The American Soul
The American Soul
The Unchangeable Law: Why God's Standards Transcend Time
Our priorities are often misaligned with our faith, as we give more attention to social media, sports, and entertainment than to God and our spouses. We need to reconsider what truly matters and make intentional changes to our daily habits.
• Galatians 5:13-26 teaches us to use our freedom to serve one another in love, not to satisfy selfish desires
• The fruits of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control) should guide our daily lives
• Discipline in faith and marriage means doing what's right even when we don't feel like it
• Our closest neighbor is our spouse, who deserves our attention and love second only to God
• Morality comes from God and doesn't change with society or time
• John Jay (first Chief Justice) emphasized that moral law is unchanging and applies to everyone
• The Medal of Honor recipient Dennis Bell voluntarily rescued wounded comrades in Cuba during the Spanish-American War
Make time for God today. Read His word and pray. If you're married, prioritize your spouse above everything else except God.
The American Soul Podcast
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Hey folks, this is Jesse Cope, back with another episode of the American Soul Podcast. Hope y'all are doing well, wherever y'all are and whatever part of the day you're in. Really appreciate y'all joining me, giving me a little bit of your time and energy, a little piece of your day. I will try and use it wisely. Hope that'll give us all some extra tools for our toolbox, as we used to say in the Marine Corps. For those of y'all who continue to pray for me and for the podcast, thank you so much, very, very grateful for that. For those of y'all who continue to share the podcast with others in television about it, thank you, 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, your forgiveness of sins. Thank you for the time to record this podcast. Thank you for the people that listen to it and share it. Be with them, be with their families. Please Around us with your angels. Protect us from evil of any kind.
Speaker 1:God, our thoughts and our words and our actions Help us to help those that have less than we do. Help us to help our country turn back to you. Forgive us our sins, father, as a nation and as individuals. Forgive us our support and encouragement of evil. Forgive us our support and encouragement of evil. Forgive us our pride and our arrogance, judgment of others, hypocrisy, cowardice and unbelief. We do believe. Help us to truly repent of our sins and to turn away from them. Father, help us to help those that have less than we do. Be with our leaders, both in the state and in the pulpit. Give them wisdom and courage and a strong faith. Help them to rule in fear of you. Help us to support them and their families. Be with our military and our law enforcement. Keep them safe. Bring them home safe to their families. Be with us. Father. God, my words here, please, in your son's name, we pray Amen.
Speaker 1:Have you made time for God today? Have you made time to read his word? Have you made time to pray, to talk to him, to listen and, if you're married, have you made time for your spouse folks? I can't emphasize this enough. Our priorities are way, way out of line. God should get our time and attention way before anything else, and I am guilty of not doing that. So I'm talking to myself here just as much as y'all. And then our spouse, spouse folks. There's just no excuse for there's definitely no excuse for us to give time to social media and sports and tv, workouts and phones before we give time to our spouse. It just shouldn't happen. And if it does, then we either need to acknowledge that we really don't care that much about God and we don't really care that much about our spouse, or we need to truly make a change in our lives. Need to truly make a change in our lives and get our priorities in the right order.
Speaker 1:Galatians, chapter 5, verses 13 through 26. For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters, but don't use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love. For the whole law can be summed up in this one command Love your neighbor as yourself, but if you are always biting and devouring one another, watch out, beware of destroying one another. So I say let the holy spirit guide your lives, then you won't be doing what your sinful nature craves.
Speaker 1:The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the spirit wants, and the spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other. So you are not free to carry out your good intentions. But when you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses. When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear Sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. There is no law against these things. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to His cross and crucified them there. Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit's leading in every part of our lives. Let us not become conceited or provoke one another or be jealous of one lives. Let us not become conceited or provoke one another or be jealous of one another.
Speaker 1:Psalm 64, verses 1 through 10. O God, listen to my complaint. Protect my life from my enemy's threats, hide me from the plots of this evil mob from this gang of wrongdoers. They sharpen their tongues like swords and aim their bitter words like arrows. They shoot from ambush at the innocent, attacking suddenly and fearlessly. They encourage each other to do evil and plan how to set their traps in secret. Who will ever notice, they ask. As they plot their crimes, they say we have devised the perfect plan. Yes, the human heart and mind are cunning, but God himself will shoot them with his arrows suddenly, striking them down. Their own tongues will ruin them and all who see them will shake their heads in scorn. Then everyone will be afraid. They will proclaim the mighty acts of God and realize all the amazing things he does. The godly will rejoice in the Lord and find shelter in Him, and those who do what is right will praise Him. Proverbs 23, verse 23. Get the truth and never sell it. Also, get wisdom, discipline and good judgment.
Speaker 1:We don't make enough about discipline Just in life in general. Folks, if you listen to even people that have been successful from a worldly point of view, if you go out and listen to some interviews with professional athletes, for example, discipline is a huge part of of what they do going out and and doing what they're supposed to each day, even when they don't feel like it. And I'm not talking about supposed to from a moral sense in this case, that would be integrity. But just if you really want to be a great tennis player or a great football player or a great basketball or volleyball or whatever it is, you have to go out and practice every single day, with extremely rare exceptions. And there's going to be a lot of days where you don't feel like doing that and you still have to go.
Speaker 1:Our faith and our marriage are exactly the same way, folks. You know that's true about academics and athletics. It's also true about our faith and our marriage. We need discipline. There's going to be days where you don't feel like reading your Bible, you don't feel like praying, you don't feel like loving your spouse the way that you're clearly supposed to according to Scripture.
Speaker 1:You do it anyway. It's discipline. What are your priorities? And I'll tell you from my own experience the more you do it, the easier it is to do. You know that old, old, old Nike slogan just do it from forever ago. But it really is, folks. Just do what you know you need to, and eventually it becomes easier. And you don't do it because you're going to get something out of it. You just do it and then you know it's like John Quincy Adams Duty is ours, results are God's, and then out of Galatians and we'll move on real quick.
Speaker 1:For the whole law can be summed up in this one command love your neighbors yourself. Who's our closest neighbor? If we're married, our spouse, folks, our spouse closest neighbor. Love our neighbor as ourselves. If we're really interested in following god and jesus christ, that's got to be our top priority, behind only god and jesus christ and the holy spirit. Every single day, throughout the day. Interested in following God and Jesus Christ, that's got to be our top priority, behind only God and Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Every single day, throughout the day. They ought to get more attention, more conversation, more affection, more energy than our phones or sports or TV or social media or workouts or friends or parents or children or anything else.
Speaker 1:Medal of Honor for today Dennis Bell, private Spanish-American War Hotel Troop, 10th US Cavalry, us Army, june 30, 1898. Tyabacoa, cuba, voluntarily went ashore in the face of the enemy and aided in the rescue of his wounded comrades. After this, after several previous attempts at rescue had been frustrated, accredited to Washington District of Columbia, not awarded. Posthumously. Presented June 23, 1899. District of Columbia, not awarded. Posthumously, presented June 23, 1899. Born December 28, 1866, washington DC. Died September 25, 1953, washington DC. Buried Arlington National Cemetery 31, tac 349, arlington, virginia, united States. Dennis Bell One more name, folks, just to add to your list.
Speaker 1:Teach your kids, remember yourself, help those around you, remember what is morality. Folks, our founders talked a lot about morality and religion, christianity being pillars of our society. What does it mean to be moral? It means to do what is right, and according to who? According to God, the one true God, the Father of Jesus Christ, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Not Allah, not Buddha, not Hinduism and all the many gods, not atheism or Satanism or anything else, not atheism or Satanism or anything else In order to be moral. The only way to be moral is to do what God commands us to do.
Speaker 1:John Jay, one of our founding fathers we've talked about him often on the podcast the first Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court. The moral or natural law was given by the sovereign of the universe to all mankind. With them it was co-evil or co-of-all. Co-of-all existing at the same time, and with them it will be co-existent, lasting as long as we last, being founded by infinite wisdom and goodness on a central right which never varies, it can require no amendment or alteration. This is why our nation has to be founded on the principles of Jesus Christ on the Bible, has to be founded on the principles of Jesus Christ, on the Bible, because the political whims of men change, as we can see, almost on a weekly basis, but certainly on a yearly basis for a long time, and they change for a number of reasons, but basically they change because we feel like they're changing right.
Speaker 1:If we don't have unchanging standards, it literally would be like playing a football game and the referees changing the goalposts and the end zone location whenever they felt like it during the game. Maybe they're where they're supposed to be, maybe they're in the stands, maybe they're on the sidelines, maybe they're in the parking lot outside the stadium. If you don't have the unchanging standard of God, then anything goes. Oh, webster, these moral precepts are of perpetual obligation. We have an obligation continuously, always to follow the morality, the teachings of God, which are unchanging. One more again from John Jay the original, unchanging. One more again from John Jay the original. It's important to remember that he's the first chief justice of the US Supreme Court. He might know a thing or two about the country and what was intended, but it's founding.
Speaker 1:The gospel not only recognizes the whole moral law and extends and perfects our knowledge of it, but also enjoins on all mankind the observance of it. Being ordained by a legislator of infinite wisdom and rectitude and in whom there is no variableness, it must be free from imperfection and therefore has never nor ever will require amendment or alteration. Hence I conclude that the moral law is exactly the same now that it was before the flood. There's two huge points here, folks, I know I'm a little over. One is actually there's three. Everybody's required to observe the moral law.
Speaker 1:It doesn't matter whether you're a Christian or not, whether you choose to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior or not. We have an obligation to follow the moral law as laid out by God Ten Commandments, principles of Jesus Christ in the Bible. It doesn't matter whether you're in North America or South America or Africa or Europe, or Asia or Australia, or on the moon or on Mars. You have an obligation to adhere to the moral principles that God laid out in the Bible. It doesn't matter whether you're Buddhist or Hindu or Muslim or anything else. That obligation doesn't go away just because you choose a false faith.
Speaker 1:The second thing again, is there's no variableness. There's no change in God right, that's out of James 11leness. There's no change in God right, that's out of James 117. There's no change. God doesn't change. The standards don't change. They're going to be the same 100 years from now, 500 years from now that they are today, that they were 500 years ago. We might misinterpret them, some people might twist them to try and use them for their own designs, but that doesn't change the truth. That doesn't change what they really are. They're still the same. They're always going to be the same.
Speaker 1:And the last thing is the moral law doesn't change because society changes. A perfect example of this today is feminism inside the church in the United States, really across Western civilization, and the claim that so many of the requirements, particularly put on women, don't apply anymore because society 2,000 years ago was different than society today and so they don't apply anymore. Because society 2,000 years ago was different than society today and so they don't apply anymore, which is obviously ludicrous from a Christian point of view, because the majority of society doesn't believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and so therefore, today we shouldn't believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. If we're just going to go along with whatever society says and make sure that we have the right quote-unquote context, it's foolishness, it doesn't make any sense and it's not true. The moral precepts, the commands of God, are the same 2,000 years ago. Today, 2,000 years from now, they're still going to be the same. They were the same, as John Jay says here. Hence I conclude that the moral law is exactly the same now that it was before the flood.
Speaker 1:God bless y'all. God bless your families, your marriages. God bless your nation, wherever you are around the world listening. God bless y'all. God bless your families, your marriages. God bless your nation, wherever you are around the world listening. God bless America. We'll talk to y'all again real soon, folks Looking forward to it.