The American Soul
The American Soul
Holy Ground & Rocket Ships: From Bible Verses to Moon Communion
Jesse Cope examines our priorities by asking hard questions about what deserves our time and attention in daily life. He challenges listeners to honestly evaluate whether God, family, and faith are receiving our best energy or merely our leftover minutes.
• Exploring the disconnect between claimed priorities and actual time allocation
• Scripture readings from Song of Solomon on marital love
• Passages from 1 Thessalonians about persecution, faith, and earnest prayer
• Psalm 80's call for national restoration and God's intervention
• The story of Floyd Bennett, Medal of Honor recipient
• Historical account of Buzz Aldrin taking communion on the moon during Apollo 11
• Recommended Christian resources for understanding America's faith heritage
• Discussion of America's Christian foundations and contemporary challenges
If you enjoy Countryside and want to support wholesome, family-friendly content, please consider leaving a review wherever you read books.
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 here, giving me a little bit of your time and attention, a little piece of your day. I will try and use it wisely. For those of y'all who continue to pray for me and for the podcast, thank you so very much for that. I'm very grateful for your prayers. And for those of y'all who continue to share the podcast with others, tell others about it, thank you. And for those of y'all who are reading countryside and sharing it with others, thank you as well.
Speaker 1:Father, thank you for today. Thank you for you, father, and your Son, jesus Christ and your Holy Spirit. Thank you for all your many blessings that you bestow upon us, both as individuals and as a nation Things that we notice and things that we don't. Father Food to eat and water to drink, clothes to wear, the resources of our land, the people in our community, our family, our churches, our schools, those who have gone before us and those who walk alongside us now that set such a great example of following your son. Be with those who are listening to the podcast, wherever they are, across the nation, around the world. Be with their families. Bless those who are married. Bless their marriages. Help those who have children to raise them to know you and your son, jesus Christ. Guide them, surround them with your angels. Protect them from evil of any kind. Protect us all, father, from evil of any kind. Bring us home to you and your Son in your timing. Give us the perseverance, the wisdom and the courage to run the race all the way home to you. Father. Forgive us, please when we fall short. Help us to truly repent of our sins and to turn away from them. To forgive us when we go back to the same old sins time and time again. Thank you for your son, jesus Christ. Again, father, be with those who go out in the cold and the night, and the rain and the sleet and everything else, father, to protect us, to keep our electricity running, our roads open, to rescue those who are injured or hurting or in danger. Our power line crews, our road crews, our law enforcement, our military, our EMS workers, our firefighters. Bring them home safe to their families. Father, please and please guide my words here your son's saying 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, listen to him? And, if you're married, have you made time for your spouse? And if not, what are you putting in front of them and are you okay with that? And if you are, you need to at least acknowledge that.
Speaker 1:Folks, if we're okay giving all our time to workouts and TV and sports and social media, et cetera, et cetera, then we ought to at least acknowledge that we ought to have the integrity. But see, et cetera, then we ought to at least acknowledge that we ought to have the integrity. But see, most of us, we know that we shouldn't be doing that, we know that we have our priorities out of line, and so, even when somebody just suggests that we get all offended, right, it's amazing how easily people get offended today, especially when we're doing exactly what people accuse of us of doing, right. You have somebody that calls you out on the fact that you're on your phone for three hours a day, four hours a day, or the fact that you watch four basketball, volleyball, softball, golf, tennis, football, whatever games, matches you know in the last 24 hours, and you get all offended. Well, so what difference does that make? Right, and of course it makes a huge difference, because we're giving all our time to scrolling TikTok and Instagram reels and YouTube and none of our time to God and our spouse and our children, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1:Marriage verse for today is Song of Solomon, chapter 7, admiration of the Bridegroom. How beautiful are your feet and sandals, o Prince's daughter. The curves of your hips are like jewels, the work of the hands of an artist. Your navel is like a round goblet which never lacks mixed wine. Your belly is like a heap of wheat fenced about with lilies. Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle. Your neck is like a tower of ivory, your eyes like the pools of Heshbon by the gate of Bath-Rabam. Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon which faces towards Damascus. Your head crowns you like Carmel and the flowing locks of your head are like purple threads. The king is captivated by your tresses. How beautiful and how delightful you are.
Speaker 1:My love, with all your charms. Your stature is like a palm tree and your breasts are like its clusters. I said I will climb the palm tree, I will take hold of its fruit stalks. Oh, may your breasts be like clusters of the vine and the fragrance of your breath like apples, and your mouth like the best wine. It goes down smoothly for my beloved, flowing gently through the lips of those who fall asleep. The Union of Love. I am my beloved and his desires for me. Come, my beloved, let us go out into the country, let us spend the night in the villages, let us rise early and go to the vineyards. Let us see whether the vine has budded and its blossoms have opened, and whether the pomegranates have bloomed there. I will give you my love. The mandrakes have given forth fragrance, and over our doors are all choice fruits, both new and old, which I have saved up for you, my beloved.
Speaker 1:The Bible verses for today are 1 Thessalonians, 2, 9-3, 13. Don't you remember, dear brothers and sisters, how hard we worked among you, night and day. We toiled to earn a living so that we would not be a burden to any of you, as we preached God's good news to you. You yourselves are our witnesses, and so is God, that we were devout and honest and faultless toward all of you believers, and you know that we treated each of you as a father treats his own children. We pleaded with you, encouraged you and urged you to live your lives in a way that God would consider worthy, for he called you to share in his kingdom and glory. Therefore, we never stopped thanking God that, when you received his message from us, you didn't think of our words as mere human ideas. You accepted what we said as the very word of God, which of course it is, and this word continues to work in you who believe. And then, dear brothers and sisters, you suffered persecution from your own countrymen. In this way, you imitated the believers in God's church in Judea who, because of their belief in Christ Jesus, suffered from their own people, the Jews, for some of the Jews killed the prophets, and some even killed the Lord Jesus. Now they have persecuted us too. They fail to please God and work against all humanity as they try to keep us from preaching the good news of salvation to the Gentiles. By doing this, they continue to pile up their sins, but the anger of God has caught up with them at last.
Speaker 1:Dear brothers and sisters, after we were separated from you for a little while, though, our hearts never left you. We tried very hard to come back because of our intense longing to see you again. We wanted very much to come to you and I, paul, tried again and again, but Satan prevented us. After all, what gives us hope and joy and what will be our proud reward and crown as we stand before our Lord Jesus when he returns? It is you. Yes, you are our pride and joy.
Speaker 1:Finally, when we could stand it no longer, we decided to stay alone in Athens and we sent Timothy to visit you. He is our brother and God's co-worker in proclaiming the good news of Christ. We sent him to strengthen you, to encourage you in your faith and to keep you from being shaken by the troubles you were going through. But you know that we are destined for such troubles. Even while we were with you, we warned you that troubles would soon come, and they did, as you well know. That is why, when I could bear it no longer, I sent Timothy to find out whether your faith was still strong. I was afraid that the tempter had gotten the best of you and that our work had been useless. But now Timothy has just returned, bringing us good news about your faith and love. He reports that you always remember our visit with joy and that you want to see us as much as we want to see you.
Speaker 1:So we have been greatly encouraged in the midst of our troubles and suffering, dear brothers and sisters, because you have remained strong in your faith. It gives us new life to know that you are standing firm in the Lord. How we thank God for you. Because of you we have great joy as we enter God's presence. Night and day, we pray earnestly for you, asking God to let us see you again, to fill the gaps in your faith. May God, our Father, and the Lord Jesus bring us to you very soon, and may the Lord make your love for one another.
Speaker 1:Psalm 80, 1 through 19. Please listen, o shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph's descendants like a flock, o God enthroned above the cherubim, display your radiant glory to Ephraim, benjamin and Manasseh. Show us your mighty power, come to rescue us. Turn us again to yourself, o God. Make your face shine down upon us. Only then will we be saved. O Lord, god of heaven's armies, how long will you be angry with our prayers, tears by the bucketful? You have made us the scorn of neighboring nations. Our enemies treat us as a joke. Turn us again to yourself, o God of heaven's army. Make your face shine down upon us. Only then will we be saved.
Speaker 1:You brought us from Egypt like a great mind. You drove away the pagan nations and transplanted us into your land. You cleared the ground for us and we took root and filled the land. Our shade covered the mountains. Our branches covered the mighty cedars. We spread our branches west to the Mediterranean Sea. Our shoots spread east to the Euphrates River. But now why have you broken down our walls so that all who pass by may steal our fruit? The wild boar from the forest devours it and the wild animals feed on it? Come back, we beg you, o God of heaven's armies.
Speaker 1:Look down from heaven and see our plight. Take care of this grapevine that you yourself have planted, this sun that you have raised for yourself, For we are chopped up and burned by our enemies. May they perish at the sight of your frown. Strengthen the man you love, the son of your choice. Then we will never abandon you again. Revive us so we can call on your name once more.
Speaker 1:Turn us again to yourself, o Lord, god of heaven's armies, make your face shine down upon Proverbs 25, verses 1-5. These are more Proverbs of Solomon, collected by the advisors of King Hezekiah of Judah. It is God's privilege to conceal things and the king's privilege to discover them. No one can comprehend the height of heaven, the depth of the earth or all that goes on in the king's mind. Remove the impurities from silver, and the sterling will be ready for the silversmith. Remove the wicked from the king's court, and his reign will be made secure by justice. The more things, folks, that we can remove from our lives that are bad books, music, movies, people, the better off our own character will be.
Speaker 1:And then I think this refrain from Psalm 80, turn us again to yourself, o Lord, god of heaven's armies. That probably ought to be our request pretty much every day for America right now. And then, if you go back to 1 Thessalonians 3, verse 10, night and day we pray earnestly for you, asking God to let us see you again, to fill the gaps in your faith. How often do we pray earnestly, night and day, for something? And it doesn't mean that God's going to give it to us, folks. I'm not one of those that's going to tell you that every single thing that you pray for God's going to automatically give you, or even in the long term, because he knows what's best for us far more than we do. But how often do we really earnestly pray when we're in a certain situation, night and day, you know? Do you get up to go use the restroom in the middle of the night, you come back and you pray for a minute. You wake up in the morning, is that the first thing on your mind. You go to bed at night. Is that the last thing? Or do we just watch TV until we're ready for bed and then just collapse? We spend three hours watching a football game. Right here, I'm throwing myself under the bus, we pray for five minutes and we expect God to take care of us. And again, I'm not saying that God's going to magically meet all of your prayer requests. I'm just do we really have our priorities in the right order, based on how we give our energy and effort and attention and affection and time?
Speaker 1:Medal of Honor for today Floyd Bennett, ranked Machinist. Highest Ranked Warrant Machinist, interim 1920-1940, us Navy. May 9, 1926, spitsbergen, norway, for distinguishing himself conspicuously by courage and intrepidity, at the risk of his life, as a member of the Bird Arctic Expedition and thus contributing largely to the success of the first heavier-than-air flight to the North Pole and return than air flight to the North Pole and return. New York, not awarded. Posthumously. Presented February 25, 1927 at the White House by President Calvin Coolidge, born October 25, 1890, warrensburg, warren County, new York, Died April 25, 1928, quebec, canada. Buried Arlington National Cemetery PM 3-1852-B Arlington, canada. Buried Arlington National Cemetery PM 3-TAC 1852-B, arlington, virginia. Location of Metal National Air and Space Museum, smithsonian Institute, washington DC. Died when he was 38, if I can do math right, just a year or so after this bird ar Arctic expedition. Kind of interesting. I bet there's more to the story there Floyd Bennett Another name folks add to the list.
Speaker 1:I want to take just a minute. There's three sources that I use pretty frequently and if you don't have a copy of these in your home, I would highly recommend buying them. You can find this information a lot of different places, but these are hard copies and they kind of put it into a condensed location. One is America's God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations by William Federer, the other is the American Patriots Bible edited by Dr Richard Lee, and the third one is the Founders Bible produced by the Wall Builders Association, david Barton, etc. If you don't have a copy, I highly recommend getting a copy. It's a phenomenal resource, especially to teach your children about that relationship between America and God. They ought to be primary textbooks in every single classroom across the country and certainly, if you have the luxury of being in a private school or a homeschool, I would highly recommend them as a great resource. One of these little sections in here talks about communion on the moon. This particular excerpt is out of the Patriots Bible edited by Dr Richard Lee.
Speaker 1:Buzz Aldrin on July 20th 1969, the Apollo 11 mission. When he got out on the moon he said Houston, this is Eagle. I would like to request a few moments of silence. I would like to invite each person listening in to contemplate for a moment the events of the last few hours and to give thanks in its own individual way. And he had brought a little communion kit from his church and during the radio blackout, aldrin took the communion elements and read John 15, 5. I am the vine, you are the branches. He abides in me and I in him bears much fruit. Abides in me and I in him bears much fruit. The reason he wrote it during the blackout is because Madeline Murray O'Hare had threatened NASA with a lawsuit based on the reading of the creation story from Genesis on the Apollo 8 mission.
Speaker 1:There's a couple things there. One, folks, is just to reiterate I've said this often, I say it often on X, I've said it often on the podcast the idea that peaceful coexistence with people inside the United States that follow leftism, socialism, communism, nazism, fascism or Islam, it's just not possible. They're never going to be satisfied with whatever we offer. It's just like over in Israel right now. You know Israel and Iran. If Israel absolutely did away with all of their defensive weapons, iran would storm and destroy them in a heartbeat. If Iran did away with all of their weapons, there would be peace in the Middle East. Israel would not storm in and destroy them.
Speaker 1:We can do all we want as Christians here in America, but it's never going to be enough for people that follow socialism, communism, nazism, fascism, leftism, islam. And we have a responsibility as Christians to care for the widow and the orphan, the poor and the needy. And John example communion, example from the Apollo 11, the Apollo 8 missions is just an example of that from over half a century ago. This is a Christian republic. Liberty is based on the principles of Christ. That's the only way it works. And yet the left is never going to be satisfied until that's destroyed, and you really need to understand that and acknowledge that. If you get a chance and you're looking for a wholesome, family-friendly, middle-grade fantasy series, I would humbly recommend Countryside and, if you read it and you enjoy it, if you would leave a review somewhere, I would greatly appreciate that. God bless you all. God bless your families, your marriages, god bless America. God bless your nation. Wherever you are around the world, we'll talk to you all again real soon. Folks Looking forward to it.