The American Soul

What happens when a people forgets God—and how families can lead the way back

• Jesse • Season 5 • Episode 122

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We connect the daily choice to seek God with the way we love our spouse and shape our nation’s character, moving from Song of Solomon to Hebrews 9 and Psalm 106 to America’s history with the Bible. Along the way we press into intimacy’s three legs, unequal yokes, innocent blood, and why public life needs Scripture.

• making time for God in prayer and Scripture
• loving a spouse through roles, obedience, and praise
• Song of Solomon on longing, distance, and delight
• intimacy as spiritual, emotional, and physical stability
• Hebrews 9 and the limits of ritual without Christ
• Psalm 106 on idolatry, innocent blood, and mercy
• choosing a believing spouse and avoiding unequal yokes
• honoring Medal of Honor recipient Charles G. Bickham
• the founders, Bible in schools, and public virtue
• clarifying God and state versus church and state
• closing prayer and resources to support the work

If you are looking for a family-friendly middle-grade fantasy series, I would humbly recommend Countryside. Two books in the series, working on the third. And if you’re getting something out of the podcast and you feel like you can donate three bucks a month, five bucks a month, there’s a donation page on the website where you can do that.

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SPEAKER_00:

Hey folks, this is Jesse Cope, back with another episode of the American Soul Podcast. Hope y'all are doing well wherever you all are, in whatever part of the day you're in. I sure do appreciate you joining me, 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 share the podcast with others, tell others about it. Thank you. For those of y'all who continue to pray for me for the podcast, thank you very much. 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 those people, Father, that you put in our lives to strengthen us along the way, that draw us closer to you. Thank you for those thorns in our flesh that draw us closer to you, those challenges, those trials and tribulations that draw us closer to you. Be with those who are hurting around the nation, here in America, across the world as a whole, be with those who are being persecuted for the sake of the name of your son Jesus Christ. Help us, Father, to help those that we can. In whatever way. Help us to care for the least of these, to care for the widow and the orphan. Thank you for those men and women who follow you, Father. Here today, and the ones who have gone before us who have set such a good example. Help us to follow their footsteps and most of all to follow the footsteps of your son Jesus Christ. Be with our leaders, please, Father, in the pulpit and in the state. Give them wisdom and courage and a strong faith. Be with our military and our law enforcement, our firefighters, in particular, be with our ICE agents here in America today. Comfort them. Protect them. Be with those listening to the podcast, Father. Comfort them, surround them with your angels, protect them from evil of any kind. Strengthen their families, strengthen their marriages, strengthen our faith, Father. And guide my words here, please. In the name of your son, Jesus Christ, we ask and pray. Amen. 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? Do they know that they are your top priority? Second only to God and Jesus Christ. Because all that really matters, folks, is whether you act like it. You can say whatever you want, but if you aren't following God's roles and responsibilities for you, you know, Jesus tells us clearly, and this is, man, this is scary, at least for me sometimes, considering how poorly I follow him. But he says what? He says, if we really love him, we'll follow his commands. I had a pastor years ago. You know, because sometimes if you're honest, you wonder whether you're really doing stuff for Christ or whether you're doing stuff so other people see you doing it, you know, whether you're doing it for the praise of men. And I had a pastor, we were, I still remember we were sitting on a back porch talking, and he said, you know, at the end of the day, if you are following Jesus Christ, if you're doing what he told you to do, if you're doing something that he set an example of, that's really all that matters in the end. I mean, yeah, your motivation, it matters. But he said, if you're confused, conflicted, if you're worried about why you're doing something, at the end of the day, if you will just choose to follow Christ's example and then let others worry about what they want to worry about, even your own heart, because your heart's deceitful, right? I hope that makes sense, because that was really comforting to me from him. But he he said, just do what you're supposed to do. And even if your motivation isn't exactly right, at least you're doing what you're supposed to be doing and following Christ. And man, that's just so true, at least from my experience across the board, but especially in marriage. Just love your spouse, just follow God's roles and responsibilities. So we're going to get back into for our marriage verse today, Song of Solomon. I think, I hope, we're in chapter five. Yeah. I'm sure somebody out there y'all are keeping me in line. The torment of separation. I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride. I have gathered my myrrh along with my balsam. I have eaten my honeycomb and my honey, I have drunk my wine and my milk. Eat, friends, drink and imbibe deeply, O lovers. I was asleep, but my heart was awake. A voice, my beloved was knocking. Open to me, my sister, my darling, my dove, my perfect one. For my head is drenched with dew, my locks with the damp of night. I have taken off my dress, how can I put it on again? I have washed my feet, how can I dirty them again? My beloved extended his hand through the opening, and my feelings were aroused for him. I arose to open to my beloved, and my hands dripped with myrrh, and my fingers with liquid myrrh on the handles of the bolt. I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had turned away and had gone. My heart went out to him as he spoke. I searched for him, but I did not find him. I called him, but he did not answer me. The watchmen who make the rounds in the city found me, they struck me and wounded me. The guardsmen of the walls took away my shawl from me. I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, as to what you will tell him, for I am lovesick. What kind of beloved is your beloved, O most beautiful among women, what kind of beloved is your beloved, that thus you adjure us? Admiration of the bride by the bride. My beloved is dazzling and ruddy, outstanding among ten thousand. His head is like gold pure gold, his locks are like clusters of dates, and black as a raven, his eyes are like doves beside streams of water bathed in milk, and reposed in their setting. His cheeks are like a bed of balsam, banks of sweet scented herbs, his lips are lilies dripping with liquid myrrh. His hands are like rods of gold set with beryl, his abdomen is carved ivory inlaid with sapphires, his legs are pillars of alabaster set on pedestals of pure gold. His appearance is like Lebanon, choice as the cedars. His mouth is full of sweetness, and he is wholly desirable. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem. I saw something one of the marriage counselor couples that I follow online, they were talking about intimacy today, and they they made the comment it's impossible to have intimacy in a marriage if you don't have all three kinds, basically, at least for the long term. It's like a three-legged stool. I've used that analogy on here on the podcast before. If you really want a strong marriage, your spiritual and physical and emotional intimacy all have to be strong. Right. Otherwise, if you only have one of the three legs of the stool, or even two, the stool becomes unstable. Right. Anyway. Bible verses, Hebrews, what did we get to? I think we did eight the other day, yeah. So we're on Hebrews chapter nine, verses one through ten. The first covenant between God and Israel had regulations for worship and a place of worship here on earth. There were two rooms in that tabernacle. In the first room were a lampstand, a table, and sacred loaves of bread on the table. This room was called the holy place. Then there was a curtain, and behind the curtain was a second room called the Most Holy Place. In that room were a gold incense altar and a wooden chest carved called the Ark of the Covenant, which was covered with gold on all sides. Inside the ark were a gold jar containing manna, Aaron's staff that sprouted leaves, and the stone tablets of the covenant. Above the ark were the cherubim of divine glory, whose wings stretched out over the ark's cover. The place of atonement, but we cannot explain these things in detail now. When these things were all in place, the priests regularly entered the first room as they performed their religious duties. But only the high priest ever entered the most holy place and only once a year, and he always offered blood for his own sins and for the sins the people had committed in ignorance. By these regulations the Holy Spirit revealed that the entrance to the most holy place was not freely open as long as the tabernacle and the system it represented were still in use. This is an illustration pointing to the present time, for the gifts and sacrifices that the priests offer are not able to cleanse the consciences of the people who bring them, for that old system deals only with food and drink and various cleansing ceremonies, physical regulations that were in effect only until a better system could be established. Psalm one o six thirty two through forty eight. At Meribah too, they, the Israelites, angered the Lord, causing Moses serious trouble. They made Moses angry, and he spoke foolishly. Israel failed to destroy the nations in the land, as the Lord had commanded them. Instead they mingled among the pagans and adopted their evil customs. They worshiped their idols, which led to their downfall. They even sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons. They shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, by sacrificing them to the idols of Canaan. They polluted the land with murder. They defiled themselves by their evil deeds, and their love of idols was adultery in the Lord's sight. This is why the Lord's anger burned against his people, and he abhorred his own special possession. He handed them over to pagan nations, and they were ruled by those who hated them. Their enemies crushed them and brought them under their cruel power. Again and again he rescued them, but they chose to rebel against him, and they were finally destroyed by their sin. Even so he pitied them in their distress and listened to their cries. He remembered his covenant with them and relented because of his unfailing love. He even caused their captors to treat them with kindness. Save us, O Lord our God, gather us back from among the nations, so we can thank your holy name and rejoice and praise you. Praise the Lord, the God of Israel who lives from everlasting to everlasting. Let all the people say amen. Praise the Lord. Proverbs twenty seven ten. Never abandon a friend, either yours or your father's. When disaster strikes, you won't have to ask your brother for assistance. It's better to go to a neighbor than a brother who lives far away. Two things out of Psalm 106 strike me when we read here. The first is how much alike we are with the Israelites here, sacrificing their sons and daughters, shedding innocent blood of their sons and daughters. What are we doing today in America that's any different than that with abortion and the LGBTQ transgender, the mutilation of children, encouraging them to go down that path? It's impossible for us to expect God's blessing, or it's it's very foolish on our part, it seems, to expect God's blessing when we have shed so much blood of our own children here in America over the last 50 years. And people make light of that, folks, but it is without a doubt the modern equivalent of slavery in the 1800s. And there is no way we're going to avoid repaying this debt. I just, it doesn't seem even remotely feasible. You know, Lincoln talked about the fact that the Civil War may well have been God's requirement on us as a nation. God have mercy on us and pity on us for what's coming because of abortion. The second thing is verse 35, they mingled with the pagans and adopted their evil, evil customs. We don't talk enough to our children today about the need to marry a fellow believer, somebody that really, you know, you need to sit and talk. That ought to be the premier topic of conversation before you get married as a young man or a woman, is your top priority God, right? When you marry that person, what you need to be concerned with, it's not money, it's not looks, it is is their top priority God. Or that do they love God more than they love you? Do they love you more than they love themselves? And are you willing to love them more than you love yourself? Right? And and just like we talked about earlier with Jesus Christ, how do we know if we love Christ? Will we follow his commands? How do you know if your spouse, if this person is going to love you, will you talk about the roles and responsibilities that God lays out for you as a husband or you as a wife? Are they gonna follow that? Are you gonna follow that? 1 Corinthians 7, 1 Peter 3, Titus 2, Hebrews 13, 4, Ephesians 5, Song of Solomon that we're reading through. I know I've forgotten a couple others in there. Proverbs 519. Uh at any rate, it's a big deal, folks, to not be yoked, to not be tied together with someone who doesn't believe. So we're gonna try and get back in order here for our medal of honors. Charles G. Goodwin, Charles Goodwin Bickham, first lieutenant, highest rank captain, Philippine Insurrection, twenty seventh U.S. Infantry, U.S. Army, May 2nd, 1902, Bay Yong, near Lake Lot Lanoi, Mendonano, Philippine Islands, crossed a fire swept field in close range of the enemy and brought a wounded soldier to a place of shelter. Accredited to Dayton, Montgomery County, Ohio, not awarded posthumously, presented April 29th, 1904, born august twelfth, eighteen sixty-seven, Dayton, Montgomery County, Ohio, died December 14th, 1944. Buried Woodlawn Cemetery, 101 Tac 1420, Dayton, Ohio, United States. Charles Goodwin Bickham. Another name there, folks. All right, so our history quotes for today. We don't appreciate the Bible enough today. It doesn't seem like, and we certainly don't seem to appreciate it as much as our founders did. One of the little insets, right, in these books that I recommend so often, one of them in our founder's Bible is it's titled Our Most Sacred Treasure, A History of the English Bible. And it's got quite a few pages in it. I don't know how many this particular section is, but it's not short. Yeah, 15, 16 pages. But there's two quotes in here. We've read them before, they're great quotes. During the revolution, we we ran into a problem, and that was importing Bibles. And so Congress figured out that if we don't have these Bibles, uh, we're going to be in trouble, right? And one of the one of the quotes from then, there was a request placed before Continental Congress, unless timely care be used to prevent it, we shall not have Bibles for our schools and families and for public worship of God in our churches. Congress agreed with that and said the Congress desire to have a Bible printed under their care and by their encouragement. But they found that it would be cheaper to have the Bibles imported. Sounds familiar to some things today. And so Congress recommended the use of the Bible is so universal and so and its importance so great. Let me see, there was something else I wanted. Yeah, so they ordered the Bibles to be imported. And then there's another quote in here. I I don't think those Bibles were ever imported for some reason because a man named Robert Aiken that we've talked about on here, he ended up actually printing the first Bible in the United States specifically for use in schools. So you see both of those comments here about the need for the Bible in schools. Our founders didn't want the Bible out of school. They wanted the Bible to be the primary textbook in the schools. But in 1854, there was a group of people claiming that the government was violating separation of church and state. Oh, they were allowing government-sponsored religious activities, right? And so this is from the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. And he cites this 1777 act of Congress requesting the import of Bibles. On the 11th of September, 1777, a committee having consulted with Dr. Allison, an early congressional chaplain, about printing an edition of 30,000 Bibles and finding that they would be compelled to send abroad for type and paper with an advance of ten thousand two hundred and seventy two pounds, over two million dollars in today's currency. Congress voted to instruct the Committee of Commerce to import twenty thousand Bibles from Scotland and Holland into the different ports of the Union. The reason a sign was that the use of the book was so universal and important. Now, what was passing on that day? The Army of Washington was fighting the Battle of Brandywine. The gallant soldiers of the Revolution were displaying their heroic, though unavailing valor. Twelve hundred soldiers were stretched in death on that battlefield. Lafayette was bleeding. The booming of the cannon was heard in the hall where Congress was sitting in Philadelphia, in the hall from which Congress was soon to be a fugitive. At that important hour, Congress was passing an order for imposing importing twenty thousand Bibles. And yet we have never heard that they were charged by their generation of any attempt to unite church and state or surpassing their powers to legislate on religious matters. The more you dig into history, folks, the more you see the idea of and what we have today, it's very important that we understand this. What we got passed in 1947, what was the Supreme Court did? They used the phrase separation of church and state, but what they really were bringing into our country was separation of God and state. Our founders did not at all want separation of God and state. And they're not talking about Islam or Buddhism or Hinduism or atheism or Mother Naturism or anything else, folks. They're talking about the one true God, the Father of Jesus Christ, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They're talking about Christianity, that the only true religion. They didn't want to separate God from the state. They wanted to make sure that no particular denomination was favored by the state because they had seen the persecution in Europe over the previous centuries. Whether you're talking about the Anglican Church or the Roman Catholic Church and Britain or Europe as a whole, they had seen the persecution when a state was married to a church, a particular denomination, for those who didn't fall into that denomination. That's what they didn't want. They wanted it not to matter whether you were a Baptist or Methodist, Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, as long as you were Christian. And so you see Congress here ordering these Bibles, and then you see again in 1854 the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee saying, look, there's no violation when the government supports Christianity as a whole. The general principles of Jesus Christ. And we need to remember that, folks. We ought to be teaching this. Our kids ought to know this. The Bible, they wanted the Bible again for what? For the school. We ought to be teaching our children this in the school. And the left knows that, folks. They've known it for a long time. They've talked about this for a hundred years off and on. They're not doing anything that they haven't told us. The problem is that we've allowed it. If you are looking for a family-friendly middle-grade fantasy series, I would humbly recommend Countryside. Two books in the series, working on the third. And if you enjoyed, if you'd leave a review somewhere, I would appreciate it. And if you're getting something out of the podcast and you feel like you can donate three bucks a month, five bucks a month, there's a donation page on the website where you can do that. And I would be very grateful for that as well. I think that's it. 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, your marriages. God bless America. God bless your nation, wherever you are around the world. We'll talk to y'all again real soon, folks. Looking forward to it.