate who is annually elected by the people at large. But Connecticut and Rhode Island have originally realized the most perfect polity. As to a legislature, Any emendations and improvements may be made by the assembly with respect to the establishment of the law courts and a constitutional privy council which, in all future time, will be necessary to attend the chief magistrate. In the ordinary civil administration, these things are remedied in Virginia, whose constitution seems to be imperfect in but one thing Its twenty-four senators, though elected from local districts, should be elected by the people at large. There's some Latin here, folks. That is just beyond me. Perfectly for legislation and law courts, for the militia and for that continual administration of government in absence of assemblies and while the judicial tribunals are sitting, which must reside in and be uninterruptedly exercised at the head of sovereignty in every civil polity. Let's see how much time we've got. Oh yeah, All right, We'll stop there, We'll come back to it and we will move on for today.
Speaker 1:So we're going to get back into Fox's Book of the Martyrs, and one of the reasons that we're going through these books, maybe one of the main reasons, folks, is so that we know what the truth actually is. There's a lot of people that don't, either because they don't want to or because they don't even know they need to. We can talk about that quite a few different angles, but one example I just had this happen. Recently I was engaged with somebody on social media and they were talking about the fact that all of the commentary about the persecution by the churches in Europe that caused the pilgrims and so many others to flee was all lies. It was all made up, and of course it wasn't. And you look at history like you look at this book of Fox, Fox's Book of the Martyrs. You look at the stories of the pilgrims and so many others in Europe at that time that were persecuted not only by the states, but often primarily by the established church, the Anglican church in Britain or the Roman Catholic church, through so many of the centuries. And so that's just one of the reasons why we read this folks so that we know this and we have the examples to look back on. Not so that we can get an argument although sometimes you have to but so that we just simply know what the truth is. So we'll get back into Fox's Book of the Martyrs for a little bit.
Speaker 1:We're in the account of the persecutions of Calabria. Notwithstanding the promises on one side and menaces on the other, these worthy people unanimously refused to renounce their religion or embrace the errors of potpourri. This exasperated the cardinal and by choice, so much that 30 of them were ordered to be put immediately to the rack as a terror to the rest. Those who were put to the rack were treated with such severity that several died under the tortures. One, Charlene, in particular, was so cruelly used that his belly burst and his bowels came out, and he expired in the greatest agonies.
Speaker 1:These barbarities, however, did not answer the purpose for which they were intended for. Those who remained alive after the rack and those who had not felt the rack remained equally constant in their faith and boldly declared that no tortures of body or terrors of mind should ever induce them to renounce their God or worship images. Folks, if a church is any church, any denomination is using these kind of methods. They're not following God and Jesus Christ, and you notice the problem here that the Roman Catholic Church has is not that these people weren't following God and Jesus Christ and Scripture, because they were. Their problem was that they refused to bow down to the Roman Catholic denomination and the images required to bow to within. And again, all denominations at some point in their history seem to have gone way off the rails as far as punishing supposed heretics. The problem is when any of those denominations claim infallibility or that they are somehow the gatekeepers of salvation, of the path to Jesus Christ. That's the issue.
Speaker 1:Several were then, by the cardinal's order, stripped stark, naked and whipped to death with iron rods. Some were hacked to pieces with large knives, others were thrown down from the top of a large tower and many were covered over with pitch and burnt alive. One of the monks who attended the cardinal, being naturally of a savage and cruel disposition, requested of him that he might shed some of the blood of these poor people with his own hands. When his request being granted, the barbarous man took a large, sharp knife and cut the throats of four score men, women and children. With as little remorse as a butcher would have killed so many sheep. Every one of those bodies were then ordered to be quartered, the quarters placed upon stakes and then fixed in different parts of the country within a circuit of 30 miles.
Speaker 1:The four principal men of LaGuardia were hanged and the clergymen were thrown from the top of his church steeple. He was terribly mangled but not quite killed by the fall, at which time the viceroy passing by said it's the dog yet living, Take him up and give him to the hogs. When, brutal as this sentence may appear, it was executed accordingly. Sixty women were racked so violently that the cords pierced their arms and legs quite to the bone when being remanded to prison, their wounds mortified and they died in the most miserable manner. Many others were put to death by various cruel means. And if any Roman Catholic more compassionate than the rest and acceded by any of the reformed, he was immediately apprehended and shared the same fate as the favor of heretics, the viceroy being obliged to march back to Naples on some affairs of moment which required his presence and the cardinal being recalled to Rome, presence and the cardinal being recalled to Rome. The Marquis of Boutin was ordered to put the finishing stroke to what they had begun, which he at length effected by acting with such barbarous rigor that there was not a single person of the reformed religion left living in all of Calabria.
Speaker 1:Thus were a great number of inoffensive and harmless people deprived of their possessions, robbed of their property, driven from their homes and at length murdered by various means, only because they would not sacrifice their consciences to the superstitions of others, embrace idolatrous doctrines which they abhorred and accept of teachers whom they could not believe. Tyranny is of three kinds that which enslaves a person, that which seizes the property and that which prescribes and dictates to the mind. The first two sorts may be termed civil tyranny and have been practiced by arbitrary sovereigns in all ages who have delighted in tormenting the persons and stealing their properties of their unhappy subjects. But the third sort, prescribing and dictating to the mind, may be called ecclesiastical tyranny, and this is the worst kind of tyranny as it includes the other two sorts, For the Romish clergy not only do torture the bodies and seize the effects of those they persecute, but take the lives, torment the minds and, if possible, would tyrannize over the souls of the unhappy victims.
Speaker 1:Victims this is a pretty good first sentence here, folks kind of reminding us why so many left fled from Europe. Thus were a great number of inoffensive and harmless people deprived of their possessions, robbed of their property, driven from their homes and at length murdered by various means, only because they would not sacrifice their consciences to the superstitions of others, embrace idolatrous doctrines which they abhorhorred and accept the teachers whom they could not believe. That's why a large number of people fled Europe for America, so that they couldn't be driven from their homes, murdered by various means, robbed of their property, deprived of their depression I mean their possessions raped their possessions raped, pillaged and plundered by the state and by the church, Not because they didn't follow Jesus Christ, not because they didn't adhere to Scripture, but because they did, Because they refused to submit themselves to superstitions, to embrace idolatry and to be under the command and rules of features that they couldn't believe in. This is why we read, folks, history. And then what about this? This tyranny of three kinds Enslave the person, seizes the property, prescribes and dictates to the mind. Don't we see that today in America, from the left, and don't we see that from Islam around the left? And don't we see that from Islam around the world? Enslaved people that don't submit seize their property, their possessions and demand that they submit to the ideology of socialism, communism, leftism or Islam, of socialism, communism, leftism or Islam. That's been the example throughout history. Folks, there's no peaceful coexistence possible with that, with those ideologies. We're just kidding ourselves and if we go along with them, we're going to abandon the poor, the needy, the widow and the orphan to their cruelties. Our wives and our children and our grandchildren, our wives and our children and our grandchildren. History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution, Mercy Otis Warren, I think we're still in Chapter 5.
Speaker 1:Yes, Though the body was sensibly affected by the many injuries received from the parent state, their first wish was reconciliation on terms of reciprocity, justice and honor. In consequence of these sentiments, with a duty due to their constituents, everything that might tend to widen the breach between Great Britain and the colonies. Yet they were determined, if Parliament continued, deaf to the calls of justice, not to submit to the yoke of tyranny but to take preparatory steps necessary for a vigorous resistance. That's where we are, folks. We're right there. If we're not there, we're knocking on the doorstep. We have a duty not to submit to the yoke of tyranny. We have a duty to resist evil men, evil ideologies, the bucket of isms, leftism, socialism, communism, nazism, fascism, islam. That's the duty. The results are God's. We have a duty to protect the widow and the orphan, the poor and the needy. That's the duty. The results are God's. And again, try, pray, seek reconciliation inside the United States by any means possible, creation inside the United States by any means possible, Hope and pray, and seek to educate, in the hope that people that currently subscribe to those ideologies will change their hearts and their minds. But what does it say? Here again, they were determined, if Parliament continued deaf to the calls of justice, not to submit to the yoke of tyranny but to take the preparatory steps necessary for a vigorous resistance.
Speaker 1:So what should we be doing again, right now, At your local level? What can you do? So often we get in that mindset. You know that. Well, I have one vote out of millions. My vote doesn't really count, or I? You know, I'm a nobody. I'm just an everyday average guy or gal here in the United States.
Speaker 1:What can I possibly do? The very first thing is to follow the roles and responsibilities that God laid out for us as a society, as men and women, as husbands and wives, as fathers and mothers. Right, Practical steps. Follow those roles and responsibilities. Get married, have a bunch of kids, Teach those children about God and Jesus Christ and live by example, Show by example. I think this with my own wife and children so often. There's nothing better I could do to strengthen their faith than to show them my own. Not to teach or preach to them, but simply to show them my own faith and my actions Right. That's the biggest thing that you can do, and it doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter how big you think your influence is or isn't. That's the best thing that you can do. It doesn't matter whether you're married or not, whether you're a parent or not. You have a sphere of influence. Like Patrick Henry said, practice virtue, following Christ and that sphere of influence and encouraging others in whatever capacity you can.
Speaker 1:Again, on a practical level, anybody that you talk to in your local area, Encourage them. It doesn't matter whether you're in a neighborhood of a huge city. You know. Work on a neighborhood watch. Encourage others to support your local police, law enforcement, firefighters, EMS, those people that live in your community. Work in your community. Encourage them, support them. And talk to the people that make the decisions in your area, whether it's an urban area or a rural area, to work on increasing the number of and the training and the equipment for, local law enforcement, local firefighters, local EMS. And then, if you're in a majority conservative Christian area, work on militia, work on the state guard for that state and encourage training in arms.
Speaker 1:However, you can do that. Maybe you've got a local gun club, Maybe you've just got some friends that can get together and train together, but anything you can do, as Warren says here, take the preparatory steps necessary for a vigorous resistance. Pray that it doesn't come to that. Seek God and encourage others to seek him too. But you know, as my father has told me for years, God gave us a brain. You need a brain when you come into Christianity. You can't put your brain up on a shelf. It doesn't work that way.
Speaker 1:After a thorough discussion of the civil, political and commercial interests of both countries, the natural ties and the mutual benefits resulting from the strictest amity, and the unhappy consequences that must ensue if driven to the last appeal, they resolved on a dutiful and loyal petition to the king, recapitulating their grievances and imploring redress. They modestly remonstrated and obliquely censored the authors of those mischiefs which filled all America with complaint. They drew up an affectionate but spirited memorial to the people of England, reminding them that they held their own boasted liberties on a precious tenure If government, under the sanction of parliamentary authority, might enforce, by the terrors of the sword, their unconstitutional edicts. They informed them that they determined, from a sense of justice to posterity and for the honor of human nature, to resist all infringements on the natural rights of men, that if neither the dictates of equity nor the suggestions of humanity were powerful enough to restrain a wanton administration from shedding blood in a cause so derogatory to the principles of justice. Not all the exertions of superior strength should lead them to submit servilely to the impositions of a foreign power. They forewarned a well-adapted address to the French inhabitants of Canada, to which they subjoined a detail of their rights with observations on the alarming aspect of the late Quebec Bill, and invited them to join in the common cause of America. I think that is where we will stop for the day. It reminds me folks, though, when they're talking about justice here.
Speaker 1:You know what does Micah 6.8, what does God tell us to do? To love mercy, to act justly and to walk humbly with God. To act justly and to walk humbly with God. Be humble, love mercy but act justly. Practice virtue in your sphere, whatever sphere of influence you have, and it doesn't matter whether you're in junior high or high school or college-age student or in your 30s or 50s or 70s or 90s. You have a sphere of influence, and you can encourage virtue in yourself, first and foremost, and in those around you. God bless you 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, folks, and these same comments I've obviously I'm tailoring them toward America, but they apply in your country, wherever you are, folks. You know we've had listeners in multiple different countries around the world. These same principles apply there equally. We'll talk to you all again real soon. Folks, Looking forward to it.