The American Soul
The American Soul
The Toolbox of Faith: How Christianity Built America's Soul
America faces a critical shortage that threatens our future—not just of workers, but of citizens who value productive labor and possess the skills to perform it. Drawing from Jeffrey A. Tucker's analysis, we examine how we've created generations that prefer entertainment consumption over meaningful contribution, and why traditional immigration isn't the solution.
At the heart of this crisis lies our misguided educational approach. We keep children in classrooms for far too long, teaching them little of practical value while denying them opportunities to develop real-world skills. When FDR banned child labor in 1936, he unintentionally eliminated critical entry points for teenagers to develop work ethic and practical experience. Today's youth enter adulthood with theoretical knowledge but minimal practical capability.
This problem reflects our cultural priorities. We celebrate entertainers, athletes, and social media influencers while overlooking the true heroes—the skilled tradespeople, dedicated parents, and ordinary citizens who faithfully fulfill their responsibilities. Our children inevitably absorb these values, assuming that fame trumps meaningful contribution. Meanwhile, an expansive welfare system has removed the necessity of work for many, creating generations with diminished incentive to develop marketable skills.
Most fundamentally, this represents a spiritual crisis. America's greatness has always stemmed from its relationship with God and Jesus Christ—not from material wealth or technological advancement. As John Quincy Adams noted, the "highest glory of the American Revolution" was connecting "in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity." When we sever this connection, we lose the spiritual foundation that gives meaning to work and responsibility.
The solution begins with examining our own priorities. What are you giving your time to? Your actions reveal your true values more accurately than your words. As parents, are we modeling productivity and responsibility? As citizens, are we honoring those who contribute meaningfully rather than those who merely entertain? Our national renewal depends on rediscovering the dignity of work, the importance of practical skills, and the spiritual foundation that makes America truly great.
The American Soul Podcast
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Hey folks, this is Jesse Cope, back with another episode of the American soul podcast. Hope y'all are doing well, wherever y'all are and whatever part of the day you're in. I'm sure to appreciate y'all joining me and giving me a little bit of your time and a little piece of your day. Very grateful for that. Try and use it wisely. Hopefully it will 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 closer to God and Jesus Christ, both as individuals and as a nation here in America and wherever you are around the world. For those of you all that continue to share the podcast and tell others about it, thank you Very grateful for that. And for those of you all who continue to pray for me and for the podcast, thank you very much.
Speaker 1:Need, definitely need, those 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 your mercy, your grace and your forgiveness. Thank you, father, that we can trust you even when it feels like we can't, for whatever reason. Thank you that you see us through these times trouble, heartache, pain. Thank you for the people that listen to the podcast. Father, please be with them, be with their families, guide them, bless them, surround them with your angels. Protect us from evil of any kind, father. Help us to help those that have less than we do. Help us to help our country. Turn back to you, father, and your Son, jesus Christ. Guide us in all that we do. Forgive us our sins. Be with our nation. Be with our leaders, both on the pulpit and in the state. To be with our leaders both on the pulpit and in the safe. Thank you that you're there with us, father, here beside us right now, even when we feel lost or alone or confused, can't figure out what's coming next or why things are the way they are. Help us just to be still before you, father, to trust in you and God. My words are placed in your son's name. We pray Amen. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen, for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen. Have you made time for God today? Have you made time to read his word? Have you made that a priority?
Speaker 1:A lot of us claim that we're looking for, or we want, a strong faith, or we want a strong faith, but we're not willing to put in the time and effort required to get there. Same thing with our marriage. We claim that we want this great marriage and many of us are even sad and shocked when we don't have this great marriage, but we're not willing to put the time in required to get there. Even when we seek that, we're not putting the time in required to get there. Very few of us are willing to change our habits, our patterns. It really just boils down to priorities, folks. What are your priorities today? What are you giving time to? Are you giving time to social media, the TV, the workouts, your phone, god, your spouse, your children, sports In person On TV Watching, participating? What are you giving your time to? Children? Sports in person on TV watching, participating? What are you giving your time to? That's what your priorities are. Whatever it is you're giving your time to. That's it, folks. Just make sure that it's lined up that you're giving time to things that you actually want to be your priority, that you actually want to be your priority.
Speaker 1:There's an article I wanted to go through by Jeffrey A Tucker, epoch Times from July 1st to the 8th the Dire Shortage of Willing American Workers. A few quotes out of this One. Namely, there simply aren't enough working-age people in the United States who know how to do stuff, care enough to do it and have the work ethic or mental discipline to make it through one full day's work or otherwise, feel the inspiration to make themselves useful. So I think a lot of people would agree with that statement. A lot of people would say we don't have enough skilled workers in the United States. We don't have enough people who have a trade, have a skill, who are willing to work a full day. Right, you go back to Jesus Christ's parable in the vineyard to work a full day in the vineyard for a full day's wage. And he's pretty hard in this article on kids graduating from college that just want to go sit in an office and make six figures, and there's a ton. This is a great article If you get a chance to read it again out of the Epoch Times, jeffrey A Tucker the Dire Shortage of Willing American Workers.
Speaker 1:And there's a lot of truth to that kind of entitlement mentality that we have. There's so many of us. We want money, we want prestige, we want honor, we want power, we want the results of hard work, but we don't want to put the hard work in Right. But there's a couple of misconceptions out there for a huge chunk of society. The first right now is the solution is not illegal immigration. The solution isn't even regular legal immigration, although that's perfectly fine. If we're immigrating people who want to assimilate into our Christian republic and want to strengthen our republic, that's great, nothing wrong with that at all.
Speaker 1:But the problem is the way we educate and train our children, and that's the real solution. Not all children need to go to college. We spend a ton of time, waste a ton of time in education, teaching children things that they really don't need to be productive citizens, and we keep them in school for far too long. Somewhere later in here he talked about the in 1936, fdr creating this law to ban child labor. But really what he was doing is he was just eliminating entry-level jobs for US teens. So this is a quote. No more could you get a normal job at 12 or 13, as I did under the table. Rather, you had to wait until the age of 16, because too many regulations govern the 14 to 15-year-olds.
Speaker 1:We treat kids too much with kid gloves for a large chunk of our society today. We don't give them the responsibility that they need, that they can shoulder, and we don't give them the right kind of responsibility. We give them a phone and we think that we're teaching them how to use that responsibly and that's somehow building responsibility, instead of teaching them how, as a girl, to manage the grocery bill, how to cook, how to run a household, teaching a boy how to go out and fix fence or work on a truck or fix the garbage disposal under the sink or work on plumbing or electricity Things that will be useful to them in their life. And part of the problem right is and I'm sure I just offended some people that we reject today God-given roles and responsibilities. We want to pretend that there are no roles and responsibilities, that we get to do whatever we want, and that's just ludicrous. Never in your life do you really just get to do whatever you want. Folks. There's always authority. There's always a goal.
Speaker 1:Now, whether we choose to acknowledge that or not, even if you strip it all the way down to the bare bones, the responsibility we have is to produce or to help save lost souls and get them to God and Jesus Christ. Are we preparing children for that? Do we read the Bible with them? Do we pray with them? Do we talk to them about our own faith? Do we exemplify more importantly, do we exemplify our faith in God and Jesus Christ when times get tough, do we turn to God or do we try and turn to ourselves? It's a long list of things.
Speaker 1:I thought of a story here my grandfather who lived it doesn't matter where he lived, really, but when he was an eighth grader he had been held back a year, so he was technically age-wise, a ninth grader. His particular school district in a rural area. They didn't have enough bus drivers and so they hired him as an eighth grader to drive the bus, pick up all the kids for school, take them to school, drive them home. An eighth grader. Now there are eighth graders today that could easily ninth graders for sure do that job, ninth graders that would be far better served to be out driving a bus and earning an income for them and for their family than sitting in a classroom for eight hours staring at PowerPoint, slide presentations or whatever else we put in front of them that day, pretending that we're making them better citizens.
Speaker 1:Which, of course, brings up a whole other issue why do we have a school system? Why have we developed a school system that wastes so much time babysitting instead of actually educating? And, of course, the answer is a lot of parents, a huge chunk of parents, don't want their kids. They want to go off and chase their dreams. And, yeah, it's primarily women you can throw that in there because they're primarily the caregivers and the raisers. But there's a lot of men that want their wives out working so they have more money coming in. Right, so you, you can. You can spread blame around quite a bit, but the point is that we want to drop our kids off somewhere else and have somebody else raise them, and then we want to drop our kids off somewhere else and have somebody else raise them, and then we want to complain about the job that they're doing raising them, even though we don't give them parental authority over our children. We want a babysitter. We, as parents got fed up and demanded that the school year be shorter and the school day be shorter and more productive than the legislature would respond. But we don't demand that of our politicians.
Speaker 1:Again, a quote by Tucker the truth needs to be told. The truth needs to be told. There are too many layabouts in the living off family or government without a lick of skill, inspiration or drive. Huge point here, folks, why do we have so many? Why do we have a lack of workers, of skilled workers? Why do we have so many people that seem to have absolutely no positive skill or little to provide for society and no determination, no will to get a skill that will help society? Well, welfare is a huge proponent of that. If you can just sit on your rear end and collect a check from the government, why would you go work? What's the point? Why not just sit there and collect income from the government? You take away welfare. You create a strong incentive for people to get a job.
Speaker 1:We have an older gentleman in the area that cuts firewood, sells it, done it all his life, among other things, odds and ends, and he was talking to me this year, earlier in the year, about his two of his grandchildren, his grandson one of them. He said I can't get him to come out and work. He said I offered to pay him to come help me haul wood and he just wants to sit in front of the video game because his parents buy him whatever he needs. Right, and that's just a microcosm of welfare in our nation as a whole. And then he said the other one had a granddaughter, really really bright girl, he said Took her up to a local university, got her enrolled. They were happy to have her. She stayed for two or three weeks and then came home. He said I didn't even know she was back home until I talked to her parents again. She just wasn't interested, didn't have any desire to go up there. It was easier just to sit at home with mom and dad and get money. And again, just another example. We just were developing a class of generation and we already have for a couple that just have absolutely zero desire to be productive citizens and to work hard all day long. We just want things given to us. There's a couple other things here.
Speaker 1:One of his comments is that this is not the American way. You cannot make America great again with a nation of gamers and social media influencers. Well, why did we get to that point? A gamer or a social media influencer, or NBA or NFL or NBA athlete or an actress or an actor? Because we give so much to those people of our time and attention and money. We make them out to be heroes instead of, like we talk about people on this podcast all the time our Medal of Honor winners. We don't give credit to people who have suffered and sacrificed for our country and we don't give credit to people two huge classes of people, men and women who are just salt of the earth, good men and women that work their whole lives in a career providing services for that community, whether they're electricians or plumbers or teachers or carpenters or raising children at home, and we don't value and honor that sacrifice Folks before any, any other career. Those husbands and wives who are good, godly husbands and wives ought to get our greatest honor. Those fathers and mothers who are godly fathers and mothers and fulfill their God-given roles and responsibilities, those are the heroes. Those are the people that make our country successful. Those are the people that make our nation function the way it should. Those are the people that we ought to be building up to our kids.
Speaker 1:You see them in the community, you talk to your kids about them. You know that man over there and his wife. He's been a brick mason his entire life, gone out and worked hard to provide for his family. And you know his wife. She stayed at home, she cooked meals, raised her children, produced productive citizens. That's a great example, that's a great role model, son or daughter. But we don't. And our kids see that. They see us addicted to sports and entertainers and they go. Well, that must be really important.
Speaker 1:I saw a great little comment by somebody that I follow on X and they were talking about the fact that our kids girls in particular they grow up. Kids, girls in particular they grow up. And we want to know, men, why women are so hyper-focused on paycheck, on how much a man makes, and there's something to be said. You know, a wife wants to know that she's going to be protected and provided for. There's nothing wrong with that at all. But her comment was this that as a father, a lot of times to our daughters we make the comment well, if he's not a lawyer or a doctor, if he's not making six figures, he's not dating my girl.
Speaker 1:And we've taken something that's good, which is the need for a husband to provide and protect for his wife, and we've twisted it into only being about money. There are a lot of men that don't make a ton of money that are excellent providers and excellent protectors, and there are quite a few men that make quite a bit of money that are horrible protectors and horrible providers. Again, we're missing the point. But we make the wallet the point, we make the money the point, just like we make entertainers and social media influencers and athletes the point by how much time and attention and effort we give to them and our kids see that and they go. Well, that must be important. It's not important to be a plumber or carpenter or an engineer that works hard all day long, or really even a doctor or a lawyer or a janitor or whatever else it is. It's important to be these really famous people. Somebody's always watching folks, always, always, always.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of other great stuff here I'm going to move on. If you get a chance, read the article Jeffrey A Tucker the Dire Shortage of other great stuff. Here I'm going to move on. If you get a chance, read the article Jeffrey A Tucker the dire shortage of willing American workers Some pretty good meat to that article. Let's read our Bible. I should have done that first. Probably.
Speaker 1:I think we're in one Corinthians 10. If I can get there, 1 Corinthians 10. Avoid Israel's mistakes, for I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them, and the rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them, god was not pleased, for they were laid low in the wilderness. Now, these things happened as examples for us, so that we would not crave evil things as they also craved. Do not be idolaters, as some of them were. As it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and stood up to play. Nor let us act immorally, as some of them did and 23,000 fell in one day. Nor let us try the Lord, as some of them did and were destroyed by the serpents. Nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the destroyer.
Speaker 1:Now, these things happened to them as an example and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. Therefore, let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall. No temptation has overtaken you, but such as is common to man, and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able but, with the temptation, will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it. Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. I speak as to wise men. You judge what I say.
Speaker 1:Is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? Is not the bread which we break a sharing in the body of Christ, since there is one bread? We, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. Look at the nation of Israel. Are not those who eat the sacrifices sharers in the altar? What do I mean then? That a thing sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything?
Speaker 1:No, but I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God, and I do not want you, lord, and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons, or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy. We are not stronger than he are we. All things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful, but not all things edify. Let no one seek his own good but that of his neighbor.
Speaker 1:Eat anything that is solid in the meat market without asking questions, for conscience' sake, for the earth is the Lord's and all it contains. If one of the unbelievers invites you and you want to go eat anything that is set before you without asking questions, for conscience' sake, but if anyone says to you this meat is sacrificed to the idols, do not eat it for the sake of the one who informed you. And for conscience' sake, I mean not your own conscience, but the other man's. For why is my freedom judged by another's conscience? If I partake with thankfulness, why am I slandered concerning that for which I give thanks? Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God, give no offense to either Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, just as I also please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit, but the profit of the many, so that they may be saved.
Speaker 1:Obviously, as always, there's a ton here. Do we seek our own profit or do we seek the profit of many so that they may be saved? Are we looking to care for our neighbor? All things are lawful right Verse 23,. All things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful, but not all things edify. It's kind of the old cliche saying it's not so much a matter of whether we can or can't, but whether we should or shouldn't. Just because you have liberty to do something in Jesus Christ, if it's a stumbling block for those around you, did you do it? No, right? Our goal or concern has to be first and foremost getting our own soul to heaven, but immediately after that helping to get the souls of our neighbor to heaven, and that ought to be the guiding light of all of our actions. Right Verse 21. You cannot drink the cup of the lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the lord and the table of demons.
Speaker 1:This elon musk third party american party is bothering me quite a bit the more I think about it. And it doesn't have anything to do with diluting the republican or the democrat party I could care less about that and it doesn't have anything to do with diluting the Republican or the Democrat party. I could care less about that. In fact, it would probably be a good thing if the parties had a considerable less amount of power. The problem is this idea of being moderate or centrist that so many Americans cling to, or centrist, that so many Americans cling to, and they really seem to cling to it as a badge of honor, like well, I'm a moderate, I'm a centrist, I'm not one of those crazy extremists on either end, but that's really thinking about it the wrong way. The river analogy, I think, is pretty good that I've used, but I wish I had a better analogy in my head.
Speaker 1:Right now I don't really striving toward God and Jesus Christ, or we're striving toward or walking toward, however you want to put it, and maybe that's kind of having to think about this. Now, the devil, maybe it's like one of those beach entrances, or maybe it's just like the beach, and on the beach is safety, is God and Jesus Christ, and then, as soon as you hit the water, you're walking toward chaos and the devil. Now you can walk a few feet out and the water's just kind of lapping around your legs, but you're still headed toward chaos, headed toward the deep, headed toward darkness. This idea of being a centrist, of being a moderate it's the same. It's just a different version of the socially liberal but fiscally conservative. It's not true, because it's non-existent. It's a fantasy. There's no place that really exists like that. There's no political point on the spectrum for that.
Speaker 1:We're either striving after God and Jesus Christ or we're, to some degree or another, striving after the devil and chaos, and that's it. Those are the only two options, and being a little bit, you know, being moderate is just being me. The better way to say that would be I'm moderately seeking the devil and chaos, as opposed to radically seeking the devil and chaos. Maybe that last one makes the most sense. Verse 13 has encouraged me over the last couple years. Hopefully it encourages you all too.
Speaker 1:No temptation has overtaken you, but such as is common to man. And God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able but, with the temptation, will provide the way of escape also so that you will be able to endure it. You know, peter or Paul, somebody had a thorn in their side and asked God to take it away multiple times and God said no, some of us have a thorn in our side. It could be emotional, could be spiritual, could be physical. I guess it's all of those fall into the spiritual category and God may not take it away, but he knows each of us and he's not going to give us a temptation past what we can withstand.
Speaker 1:And when that temptation is so, so great folks, there's going to be a window, an opening to get out of it. He's going to provide that. It's like so many movies you see where somebody's trying to escape an evil person and they get locked in the bathroom and there's this one little window over there and they can slide up and get out of that window and escape. We just have to look for it. And I feel like a lot of times we get caught up so much looking at the door where the devil's beating on the door, trying to get to us, that we forget to look for the window, we forget to look for that way out that Christ has given us to help us survive that temptation and get away from that temptation. And also, the other thing, folks, is we're going to fail. Everybody fails.
Speaker 1:The point is to turn to God, repent of whatever that failure is, whether it's gossip or slander, or greed or lust or adultery, pornography, alcoholism, gluttony, whatever it is that you fall into. Repent of that, truly Turn to God, ask him for help overcoming that. Pick yourself back up. Trust God and Jesus Christ know that they're going to get you home and just keep walking. And that won't mean that you don't have earthly consequences. Right, if you're given to gluttony and you up being really obese and you get something like diabetes from that or high blood pressure or heart problems, those aren't just going to magically go away, folks. You're going to have to deal with those. If you cheat on your spouse, there's going to be consequences. They're not just magically going to go away. But we can still pick ourselves up, have forgiveness through God, through Jesus Christ, with God, and keep walking on toward eternity.
Speaker 1:I obviously have used all of our time up today and we didn't get to Medal of Honor or to Ezra Stiles' sermon, but I'll leave you with this. But I'll leave you with this. We had a wonderful little children's message last week or two weeks ago at church and I may have already told you this If I have, please forgive me, but it was a great children's message and they were talking about eternity. When does eternity start? Well, we're all really in eternity already and the question is just where we're going to spend eternity. And as soon as we choose Jesus Christ, that means that we get eternity in heaven.
Speaker 1:And so they had this piece of paper and they started drawing this line on this piece of paper back and forth, back and forth, right Side to side. And then you think they're just about to get to the end of this piece of paper and they pull out this little drop sheet and it's got like three or four more pieces of paper hanging right and the kids are all looking at them and they keep drawing and they're saying this line is eternity. And it was like a blue highlighter, right, but up at the very beginning there was a little section that was like a red highlighter, just a little bitty. But up at the very beginning there was a little section that was like a red highlighter, just a little bitty, maybe like a centimeter, and they said this is this life, right here, this little red centimeter, and then all of this other, this blue, going on down into forever. That's eternity. And so as soon as we choose Jesus Christ, we're on that path to heaven and eternity, right, and that's kind of comforting, even when we fail, we just pick ourselves up and we keep walking, trudging, crawling, whatever it is that we can do in that moment, with whatever strength we have, leaning on God and Jesus Christ, walking toward where the red ends, where this life ends and that blue starts, and there's no more tears and no more sorrow and no more sadness, and we can't even begin to conceive what God has prepared, what wonderful things God has prepared for us to love his son, jesus Christ, and follow his commands. All right, I'm sorry that I took so long. With all that, we will get back, hopefully on the next one, to our Medals of Honor and our sermon from Mr Stiles. We will move on for today. So one thing real quick, before we get back into Fox's Book of the Martyrs.
Speaker 1:I got caught up in another exchange on social media and they were talking about the fact that Jesus Christ, god, didn't have anything to do with the American Revolution or the founding of our nation, and it just for whatever reason. There's a ton of quotes that could have come to mind. Probably quite a few of them did in the back of my head and I'm sure you all can think of quite a few of them too, but the one that popped out was from July 4th 1821 by John Quincy Adams. The highest glory of the American Revolution was this it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity. Again, this is why we read on this podcast history, why we go through all of this, folks, is so that we know the truth. And if you're not a type A argumentative, combative person, that's fine, but at least you know what the truth is when you hear somebody say something that's false. It's the reason you read the Bible each day, because then at least you know when the world's spitting something false at you, you can defend against it. You know it's false. You know what the truth is. John Quincy Adams right, one of our great early presidents, and he's saying that's one of the greatest, if not the highest honor of the American Revolution is that it combined Christianity and civil government, right, the principles of Jesus Christ and civil government into one bond, and you can't dissolve it. If you do dissolve it, then you lose liberty. And that's what we see today when you try and quote unquote coexist and pretend that all of these different ideologies and faiths are all equal leftism, socialism, communism, nazism, fascism, islam right Buddhism, hinduism that we can kind of do whatever we want and maintain liberty. It's absolutely impossible. It's not true. And the Bible of course backs this up. It tells us wherever the spirit of God is, there's liberty. So if we kick God out which is what we've been doing for the last 80 years in America, 80 plus years then we're kicking liberty out. They're tied together. It's a bond and if you break that bond right then you lose liberty.
Speaker 1:Fox's Book of the Martyrs pick up where we left off. We're talking about the persecutions in the Valley of Piedmont, of Piedmont, and so the Duke of Savoy, philip, he had told the Roman Catholic Church basically go, butt a stump. I know these people, these Protestants that follow Christ. They're great, love them and you need to go away. The Waldenses had enjoyed peace many years when Philip VII, duke of Savoy, died, and his successor happened to be a very bigoted papist. About the same time, some of the principal Waldenses proposed that their clergy should preach in public that everyone might know the purity of their doctrines, for hitherto they had presented only in private and to such congregations as they well knew to consist of none but persons of the Reformed religion.
Speaker 1:On hearing these proceedings, the new duke was greatly exasperated and sent a considerable body of troops into the valley, swearing that if the people would not change their religion, he would have them flayed alive. The commander of the troops soon found the impracticality of conquering them with the number of men he had with him. He therefore sent word to the duke that the idea of subjugating the Waldenses with so small a force was ridiculous, that those people were better acquainted with the country than any that were with him, that they had secured all the passes, were well armed and resolutely determined to defend themselves. And with respect to flying them alive, he said that every skin belonging to those people would cost him the lives of a dozen of his subjects. Terrified at this information, the duke withdrew the troops, determining not to act by force but by stratagem. He therefore ordered rewards for the taking of any of the Waldenses who might be found straying from their places of security, and these, when taken, were either flayed alive or burnt. The Waldenses had hitherto only had the New Testament and a few books of the Old in the Waldnese Waldnesean tongue, but they determined now to have the sacred writings complete in their own language. They therefore employed a Swiss printer to furnish them with a complete edition of the Old and New Testaments in the Waldensian tongue, which he did for the consideration of fifteen hundred crowns of gold paid him by these pious people.
Speaker 1:Pontifical Chair immediately solicited the Parliament of Turin to persecute the Waldenses as the most pernicious of all heretics. The Parliament readily agreed. When several were suddenly apprehended and burnt by their order and stationer of Turin, who was brought up a Roman Catholic but having read some treatise written by the Reformed clergy, he was fully convinced of the errors of the Church of Rome. Yet his mind was for some time wavering and he hardly knew what persuasion to embrace. At length, however, he fully embraced the Reformed religion and was apprehended, as we have already mentioned, and burnt by the order of the parliament of Turin.
Speaker 1:You see this connection between church and state here and you see the difference when you had, for example, the previous duke that was open to freedom of religion, if you will, and the current duke who was not. And it didn't have anything to do with following Jesus Christ and scripture. That's what these people were trying to do. It had to do with the fact that the Roman Catholic Church didn't approve of them not bowing down to the Roman Catholic Church down to the Roman Catholic Church. And again, the fact that you would claim to be any denomination, that would claim to be following Christ, while they burnt people alive or tortured them, is just astounding. And again, the real problem is every denomination, or at least a pretty good chunk of the ones that I'm aware of, have had some period in their history where they did some pretty awful stuff. The problem is when you try and claim that that's not a mistake, that that evil isn't evil, just like in our independent lives. You know it's like, for example, abortion or feminism or LGBTQ lifestyles. Pretending that those evils aren't evil, that's the problem.
Speaker 1:A consultation was now held by the Parliament of Turin in which it was agreed to send deputies to the valleys of Piedmont with the following propositions that if the Waldenses would come to the bosom of the Church of Rome and embrace the Roman Catholic religion, they should enjoy their houses, properties and lands and live with their families without the least molestation. That to prove their obedience, they should send twelve of their principal persons, with all their ministers and schoolmasters, to Turin to be dealt with at discretion. That the Pope, the King of France and the Duke of Savoy approved of and authorized the proceedings of the Parliament of Turin. Upon this occasion that's important to note right there, folks, for people that say that the church wasn't involved the Pope and the King of France and the Duke of Savoy approved of these proceedings from the Parliament of Turin that if the Waldenses of the valleys of Piedmont refused to comply with these propositions, persecution should ensue and certain death be their portion. To each of these propositions, the Waldenses nobly replied in the following manner. To each of these propositions, the Waldenses nobly replied in the following manner, answering them respectively One, that no considerations whatever should make them renounce their religion. Two, that they would never consent to commit their best and most respectable friends to the custody and discretion of their worst and most inveterate enemies yeah, inveterate enemies. Three, that they valued the approbation of the king of kings, who reigns in heaven, more than any temporal authority. Four, that their souls were more precious than their bodies. These pointed and spirited replies greatly exasperated the parliament of Turin. They continued, with more avidity than ever, to kidnap such Waldenses, as did not act with proper precaution, who were sure to suffer the most cruel deaths. Among these, it unfortunately happened that they got hold of Geoffrey Varnackel, minister of Angregane, whom they committed to the flames as a heretic. You see how much time. Yeah, we'll go ahead and move on for today Again, folks, I think it's important to note here this idea of being prepared.
Speaker 1:We talk about it a lot when we're reading Mercy Otis Warren's book on the American Revolution, but it's really true of us as Christians in general we need to be prepared to defend those who can't defend themselves. You know, christ, explicitly in the New Testament at the end, sent his disciples out, told them that they needed a sword, and we have a responsibility to care for the poor, the widow, the needy, the orphan, the widow, the needy, the orphan. And so we have a responsibility to prepare to defend ourselves against leftism, socialism, communism, fascism, nazism, islam, because none of those are going to give any quarter if they get in power, regardless of where it is around the world, but in America, for those of us which we're talking about right now, that's going to be the case. There's a number of people suffering around the world right now that are already in that situation and they could tell us clearly, if we would listen to them, that there is no peaceful coexistence with those evils.
Speaker 1:History of the Rise, progress and Termination of the American Revolution, mercy Otis Warren, chapter 5. It is scarcely possible to describe the influence of the transactions and resolves of Congress on the generality of the people throughout the wide, extended continent of America. History records no injunctions of men that were ever more religiously observed, or any human laws more readily and universally obeyed than were the recommendations of this revered body. It is indeed a singular phenomenon in the story of human conduct that, when all legal institutions were abolished and long-established governments at once annihilated in so many distinct states that the recommendations of committees and conventions not enforced by penal sanctions should be equally influential and binding, with the severest code of law, backed by rural authority and strengthened by the murdering sword of despotism, doubtless the fear of popular resentment operated on some with a force equal to the rod of a magistrate. The singular punishments such as tarring and feathering etc. Inflicted in some instances by an inflamed rabble on a few who endeavored to counteract the public measures, deterred others from openly violating the public resolves and acting against the general consent of the people.
Speaker 1:Somehow, folks, we need to get to this point where, as a body of people who love America and therefore love the founding faith and principles based on the general principles of Jesus Christ. This is what we need to be doing across county lines, across state lines. We need to be acting in concert, and whether that means boycotting companies that insist on supporting the evil ideologies, the evil values of our bucket of isms or Islam, or whether that means encouraging our school boards to put God and Jesus Christ and the Bible back in schools, if we would do that in concert, folks, that would make a huge difference, a huge difference. They're not going to come to every single county If we're starting to put God and the Bible and Jesus Christ back in schools. That's a much longer topic, but we need to be. The point here is acting in concert together. You have to. We've got to have something like that today. And then the point is, of course, that we've got to come to the aid of each other, whether it's financially, for court fees, or physically or whatever else. We've got to be willing to support each other.
Speaker 1:Not the bitterest foe to American freedom, whatever might be his wishes, presumed to counteract the general voice by an avowed importation of a single article of British merchandise after the first day of February 1775. The cargos of all vessels that happened to arrive after this limited period were punctually delivered to the committees of correspondence in the first port of their arrival and sold at public auction. The prime cost and charges and the half of one percent was paid to the owners and the surplus of the profits was apportioned to the relief of the distressed inhabitants of Boston, agreeable to the seventh article in the Association of the Continental Congress. You see that there, what are they doing? They're worried about their brethren, their brothers and sisters up in Boston. Even though they're not having the same effect wherever they are, the colonists are worried about their brothers and sisters suffering in Boston, the voice of the multitude as it is, as the rushing down of a torrent.
Speaker 1:Nor is it strange that some outrages were committed against a few obstinate and imprudent partisans of the court, by persons of as little consideration as themselves. It is true that in the course of the arduous struggle, there were many irregularities that could not be justified and some violences, in consequence of the general discontent, that will not stand the test when examined at the bar of equity. Yet perhaps fewer than ever took place in any country under similar circumstances. Witness the convulsions of rome on the demolition of her first race of kings, the insurrections and commotions of her colonies before the downfall of the commonwealth and to come nearer home the confusions, the mobs, the cruelties in britain and their civil convulsions, from William the Conqueror to the days of the Stuarts, and from the arbitrary Stuarts to the riots of London and Liverpool, even in the reign of George III.
Speaker 1:There's always going to be—this is one of the arguments that I never understand about people that are against school choice saying that well, there's going to be so many that abuse the system or there's going to be some. Yeah, they're right, you're absolutely right. There's going to be some that abuse the system. There's a lot that are abusing the system of public education as it stands today already. So if there's anything that we can do to improve public education and school choice certainly seems like adding competition. That would require the public schools to get their act together. Right, yeah, there's going to be people that take advantage of it, but we already see that. What's the best system? How do we get to the best system? How do we improve our public schools? How do we get to the best system? How do we improve our public schools? Now, maybe you disagree that homeschool or school choice is going to have a positive effect, and that's a different discussion.
Speaker 1:But this idea that we can't do anything unless it's a perfect solution where nobody gets left behind, right? That's the fallacy of Bush's no child left behind. Not every kid is made for. In fact, a lot of kids are not made to go all the way to the 12th grade. They ought to be out at 8th or 9th grade. That's the ideology of communism. Right? Everybody has to be treated exactly the same. Well, everybody's not exactly the same and there's always going to be people that fall through the cracks, and we ought to do everything we can to help those people as individuals. But trying to find the perfect utopian system before Jesus Christ comes back, it's an impossibility, folks.
Speaker 1:Many other instances of the dread effects of popular commotion when wrought up to resistance by the oppressive hand of power, might be adduced from the history of nations. France might have been mentioned as a remarkable instance of the truth of these observations had they not been written several years before the extraordinary revolutions and cruel convulsions that have since agitated that unhappy country. Everyone will observe the astonishing difference in the conduct of the people of America and of France in the two revolutions which took place within a few years of each other. In the one, all was horror, robbery, assassination, murder, devastation and massacre. In the other, a general sense of rectitude checked the commission of those crimes and the dread of spilling human blood withheld for a time the hand of party. And the dread of spilling human blood withheld for a time the hand of party, even when the passions were irritated to the extreme. This must be attributed to the different religion, government laws and manners of the two countries, countries previous to these great events, not to any difference in the nature of man. In similar circumstances, revenge, cruelty, confusion and every evil work operate equally on the ungoverned passions of men in all nations and the ferocity of human nature when not governed by interest or fear. Folks, this is the point.
Speaker 1:The difference between the American Revolution and the French Revolution was faith, religion. And you look at the difference in the religion that was there in these two countries. In the one, you had a religion that was based primarily on denomination, not on Christ. In the other, you had multiple different, multiple different denominations, but the focus was Christ and not the denomination. In the one where you had, as Ms Warren says here, horror, robbery, assassination, murder, devastation and massacre, that was where you had a huge influence by a denomination that was more concerned about the denomination than they were Christ, and you had a people that had been under that religion, under that denomination, for centuries, for centuries In America. You had a people that had sought freedom from that denomination, from state and church and the marriage there, and you had a people, thanks in a huge part to the Great Awakening in America the first Great Awakening primarily thanks to that, first and foremost, by a long shot you had a people that were raised under the religion, that was concerned with God and Jesus Christ, and that's the core point. That's why we do the podcast. That's what we get back to time and time again.
Speaker 1:Folks, the thing that makes America great, that has any possibility of making America great, is our relationship with God and Jesus Christ. It's not because we're smarter or stronger or better human beings. It's not because, again, we have more speed or strength or beauty or money or whatever else. It's our relationship with God and Jesus Christ. That's what makes the difference. Considering the right of personal liberty, whichever one justly claims, the tenacious regard to property and the pride of opinion which sometimes operates to the dissolution of the tenderest ties of nature, it is wonderful when the mind was elevated by these powerful springs and the passions wedded by opposition or insult.
Speaker 1:That riot and confusion, desolation and bloodshed was not the fatal consequence of the long interrogation of law and government throughout the colonies? Yet not a life was lost till the trump of war summoned all parties to the field. All right, folks, I think we'll stop there for the day. God bless you all. God bless your families. God bless your marriages. God bless America. We'll talk to you all again real soon. God bless your nation, wherever you are around the world. Listen, folks, we'll talk to you all again real soon. Looking forward to it.