Whose voice shapes a nation—culture or Christ?

A quiet prayer opens into a frank talk on priorities: why spare time exposes what we worship, how daily habits build intimacy in marriage, and why Scripture—not shifting culture—must lead. We read Hebrews 3, rejoice in Psalm 104’s order, honor a forgotten hero, and examine Maryland’s 1776 charter.

• carving time for God and spouse as a daily practice
• resisting cultural pressure to edit Scripture
• Hebrews 3 on Christ above Moses and warning against unbelief
• Psalm 104’s picture of ordered creation and human rhythm
• Proverbs 26 on actions revealing true character
• Medal of Honor story of Willibald Bianchi and reordering our honor
• Maryland 1776 constitution on faith, office, and public order
• resources for study and family reading, plus support link
• closing prayer and blessing for families and nations

If you get a chance, check it out. And if you enjoyed, if you would leave a review, I would very much appreciate that.
And also, if you're getting something out of the podcast, there's a link to donate to the podcast. And if you find that you can do that, I would be very grateful there as well.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome, Gratitude, and Opening Prayer
• 2:54 Time, Intimacy, and Daily Priorities
• 4:34 Scripture Context vs. Cultural Pressure
• 6:25 Hebrews 3: Christ Above Moses
• 10:31 Psalm 104: God’s Order in Creation
• 12:05 Proverbs and The Truth of Actions
• 13:12 Medal of Honor: Willibald Bianchi
• 17:40 Maryland 1776: Faith and Public Life
• 22:12 Resources, Support, and Closing Prayer

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:01

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. Sure do appreciate you joining me and giving me a little piece of your day. I will try and use it wisely. Those of y'all who continue to share the podcast with others and tell others about it, thank you. Very, very grateful for that. For those of y'all who continue to pray for me and for the podcast, thank you. Extremely grateful for your 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 of sins through the merit of your son Jesus Christ. Thank you for so many blessings, Father. The ones we admit. The ones we don't for whatever reason. Forgive us our sins, Father, forgive us our greed and our selfishness, our pride, our arrogance, our judgment of others. Our rash words and actions, our cowardice and our unbelief. Help us to turn to you, Father, as individuals and as a nation, 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, be with those listening to the podcast right now, wherever they are, across the nation and around the world. Please be with them, be with their families. Guide and bless them. Protect us from evil, Father. Be with those who are hurting and alone, Father, scared, persecuted for following your son Jesus Christ. Help us to comfort them in any way possible. Help us to stand up against evil. Anywhere we see it, in any way that we can. Help us to care for the widow and the orphan, the poor and the needy. And be with our leaders. In the pulpit and in the state. Priests and pastors. Senators, representatives, judges, president, vice president, governors, admirals and generals. Give them wisdom and courage and help them to rule in fear of you, and please guide my words here. In your saints' name we pray. Amen. Have you made time for God today? Excuse me, have you made time to read his word, to talk to him, to pray? And if you're married, have you made time for your spouse? You know, I've said this before, I've had the privilege often of working with kids. And if you ask them, how do you build a relationship? You know, how do you, how do you know somebody's your friend, something along those lines? They'll give you a bunch of different answers, but they all basically boil down to, well, you show them, you spend time together, right? And there's a lady on social media that I follow that talks a lot about marriage. And she talks about intimacy in marriage, whether you're talking about spiritual, emotional, physical. How do you develop that? You develop it through the little things that you do each day, folks, consistently. And it's it's not a burden, it's not oppressive, it's a privilege, it's a pleasure. It depends on your attitude, right? But again and again, it goes back to what our pastor talked about last week or the week before, spare time. When we get spare time, what are we giving it to? Phone, TV, sports, workout, or are we giving it to God and our spouse? Because whatever we give it to, that's that's where our our relationship is going to develop, folks. The marriage verse for today is 1 Corinthians 14, verses 34 through 35. Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home. For it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church. Only comment I'll add to that, folks, is anybody out there that tells you that the Bible has to adjust to modern society, you've got to take it in context in the sense of, well, if society changes, then the Bible ought to change. I've said this recently on the podcast, often, but it bears repeating. Folks, if that was true, then we would no longer believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ, but it because a huge chunk of society does not. American society, Western civilization. So if our rule of thumb, if our criteria for whether we believe the Bible or adhere to the Bible is what society, what the norms are in society, then we would have to today, have to throw out the divinity of Jesus Christ. And of course, that's ridiculous. That would completely undermine the faith. And so when you hear somebody saying, Well, men and women, you know, that that applied back then, but it doesn't apply today because society has changed. That's just a non-starter. It just doesn't work, folks. Bible verses for today, we're going to start with Hebrews chapter three, verses one through nineteen. And so, dear brothers and sisters who belong to God and are partners with those called to heaven. Think carefully about this Jesus whom we declare to be God's messenger and high priest. For he was faithful to God, who appointed him, just as Moses served faithfully when he was entrusted with God's entire house. But Jesus deserves far more glory than Moses, just as a person who builds a house deserves more praise than the house itself, for every house has a builder, but the one who built everything is God. Moses was certainly faithful in God's house as a servant. His work was an illustration of the truths God would reveal later. But Christ as the Son is in charge of God's entire house, and we are God's house if we keep our courage and remain confident in our hope in Christ. That is why the Holy Spirit says, Today when you hear his voice, don't harden your hearts, as Israel did when they rebelled, when they tested me in the wilderness. There your ancestors tested and tried my patience, even though they saw my miracles for forty years, so I was angry with them, and I said, Their hearts always turn away from me. They refuse to do what I tell them, so in my anger I took an oath. They will never enter my place of rest. Be careful then, dear brothers and sisters, make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving, turning you away from the living God. You must warn each other every day while it is still today, so that none of you will be deceived by sin and hardened against God. For if we are faithful to the end to trusting God just as firmly as when we first believed, we shall share in all that belongs to Christ. Remember what it says Today when you hear his voice, don't harden your hearts as Israel did when they rebelled. And who was it who rebelled against God, even though they heard his voice? Wasn't it the people Moses led out of Egypt? And who made God angry for forty years? Wasn't it the people who sinned, whose corpses lay in the wilderness? And to whom was God speaking when he took an oath that they would never enter his rest? Wasn't it the people who disobeyed him? So we see that because of their unbelief, they were not able to enter his rest. Psalm one o four verses one through twenty three. Let all that I am praise the Lord. O Lord my God, how great you are. You are robed with honor and majesty, you are dressed in a robe of light. You stretch out the starry curtain of the heavens, you lay out the rafters of your home and the rain clouds. You make the clouds your chariot, you ride upon the wings of the wind. The winds are your messengers, flames of fire are your servants. You placed the world on its foundation so it would never be moved. You clothed the earth with floods of water, water that covered even the mountains. At your command the water fled, at the sound of your thunder it hurried away. Mountains rose and valleys sank to the levels you decreed. Then you set a firm boundary for the seas, so they would never again cover the earth. You make springs pour water into the ravines, so streams gush down from the mountains. They provide water for all the animals, and the wild donkeys quench their thirst. The birds nest beside the streams, and sing among the branches of the trees. You send rain on the mountains from your heavenly home, and you fill the earth with the fruit of your labor. You cause grass to grow for the livestock and plants for people to use. You allow them to produce food from the earth, wine to make them glad, olive oil to soothe their skin, and bread to give them strength. The trees of the Lord are well cared for, the cedars of Lebanon that he planted. There the birds make their nests, and the storks make their homes in the cypresses. High in the mountains live the wild goats, and the rocks form a refuge for the hyraxes. You made the moon to mark the seasons and the sun knows when to set. You send the darkness and it becomes night, when all the forest animals prowl about. Then the young lions roar for their prey, stalking the food provided by God. At dawn they slink back into their dens to rest. Then people go off to their works, where they labor until evening. Proverbs twenty six verses twenty four through twenty six. People may cover their hatred with pleasant words, but they're deceiving you. They pretend to be kind but don't believe them. Their hearts are full of many evils. While their hatred may be concealed by trickery, their wrongdoing will be exposed in public. Those verses right there out of Proverbs, folks, it doesn't matter what people say, and this is true of people that are openly your enemies, people that are secretly your enemies, friends even, and family. It doesn't matter what they say, it matters what they do. It doesn't matter what you or I say to other people, it matters what we do. Our actions show people our character, they show people our priorities, they tell people what's really important to us, how we spend our time, our energy, our affection. But if you go back to Hebrews chapter 3, it talks about how important Moses was. And we see that throughout the Bible, but yet it still says he was nothing compared to Jesus. Verse 3, but Jesus deserves far more glory than Moses. Anytime somebody's telling you that any other human being throughout all of history, and it doesn't matter whether it's Moses or Abraham or Mary or Joseph or the disciples, anytime they tell you that somebody else approaches God of Jesus Christ's glory or his ability to grant salvation and eternal life, uh, they're they're preaching you something, folks, but it's not Christ. It's not Christianity. I meant to read this earlier in the podcast. Uh there's a couple sentences in this one-year Bible that I have at the end of each section, they have some commentary. And this was the commentary from I think yesterday's reading. We can get so caught up in the usual array of urgent tasks that we lose sight of our most important priorities. With our heads down and hard at work, we fail to look up and keep our eyes on Jesus, who is absolutely 100% guaranteed coming back to this earth. Those who believe in him will live with him. Today and every day is a good day to reprioritize, refocus, and repurpose our lives on living for Christ now. After all, we will live with Christ forever. And I just I read that and I wanted to share it with you all. It's out of this one year Bible for men by Tyndale that I picked up and I just priorities, folks. Priorities. Medal of Honor for today. Lillabald Charles Bianchi First Lieutenant Highest Ranked Captain World War II, forty fifth Infantry, Philippine Scouts, US Army, february third, nineteen forty two, near Bagak, Batan Province, Luzon, Philippine Islands. For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action with the enemy on three february nineteen forty two, near Bagak, Province of Bataan, Philippine Islands. When the rifle platoon of another company was ordered to wipe out two strong enemy machine gun nests, first Lieutenant Bianchi voluntarily and of his own initiative advanced with the platoon leading part of the men. When wounded early in the action by two bullets through the left hand, he did not stop for first aid but discarded his rifle and began firing a pistol. He located a machine gun nest and personally silenced it with grenades. When wounded the second time by two machine gun bullets through the chest muscles, first Lieutenant Bianchi climbed to the top of an American tank, manned its anti-aircraft machine gun, and fired into strongly held enemy position until knocked completely off the tank by a third severe wound. Accredited to New Olm, Brown County, Minnesota, awarded posthumously, presented june seventh, nineteen forty five, Philippine Islands by General Douglas MacArthur and Fort Snelling, Minnesota presented to his mother. Born march twelfth, nineteen fifteen, New Olm, Brown County, Minnesota, United States, died january ninth, nineteen forty five. POW ship sunk by AAC attack. Techo Formosa. Buried National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific Punch Bowl. Marker only MATEC 39, Honolulu, Hawaii, United States, location of Metal Brown County Historical Society Museum, New Elm. This is additional commentary from the Congressional Medal of Honor Society. Willibald Bianchi died while held by Japanese forces as a prisoner of war aboard the Enora Maru, which was being used to house several hundred POWs. The ship was attacked by American naval aircraft on January 9th, 1945, while it was stationed at Takao Harbor because the ship was mistaken as a military vessel. Over 300 POWs died from the attack. Bianchi and those who were killed were buried ashore in a mass grave. Following the war, the remains from the mass grave were recovered and reinterred, reinterred, if I said that right, at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii, as unknowns. In August 2025, Willibald Bianchi's remains were identified by the Defense POW MIA Accounting Agency through DNA. Lord, folks. Go through all that, end up a prisoner of war, you're on a ship, and you die. And pretty close to the end of the war, relatively speaking. This is just I don't know, folks. I I know I probably sound too emotional, but these stories, we we know all these lyrics to these singers, these songs of people that hate our country. We know these statistics of these athletes, these professional athletes and entertainers. We know all this stuff about their life. And so many of them despise the nation and the principles for which our nation is founded. And we give them so much of our time and our energy and our effort, not to mention the fact that they don't even know who we are, nor do they care. And then we have men like this who not only did the men die and sacrifice, but their families did, their mothers, their fathers, their wives, their sisters, their brothers, their children. And we don't know about it. I've never heard this man's name in my entire life. Until I read this here with y'all. That just seems kind of disgraceful to me that we don't teach our children. Historical quotes try and move on after that today. Maryland. So we may spend a couple days on Maryland. We'll see. The Constitution of the State of Maryland, august fourteenth, seventeen seventy six. We the people of the state of Maryland grateful to Almighty God for our civil and religious liberties. Right? Article thirty five, that no other test or qualification ought to be required on admission to any office or trust or prof of trust or profit, than such oath of support and fidelity to this state, and such oath of office as shall be directed by this convention or the legislature of the state, and a declaration of a belief in the Christian religion. Article thirty six that the manner of administering an oath to any person ought to be such as those of the religious persuasion, profession, or denomination of which such person is one generally esteemed to be the most effectual confirmation by the attestation of the divine being. Also in the Constitution of the State of Maryland, 1776, that as it is the duty of every man to worship God in such a manner as he thinks most acceptable to him, all persons professing the Christian religion are equally entitled to protection in their religious liberty. Wherefore no person ought by any law to be molested on account of his religious practice unless under the color pretense of religion, any man shall disturb the good order, peace, or safety of the state, or shall infringe on the laws of morality, yet the legislature may, in their discretion, lay a general and equal tax for the support of the Christian religion. And that was there up until 1851. If you wanted to be in a position, office, or place of trust, you had to believe in the Christian religion, Jesus Christ. And that this you couldn't be molested on account of your religious practice, right? So it didn't matter what your denomination was, as long as you were a Christian, you were equally entitled to protection in your religious liberty. But that, folks, that doesn't include Islam, absolutely, for example, disturbs good order, peace, and safety of the state. You can see it in the UK today. You can see it in certain parts of the United States, even, sadly. It infringes upon the laws of morality. You see this also, again, in certain countries around the world that are now passing these laws to allow Muslims to marry their cousins or sisters or whatever it is, brothers. Look at one of our own representatives that married her own brother. So there's no protection required by our Constitution for religions outside of the Christian denomination when they disturb good order, peace, or safety of the state, or infringe upon the laws of morality. Probably come back to Maryland again on the next podcast for a little bit. I would be remiss again if I didn't recommend if you don't have a hard copy of America's Guided Country Encyclopedia Quotations by William Federer, or the Founder's Bible by the Wall Builder Association, David Barton, or the American Patriots Bible edited by Dr. Richard Lee, highly recommend those. If you're looking for a family-friendly middle-grade read fantasy series for kids or grandkids, I would humbly recommend Countryside. There's two books in the series, working on the third. If you get a chance, check it out. And if you enjoyed, if you would leave a review, I would very much appreciate that. And also, if you're getting something out of the podcast, there's a link to donate to the podcast. And if you find that you can do that, I would be very grateful there as well. 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 to temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever and ever. Amen. God bless y'all, folks. God bless your families, God bless your marriages if you're married, God bless America, God bless your nation, wherever you are around the world. Listen, we'll talk to y'all again real soon, folks. Looking forward to it.