The American Soul

Raising Standards At Home

• Jesse • Season 5 • Episode 163

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What happens to a nation when it lowers the bar for its own children and then wonders why excellence moves elsewhere? We connect that uncomfortable question to the health of marriage, the clarity of Scripture, and the lessons of history to make a case for raising standards—at home first, then everywhere else. From the court to the classroom, the drift toward comfort has real costs, and we unpack how discipline, covenant love, and truth-telling rebuild the core that resilience requires.

We reflect on the mutual belonging in Song of Solomon—“I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine”—as a living model for fidelity that forms strong families and, by extension, strong communities. That thread carries into Revelation 7’s powerful vision that salvation belongs to God and the Lamb, reminding us that truth isn’t a moving target. Proverbs adds the warning not to add to God’s words, tying integrity to protection. Along the way, we honor First Lieutenant John W. Blunt’s courageous charge at Cedar Creek and consider why recognition can take decades, yet character stands the test of time. We also revisit John Adams’ 1799 proclamation calling the nation to fasting and humility, a timely reminder that public virtue and dependence on God aren’t relics—they’re foundations.

You’ll hear practical steps for parents, educators, and leaders: set clear expectations, coach for mastery instead of shortcuts, protect marriage and shared family time, and teach a reverent love for truth. We make the case that a culture that remembers its stories of faith and sacrifice can raise its standards without losing compassion. If this resonates, share it with a friend, leave a review, and consider supporting the show so we can keep building voices that build America. Subscribe, pass it on, and tell us: where will you raise the bar this week?

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SPEAKER_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, and whatever part of the day you're in. Sure do appreciate y'all joining me, giving me a little bit of your time and attention, a little piece of your day. Hopefully y'all are getting to listen to it with someone else. For those of y'all who continue to share the podcast with others, tell others about it, thank you. Excuse me. For those of y'all who continue to pray for me and for the podcast, thank you very much. Very grateful for your prayers. Father, thank you for today. Thank you for you, Father, and your son Jesus Christ and your Holy Spirit.

SPEAKER_00:

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 the people that listen to the podcast, Father. Please be with them, be with their families, guide them, bless them. Surround them with your angels. Draw us all closer to you and your son. Help us to truly love your son.

SPEAKER_01:

To follow his commands, and to love you with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.

SPEAKER_00:

Forgive us when we fail. Forgive us our pride and greed, our selfishness, our judgment of others, our envy, gluttony, drunkenness, lust, covetousness. Forgive us as a nation, Father. Our cowardice and our unbelief, our support of evils, abortion, feminism, sexual demency of every kind. Help us to turn back to you with our whole heart, to walk humbly before you. To act justly and to love mercy. God or steps. Be with our leaders. Both in the pulpit and in the state. Help them to rule in fear of you. To be concerned about doing your will, Father. Not what none say, poor woman. Help us to all do that, Father, please. And please guide my word here. Your son's name we pray. Amen.

SPEAKER_01:

So little monologue, I guess, for today, if you want to even call it that. One of the things I've had the opportunity to do is talk to quite a few college students over the years. And really, and particularly lately, I've had the privilege of talking to a handful from different parts of the country. And there's a repetitive theme, folks, and that theme is that we are outsourcing our athletic and academic abilities to people from other nations in preference to our own. And it doesn't have anything to do, folks, with ability on the part of American children. If you want to throw anybody under the bus, we've got to throw ourselves under the bus as adults, as educators, as politicians, as parents for not holding a high enough standard for our kids. The problem is not that they can't do it. The problem is that we haven't made them do it, given them the tools. And I'm not talking about accommodations or crutches. I'm talking about forcing them to hold to a standard until they get to the point where they realize they can actually achieve a lot more than they think they can. But instead, what you see is you see athletic scholarships, tennis scholarships going to Europeans, to South Americans, to Chinese. Same thing with academics, Indians, right? All sorts of different countries in Asia and other places around the world, folks. We are weakening our nation and strengthening other nations. Nothing wrong with strengthening other nations as long as we're still strengthening ourselves, but that's not what we're doing.

SPEAKER_00:

And we need to fix that.

SPEAKER_01:

So the marriage verses for today are gonna be from Song of Solomon Six, Mutual Delight in Each Other. Where has your beloved gone, O most beautiful among women? Where has your beloved turned that we may seek him with you? My beloved has gone down to his garden, to the beds of Balsam, to pasture his flock in the gardens and gather lilies. I am my beloved, and my beloved is mine, he who pastures his flock among the lilies. You are as beautiful as Terzo, my darling, as lovely as Jerusalem, as awesome as an army with banners, turn your eyes away from me, for they have confused me. Your hair is like a flock of goats that have descended from Gilead. Your teeth are like a flock of ewes which have come up from their washing, all of which bear twins, and not one among them has lost her young. Your temples are like a slice of pomegranate behind your veil. There are sixty queens and eighty concubines and maidens without number. But my dove, my perfect one, is unique. She is her mother's only daughter. She is the pure child of the one who bore her. The maidens saw her and called her blessed. The queens and the concubines also, and they praised her, saying, Who is this that grows like the dawn? As beautiful as the full moon, as pure as the sun, as awesome as an army with banners. I went down to the orchard of nut trees to see the blossoms of the valley, to see whether the vine had budded or the pomegranates had bloomed. Before I was aware my soul set me over the chariots of my noble people. Come back, come back, O Shulamite, come back, come back, that we may gaze at you.

SPEAKER_00:

Why should you gaze at the Shulamite as at the dance of the two companies? Bible verses scripture for today.

SPEAKER_01:

Yep. Verses one through seventeen. Then I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds, so they did not blow on the earth or the sea, or even on any tree. And I saw another angel coming up from the east carrying the seal of the living God. And he shouted to those four angels who had been given power to harm land and sea. Wait, don't harm the land or the sea or the trees until we have placed the seal of God on the foreheads of his servants. And I heard how many were marked with the seal of God. A hundred and forty four thousand were sealed from all the tribes of Israel, from Judah twelve thousand, from Reuben twelve thousand, from Gad twelve thousand, from Asher twelve thousand, from Naphtali twelve thousand, from Manasseh twelve thousand, from Simeon twelve thousand, from Levi twelve thousand, from Isakar twelve thousand, from Zebulun twelve thousand, from Joseph twelve thousand, from Benjamin, twelve thousand. After this I saw a vast crowd, too great to count from every nation and tribe and people and language standing in front of the throne and before the Lamb. They were clothed in white robes, and had palm branches in their hands, and they were shouting with a great roar, Salvation comes from our God who sits on the throne and from the Lamb. And all the angels were standing around the throne, and around the elders, and the four living beings, and they fell before the throne with their faces to the ground and worshiped God. They sang, Amen. Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and strength belong to our God forever and ever. Amen. Then one of the twenty four elders asked me, Who are these who are clothed in white? Where did they come from? And I said to him, Sir, you are the one who knows. Then he said to me, These are the ones who died in the great tribulation. They have washed their robes in the blood of the lamb and made them white. That is why they stand in front of God's throne and serve him day and night in his temple. And he who sits on the throne will give them shelter. They will never again be hungry or thirsty, they will never be scorched by the heat of the sun. The lamb on the throne will be their shepherd. He will lead them to springs of life giving water, and God will wipe every tear from their eyes. You who serve in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God. Praise the Lord, for the Lord is good. Celebrate his lovely name with music, for the Lord has chosen Jacob for Himself, Israel for His own special treasure. I know the greatness of the Lord, that our Lord is greater than any other God. The Lord does whatever pleases him throughout all heaven and earth, and on the seas and in the depths. He causes the clouds to rise over the whole earth. He sends the lightning with the rain and releases the wind from his storehouses. He destroyed the firstborn in each Egyptian home, both people and animals. He performed miraculous signs and wonders in Egypt against Pharaoh and all his people. He struck down great nations and slaughtered mighty kings. Sihon, king of the Amorites, Og, King of Bashan, and all the kings of Canaan. He gave their land as an inheritance, a special possession to his people Israel. Your name, O Lord, endures forever. Your fame, O Lord, is known to every generation. For the Lord will give justice to his people and have compassion on his servants. The idols of the nations are merely things with silver and gold, shaped by human hands. They have mouths but cannot speak, and eyes but cannot see. They have ears but cannot hear, and mouths but cannot breathe. And those who make idols are just like them, as are all who trust in them. O Israel, praise the Lord. O priests, descendants of Aaron, praise the Lord. O Levites, praise the Lord. All you who fear the Lord, praise the Lord. The Lord be praised from Zion, for he lives here in Jerusalem.

SPEAKER_00:

Praise the Lord.

SPEAKER_01:

Proverbs thirty verses five through six. Every word of God proves true. He is a shield to all who come to him for protection.

SPEAKER_00:

Do not add to his words, or he may rebuke you and expose you as a liar.

SPEAKER_01:

Blunt. First lieutenant, highest rank Brevet Major, U.S. Civil War, Kilo Company, 6th New York Cavalry, U.S. Army, October 19, 1864. Cedar Creek, Virginia, USA. Voluntarily led a charge across a narrow bridge over the creek against the lines of the enemy. Accredited to Chatham, Columbia County, New York, not awarded posthumously. Presented June 1st, 1908. Born May 18, 1840, Columbia County, New York, died January twenty-first, nineteen ten. Buried Catham Rural Cemetery.

SPEAKER_00:

Chatham, New York. John W. Blunt. Thanksgiving proclamation for today.

SPEAKER_01:

From seventeen ninety nine. It's actually not a Thanksgiving proclamation, a day of fasting and humiliation, not Thanksgiving. 1799 by the President of the United States of America, a proclamation. As no truth is more clearly taught in the volume of inspiration, nor any more fully demonstrated by the experience of all ages, than that a deep sense and a due acknowledgement of the governing providence of a supreme being, and of the accountableness of men to him as the searcher of hearts and righteous distributor of reward and punishments, are conducive equally to the happiness and rectitude of individuals as and to the well being of communities, as it is also most reasonable in itself that men who are made capable of social acts and relations, who owe their improvements to the social state, and who derive their enjoyments from it should, as a society, make their acknowledgments and dependence and obligation to him who hath endowed them with these capacities, and elevated them in the scale of existence by these distinctions, as it is likewise a plain dictate of duty and a strong sentiment of nature that in circumstances of great urgency and seasons of imminent danger earnest and particular supplications should be made to him who is able to defend or to destroy. As, moreover, the most precious interests of the people of the United States are still held in jeopardy by the hostile designs and insidious acts of a foreign nation, as well as by the dissemination among them of those principles subversive of the foundations of all religious moral and social obligations that have produced incalculable mischief and misery in other countries, and as in fine, the observance of special seasons for public religious solemnities is happily calculated to avert the evils which we ought to depreciate and to excite to the performance of the duties which we ought to discharge by calling and fixing the attention of the people at large to the momentous truths already recited, by affording opportunity to teach and inculcate them by animating devotion and giving to it the character of a national act. For these reasons, I have thought proper to recommend, and I do hereby recommend accordingly, that Thursday, the twenty fifth day of April next, be observed throughout the United States of America as a day of solemn humiliation, fasting, and prayer, that the citizens on that day abstain as far as may be from their secular occupations, devote the time to the sacred duties of religion in public and in private, that they call to mind our numerous offenses against the Most High God, confess them before Him with the sincerest penitence, implore His pardoning mercy through the great mediator and redeemer of our past transgressions, and that through the grace of his Holy Spirit we may be disposed and enabled to yield a more suitable obedience to his righteous requisitions in time to come, that he would interpose to arrest the progress of that impiety and licentiousness in principle and practice so offensive to himself and so ruinous to mankind, that he would make us deeply sensible that righteousness exalted a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people, that he would turn us from our transgressions and turn his displeasure from us, that he would withhold us from unreasonable discontent, from disunion, faction, sedition, and insurrection, that he would preserve our country from the desolating sword, that he would save our cities and towns from a repetition of those awful, pestilent visitations under which they have lately suffered so severely, and that the health of our inhabitants generally may be precious in his sight, that he would favor us with fruitful seasons and so bless the labors of the husbandmen, as that there may be food and abundance for man and beast, that he would prosper our commerce, manufactures, and fisheries, and give success to the people in all their lawful industry and enterprise, that he would smile on our colleges, academies, schools, and seminaries of learning, and make them nurseries of sound science, morals, and religion, that he would bless all magistrates, from the highest to the lowest, give them the true spirit of their station, make them a terror to evildoers, and a praise to them that do well, that he would preside over the councils of the nation at this critical period, enlighten them to a just discernment of the public interest, and save them from mistake, division, and discord, that he would make succeed our preparations for defense and bless our armors by land and by sea, that he would put an end to the effusion of human blood and the accumulation of human misery among the contending nations of the earth by disposing them to justice, to equity, to benevolence, and to peace, and that he would extend the blessings of knowledge, of true liberty, and of pure and undefiled religion throughout the world. And I do also recommend that with these acts of humiliation, penitence, and prayer, fervent thanksgiving to the author of all good be united for the countless favors which he is still continuing to the people of the United States, and which render their condition as a nation imminently happy when compared with the lot of others.

SPEAKER_00:

Given, etc. John Adams.

SPEAKER_01:

You go back and you look at Song of Solomon 6-3. I am my beloved, so my beloved is mine, right? We need to remember that for those of us that are married, that we belong to each other. We don't belong to our phones, we don't belong to TVs, we don't belong to our parents, to our children, to our friends. We belong to each other as a husband and a wife.

SPEAKER_00:

And I think too many of us make light of that.

SPEAKER_01:

You go back to the scripture readings for today, you look at Revelation 7 again, you look at verse 10. Salvation comes from our God who sits on the throne and from the Lamb. There's nobody else, folks. Salvation doesn't come from anybody else besides God and Jesus Christ. That's it. And if anybody's telling you otherwise, you need to be really careful because they're leading you down a pretty wide path for destruction. And you can see that in Proverbs 30, verses 5 through 6 again. Every word of God proves true, he is a shield to all who come to him for protection. And then verse 6, do not add to his words, or he may rebuke you and expose you as a liar. If somebody's telling you that you can get to heaven some other way besides God and Jesus Christ, they're just simply not telling you the truth, folks. And they're they're endangering not only their own soul, but yours. The Medal of Honor citation today, blunt, you go back and you get a chance, it's real short, right? It's one of those. I have a couple questions. One is just the general citation. You know, there was more about leading this charge over that narrow bridge. A cavalry charge, apparently, because he was a cavalry officer. Maybe, maybe not, I don't know. But then the other part is how long it took. He didn't get presented the Medal of Honor until 1908, right? And this took place in 1864, and that's always interesting to me. If you go back, the last thing here, right, John Adams, and look at this day of fasting and humiliation from 1799. And this is really true of most of these Thanksgiving proclamations. I think the biggest one, though, and you can see it real clearly here, is it's important for us as a nation to render thanks and humiliation and seek forgiveness from God and Jesus Christ. Not just as individuals, folks, but as a nation. And it's just one more piece of evidence that we were born a Christian republic, not a pagan republic, not a secular republic, and we can only function that way. Uh, along the lines of Narnia, The Hobbit, Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, that kind of stuff, or kids or grandkids, or maybe you just maybe you like it yourself too. If you would check out Countryside, I would greatly appreciate it. There's a couple books in the series so far, and if you enjoyed, if you'd leave a review somewhere, I would be very grateful for that as well. And if you are getting something out of the podcast, if you have three or four or five dollars a month to donate, there is a webpage on the Buzz Sprout website where you can set up that monthly donation. And I would be very grateful for that 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. 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 listening. We'll talk to y'all again real soon, folks. Looking forward to it.