The American Soul
The American Soul
Is Your Faith in Christ or Your Church?
Jesse Cope explores the dangerous claim that true Christianity requires membership in a specific denomination. This misguided belief shifts focus from Christ's saving work to human institutions, implying that Jesus alone isn't enough for salvation.
• Faith in Jesus Christ alone is the core of Christianity, not membership in any denomination
• Scripture never mentions Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox or other denominations as requirements for salvation
• When someone claims their denomination is necessary, they're walking in the footsteps of the Pharisees
• Analogy: Marines earn their title through trials and tests, not merely by joining the Marine Corps
• Similarly, we aren't Christians because we belong to a denomination; we join denominations because we're Christians
• Galatians teaches that through faith in Christ, all believers are children of God regardless of background
• Founding fathers like John Jay emphasized America's Christian foundations
• Many original state constitutions required Christian faith for public office holders
Remember to make time for God today - read His Word, pray, and ensure He's your top priority above all else.
The American Soul Podcast
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1791934/subscribe
Hey folks, this is Jesse Cope, back with another episode of the American Soul Podcast. I hope y'all are doing well, wherever y'all are and whatever part of the day you're in. I'm here to appreciate you joining me and giving me a little bit of your time and energy, a little piece of your day. For those of y'all who continue to share the podcast and tell others about it, thank you very grateful for that. For those of y'all who continue to share the podcast and tell others about it, thank you Very grateful for that. For those of y'all who continue to pray for me and for the podcast, thank you Very, very grateful for your prayers, father. Thank you for today.
Speaker 1:Thank you for you, father, and your Son Jesus Christ and your Holy Spirit. Thank you for your love and your mercy, your grace and your forgiveness of sins through the merit of your son, jesus Christ, through his sacrifice and his blood. Our vanity, our gossip, our slander, our lust, our covetousness, our pride, our cowardice and our unbelief. Father, help us to overcome them. We do believe. Help us to do your will each day, to follow the commands of your Son, jesus Christ, to love you with our whole heart, mind, soul and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Help us to fear you, father, and not man, to trust you more each day. Help us to use the yoke of your son, jesus Christ. Give us perseverance to survive whatever trials we have in this life. Help us to run the race all the way to the end. Be with those who are listening today, wherever they are, father, across the nation and around the world. Comfort them, give them a strong faith, give them wisdom and courage. Guide us in all that we do. Surround us with your angels. Protect us from evil of any kind. Be with our leaders. Give them wisdom and courage and a strong faith. And God, my word to your Father, please, in your son's name, we pray Amen.
Speaker 1:I've had a number of people on text online recently that claim to be Christian but also claim that you have to belong to their particular little club, their denomination, in order to be Christian, and there's a lot of problems with that. Most of them can be summed up by the fact that there's nowhere in Scripture that you will ever find the Roman Catholic Church mentioned, any Protestant denomination mentioned, any Orthodox denomination mentioned. You don't have to belong to a particular church to be a Christian, and the reason that that's really dangerous when somebody tries to tell that is because what you're doing is you're implying that salvation is really based on belonging to that denomination and not Jesus Christ. Whether you say that explicitly or not, that's what you're implying. You're saying you can't really be a Christian. Jesus Christ alone isn't enough. You have to also belong to our special denomination. And really, when you listen to most of these to also belong to our special denomination, and really when you listen to most of these people, they talk about their denomination the vast majority of the time. They rarely talk about Jesus Christ, certainly not first in the conversation they're always going to lead with. Well, this is what I am, I belong to this church. When you claim that there's some other requirement in addition to faith in Christ, you cheapen that sacrifice of Christ and you lessen it and you say well, it really it wasn't enough Christ, you weren't enough. We've also got to be part of this man-made denomination and then that's enough. Then that can get us into heaven.
Speaker 1:I was thinking about this the other night before I went to bed. It's not a perfect analogy, but in the Marine Corps you didn't get to become a Marine by joining the Marine Corps. The way you earned the title of Marine was to pass the trials and tests required to become a Marine. You had to accomplish all of the requirements in order to be a Marine. That's what made you a Marine. And then, when you had passed those tests and trials, when you were actually a Marine, then you could join the Marine Corps. And of course, those happen simultaneously. As I said, it's not a great analogy.
Speaker 1:But to take it a little bit farther, we have different units within the Marine Corps and when one person excuse me, of a particular denomination claims that you can only be a Christian by being part of their denomination, it's a lot like Marines from a particular unit saying well, we're really the true Marines. You can only really be a Marine if you belong to third Marines, first Marines, whatever it is, and that's just simply not true. That has absolutely nothing. You get to be a part of that unit because you're a Marine. You're not a Marine because you're part of that unit. And we're not a Christian because we belong to a particular denomination. We get to be part of a particular denomination because we're a Christian.
Speaker 1:Everything hinges on Christ and our faith, our choice to believe in the fact that he's the risen son of God, that he's the only son of God, the only person that lived a perfect, sinless life, that he died for our sins, that God raised him from the dead and then acknowledge he's my Lord and Savior, he's the only path to God and Jesus Christ. And that's the core of Christianity, folks, as laid out in Scripture. And again, I'm not a theologian, I'm not a pastor or a priest, but God made this Bible so that even simple men like me can understand it. That's why it's so important to read it, read it each day. Do I understand absolutely everything in there? No, absolutely not. And anybody that tells you that they do, man, they got a whole list of problems. That should be our only concern when we're looking at our brothers and sisters.
Speaker 1:And I know it took a lot of time on the podcast today, but that it's really dangerous, folks, for anyone who claims to be a Christian to make the claim that you have to belong to their denomination. It's very much walking in the footsteps of the Pharisees, who not only didn't enter the kingdom of heaven themselves, but they prevented others who were seeking from entering. Because if your faith, if your hope, if all of your hope is placed in your denomination and again, it doesn't matter whether it's Roman Catholic or Protestant, reformed Methodist, whatever else, or Orthodox of any stripe. If your faith, if your hope is in that denomination and not in Jesus Christ, folks, you're going to be really upset when you get to the end of your life because it's not going to open the door to heaven. And that's also true for any other person. If your faith, if your hope is in Mary or Joseph or any of the disciples, or the thief on the cross, or any hope or priest or bishop or cardinal or pastor, if that's what your hope is in, when you get to the end of your life, folks, if that's what your hope is in, when you get to the end of your life, folks, you're going to be eternally disappointed because it will not open the path to God and eternal life. Only Jesus Christ can, and thank God for that, because none of us can do it on our own. No other person can help us, no institution can help us. All we have to do is accept that free gift from God as per normal. Have you made time for God today? Have you read his word? Have you prayed? Have you talked to him? Is he really your top priority? And if you're married, does your spouse know it? Do you give them everything you've got every day, throughout the day, before anything else other than God and Jesus Christ? And if those two things aren't true and you claim to be a Christian and you're married, your priorities are out of order and you need to fix yourself, square yourself away.
Speaker 1:Galatians, chapter 3, verse 23 verses. Chapter 4, verse 31. Before the way of faith in Christ was available to us, we were placed under guard by the law. We were kept in protective custody, so to speak, until the way of faith was revealed. Let me put it another way the law was our guardian until Christ came. It protected us until we could make right with God through faith. And now that the way of faith has come, we no longer need the law as our guardian, for you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus, and all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ like putting on new clothes. There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham, you are his heirs, and God's promise to Abraham belongs to you.
Speaker 1:Think of it this way If a father dies and leaves an inheritance for his young children, those children are not much better off than slaves until they grow up, even though they actually own everything their father had. They have to obey their guardians until they reach whatever age their father set. And that's the way it was with us before Christ came. We were like children. We were slaves to the basic spiritual principles of this world. But when the right time came, god sent his son, born of a woman subject to the law. God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children. And because we are his children, god has sent the spirit of his son into our hearts, prompting us to call out Abba, father. Now you are no longer a slave, but God's own child, and since you are his child, god has made you his heir.
Speaker 1:Before you Gentiles knew God, you were slaves to so-called gods that do not even exist. So now that you know God, or should I say now that God knows you, why do you want to go back again and become slaves once more to the weak and useless spiritual principles of this world. You are trying to earn favor with God by observing certain days or months or seasons or years. I fear for you. Perhaps all my hard work with you was for nothing. Dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to live as I do in freedom from these things, for I have become, like you, gentiles, free from those laws.
Speaker 1:You did not mistreat me when I first preached to you. Surely you remember that I was sick when I first brought you the good news, but even though my condition tempted you to reject me, you did not despise me or turn me away. No, you took me in and cared for me as though I were an angel from God, or even Christ Jesus himself. Where, then, is that joyful and grateful spirit you felt then? I am sure you would have taken out your own eyes and given them to me if it had been possible. Have I now become your enemy? Because I am telling you the truth? Those false teachers are so eager to win your favor, but their intentions are not good. They are trying to shut you off from me so that you will pay attention only to them. If someone is eager to do good things for you, that's all right, but let them do it all the time, not just when I'm with you. Oh, my dear children, I feel as if I'm going through labor pains for you again, and they will continue until Christ is fully developed in your lives. I wish I were with you right now so I could change my tone, but at this distance, I don't know how else to help you. Tell me, you who want to live under the law, do you know what the law actually says?
Speaker 1:The scriptures say that Abraham had two sons, one from his slave wife and one from his freeborn wife. The son of the slave wife was born in a human attempt to bring about the fulfillment of God's promise, but the son of the freeborn wife was born as God's own fulfillment of his promise. These two women serve as an illustration of God's two covenants. The first woman, hagar, represents Mount Sinai, where people received the law that enslaved them, and now Jerusalem is just like Mount Sinai in Arabia, because she and her children live in slavery to the law. But the other woman, sarah, represents the heavenly Jerusalem. She is the free woman and she is our mother. As Isaiah said Rejoice, o childless woman, you who have never given birth Break into a joyful shout, you who have never been in labor, for the desolate woman now has more children than the woman who lives with her husband. And you, dear brothers and sisters, are children of the promise, just like Isaac, but you are now being persecuted by those who want you to keep the law, just as Ishmael, the child born by human effort, persecuted Isaac, the child born by the power of the Spirit. But what did the scripture say about that? Get rid of the slave and her son, for the son of the slave woman will not share the inheritance with the free woman's son. So, dear brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman, we are children of the free woman. Psalm 62, verses 1 through 12.
Speaker 1:I wait quietly before the Lord, for my victory comes from Him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress where I will never be shaken. So many enemies against one man, all of them trying to kill me. To them, I'm just a broken down wall or a tottering fence. They plan to topple me from my high position. They delight in telling lies about me. They praise me to my face but curse me in their hearts. Let all that I am wait quietly before the Lord, for my hope is in Him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress where I will not be shaken. My victory and honor come from God alone. He is my refuge, a rock where no enemy can reach me. O, my people trust in him at all times. Pour out your heart to him, for God is our refuge.
Speaker 1:Common people are as worthless as a puff of wind, and the powerful are not what they appear to be. If you weigh them on the scales together, they are lighter than a breath of air. Don't make your living by extortion or put your hope in stealing, and if your wealth increases, don't make it the center of your life. God has spoken plainly and I have heard it many times Power, o God, belongs to you. Unfailing love, o Lord, is yours. Surely you repay all people according to what they have done. Proverbs 23, verses 19 through 21. My child, listen and be wise. Keep your heart on the right course. Do not carouse with drunkards or feast with gluttons, for they are on their way to poverty, and too much sleep clothes them in rags.
Speaker 1:Interesting Medal of Honor citation this morning. I guess they're all interesting. This is World War I. To the unknown soldier of Belgium, by virtue of the authority vested by law and the President of the United States. The Congressional Medal of Honor, emblem of the highest military ideals and virtues, is bestowed in the name of Congress of the United States upon the unknown, unidentified Belgium soldier and a desire to add all that is possible to the imperishable glory won by the soldiers of Belgium who fought as comrades of the American soldiers during the World War, and to commemorate with them the deeds of the nations associated with the United States of America by paying this tribute to their unknown dead During the World War, and to commemorate with them the deeds of the nations associated With the United States of America by paying this tribute To their unknown dead. Ag 220.523. War Department General Orders Number 52. 1 December 1922. Section 1. Awarded posthumously Buried Congress Col column Brussels. Unknown soldier of Belden.
Speaker 1:A couple quotes this morning that we've read often. The first is from Patrick Henry, who was governor of Virginia. Cannot be emphasized too clearly and too often that this nation was founded not by religionists but by Christians, not on religion but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. There's some recent modern controversy about whether that quote was really from Patrick Henry or not. It doesn't really matter folks. It doesn't really matter folks, at the end of the day. Whether it was or not, it was certainly a sentiment either implied or similarly stated by numerous of our founding fathers. So the quote is great in and of itself, and it gives you an idea of what the founding generation really felt like and believed, regardless of whether it was actually from Patrick Henry or not. It was actually from Patrick Henry or not.
Speaker 1:The other thing, though, is always be really careful today especially, and really probably for the last 50 years or so If you hear a quote that has been accepted as truthful for a long time century plus. Even more If, all of a sudden, somebody comes out and says oh well, that's not true. We don't have any proof of that, for two reasons. One, historical documents are lost all the time over the years, and it's very easy that a document that was available to somebody probable, actually, that a document that was available to somebody 150 years ago has been lost or destroyed and is no longer available to us today. The second thing is the motives today are very questionable for most of our academic elite, and that's sad to say, but it's really true, and it doesn't matter whether it's in colleges and universities and higher education or whether it's in culture, through publication of history books. You have to be really careful about what people say today, especially when they claim to have discovered something totally new. It's very suspect, and so I would always stick with the quote that's been accepted for a long time, even if that primary source is no longer available. The second one today, and then I'll leave you all alone. I know we've gone over.
Speaker 1:Providence has given to our people a choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers. John Jay he was the first chief justice of the Supreme Court, one of our great founding fathers, our original state constitutions the majority of them can't remember how many, maybe nine of 13. Don't hold me to that number had specific clauses, parts of them that said that if you weren't a Christian, you couldn't even hold office in the United States. If you didn't believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, if you didn't believe in God, if you didn't believe in an afterlife where there were rewards and punishments for our actions on earth, you could not hold public office. We absolutely need to get back to that point. God bless you all. God bless your families. That point, god bless you all. God bless your families, your marriages. God bless America. God bless your nation, wherever you are around the world. Listen, folks, we'll talk to y'all again real soon. Looking forward to it.