The American Soul

Pray For Peace, Make Ready For War

• Jesse • Season 5 • Episode 169

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Start with hope, end with readiness. We open our hearts in prayer and then get practical about how to protect what we love, drawing a straight line from an old Marine Corps lesson—never bring a problem without solutions—to a community playbook that blends faith, family, and civic duty. Mercy Otis Warren’s account of the Founders petitioning the Crown while raising an army sets the tone: pursue peace, but prepare with clear eyes.

We talk through specific steps anyone can take to strengthen a town’s backbone: advocate for local law enforcement, firefighters, and EMS; write your sheriff, DA, and representatives; use a train-the-trainer model to multiply skills across churches, schools, and neighborhoods. This isn’t about fear. It’s about love of neighbor, resilience, and responsibility. From there, we turn to the home, walking through Ephesians 5’s vision for marriage—husbands who love sacrificially, wives who respect—because strong households anchor strong communities.

Then we face the hard words of Revelation 12–13. Power can dazzle and deceive, but the call is steady: endure and remain faithful. Paired with Psalm 141’s plea to guard our lips and hearts, we frame endurance as daily obedience, not a one-time surge. We honor Staff Sergeant Paul Luther Bolden’s valor and lift President Herbert Hoover’s 1929 Christmas message to remember the gifts that do not fail: courage, kindness, and mutual help. Threaded through it all is a simple theme—pray for changed hearts and prepare for hard days, with calm hands and a hopeful spirit.

If this resonates, share it with a friend, subscribe for more, and leave a review to help others find the show. Tell us one concrete step you’ll take to strengthen your home or community 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 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. Hopefully, y'all are getting to listen to it with somebody else. For those of y'all who continue to pray for me onto the podcast, thank you. Very much, very grateful for your prayers. For those of y'all who continue to share the podcast with others and tell others about it, thank you also.

SPEAKER_00:

Father, thank you for today.

SPEAKER_01:

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.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you for the blessings you bestow upon us, Father, not only as individuals, but as a nation. For the resources that you have blessed us with. Thank you for the talent, the skills you've given us. Thank you for those who have gone before us and set such a good example of following your Son Jesus Christ, sacrifice, courage, commitment, patience, perseverance. Thank you for the people that listen to the podcast, Father.

SPEAKER_01:

Please be with them wherever they are. Be with their families, bless their marriages, guide those who have children and raising them to know you and your son Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_00:

Be with children, Father. The least of these. Help us to care for them. To care for the orphans, to care for those who have been abandoned and abused. Help us to comfort them. To encourage them. To love them. To lead them. To protect them. Please be with all of those who go out and protect us, Father.

SPEAKER_01:

Our military, our law enforcement, our firefighters, our EMS. Be with our doctors, nurses, all of those who heal our bodies and work on our bodies, Father.

SPEAKER_00:

Give them a steady hand. Patience, perseverance. Help us to love you with all that we are, Father, to love our neighbors as ourselves. And please, God, my words here. In the name of your Son Jesus Christ, we ask and pray. Amen. So one of the kind of unspoken rules that they taught us in the Marine Corps was when your CO, when your commanding officer had a problem.

SPEAKER_01:

Whether he knew it or whether you were about to take it to him, anytime you had figured out that there was a problem, you needed to go to him with at least one solution, and three would be better. And it it didn't matter, even if the solutions weren't that great. I mean, obviously you needed to come up with the best version you could, but but the point was to give your CO some options. Here's the problem, sir. Here's some solutions. He might take one of them, he might take none of them, he might tell you you were the dumbest box of rocks he had ever seen in his life.

SPEAKER_00:

But your job was to give him some options.

SPEAKER_01:

And so there's a quote out of Mercy Otis Warren's History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution that has really stuck with me lately. And it is at the time there was a most humble and loyal petition directly to the King of Great Britain was again agreed to by the delegated powers of the United States. At the same time, it was stipulated by all parties that military preparations should be made and an army raised without further hesitation. A decided majority in Congress voted that 20,000 men should be immediately equipped and supported at the expense of the United States of America. The Honorable William Penn, late governor of Pennsylvania, was chosen agent to the court of Britain and directed to deliver the petition to the king himself and to endeavor by his personal influence to procure a favorable reception to this last address. So at the same time they sent this petition, this last petition by William Penn, they were raising an army because most of them could see the writing on the wall. We should continue to hope that our friends and neighbors and family, co-workers, fellow citizens will change their hearts and minds in America, but we also should be preparing for what seems likely for them not to do that. How do we do that? What are practical steps? If you live in a Christian conservative area, we ought to be doing everything we can to increase the quantity and quality, both in training and equipment, of our local law enforcement, our firefighters, our EMS, and our militias, whether that's a group put together locally or the State Guard if your state has a State Guard. You can encourage that a number of ways. You can write letters to state level senators and representatives, to local district attorneys, county commissioners, judges, sheriffs. You can also simply talk to people in your neighborhood, in your community, in your church, in your schools, whatever your sphere of influence is about the need to increase the quantity and quality of these people that are going to become so important to us if we end up getting in a fight to train others, right? That's one of the things also we did in the Marine Corps is we would train the trainers, right? We would send people to learn how to do things to come back to our unit and train others. I'm not saying this is the best solution, folks, but it certainly seems to me to be a viable one that we ought to be pursuing while at the same time continuing to pray and hope that our fellow citizens change their hearts and minds. We ought to be taking practical steps in the very likely event, especially considering how many illegal and mass immigrants we have in the United States that blatantly, by their own actions, have no affection or desired affiliation with our republic.

SPEAKER_00:

We ought to be taking some practical steps to strengthen our position now while we can.

SPEAKER_01:

Just a little side note here, folks. If you go back to the King James Version and also the NASB, you'll notice that verse 21 is not part of this marriage section. There's a lot of modern translations that make verse 21 try and make it part of the marriage section. But when you look at it, it's obviously referring to the section beforehand. You go check that out, it's pretty interesting. That's a whole different discussion. But chapter five, verses twenty two through thirty three. Wives be subject to your own husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, he himself being the savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her, so that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present to himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless. So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of his body. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great, but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife, even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband. Scriptures for today we're going to get back into Revelation chapter twelve, verse eighteen through thirteen, verse eighteen. Then the dragon took his stand on the shore beside the sea. Then I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, it had seven heads and ten horns with ten crowns on its horns, and written on each head were names that blasphemed God. This beast looked like a leopard, but it had the feet of a bear and the mouth of a lion, and the dragon gave the beast his own power and throne, and great authority. I saw that one of the heads of the beast seemed wounded beyond recovery, but the fatal wound was healed. The whole world marveled at this miracle and gave allegiance to the beast. They worshiped the dragon for giving the beast such power, and they also worshiped the beast. Who is as great as the beast? They exclaimed. Who is able to fight against him? Then the beast was allowed to speak great blasphemies against God, and he was given authority to do whatever he wanted for forty two months, and he spoke terrible words of blasphemy against God, slandering his name and his dwelling, that is, those who dwell in heaven. And the beast was allowed to wage war against God's holy people and to conquer them, and he was given authority to rule over every tribe and people and language and nation. And all the people who belonged to this world worshiped the beast. They are the ones whose names were not written in the book of life that belongs to the lamb who was slaughtered before the world was made. Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand. Anyone who is destined for prison will be taken to prison. Anyone destined to die by the sword will die by the sword. This means that God's holy people must endure persecution patiently and remain faithful. Then I saw another beast come up out of the earth. He had two horns like those of a lamb, but he spoke with the voice of a dragon. He exercised all the authority of the first beast, and he required that all the earth and its people worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed. He did astounding miracles, even making fire flash down to earth from the sky while everyone was watching. And with all the miracles he was allowed to perform on behalf of the first beast, he deceived all the people who belonged to this world. He ordered the people to make a great statue of the first beast, who was fatally wounded and then came back to life. He was then permitted to give life to this statue so that it could speak. Then the statue of the beast commanded that anyone refusing to worship it must die. He required everyone small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to be given a mark on the right hand or on the forehead. And no one could buy or sell anything without that mark, which was either the name of the beast or the number representing his name. Wisdom is needed here. Let the one with understanding solve the meaning of the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. His number is six six six. Psalm one hundred forty one verses one through ten. O Lord, I am calling to you, please hurry. Listen when I cry to you for help. Accept my prayer as incense offered to you, and my upraised hands as an evening offering. Take control of what I say, O Lord, and guard my lips. Don't let me drift toward evil or take part in acts of wickedness. Don't let me share in the delicacies of those who do wrong. Let the godly strike me, it will be a kindness. If they correct me it is soothing medicine. Don't let me refuse it. But I pray constantly against the wicked and their deeds. When their leaders are thrown down from a cliff, the wicked will listen to my words and find them true. Like rocks brought up by a plough, the bones of the wicked will lie scattered without burial. I look to you for help, O sovereign Lord. You are my refuge, don't let them kill me. Keep me from the traps they have set for me, from the snares of those who do wrong. Let the wicked fall into their own nets, but let me escape. Proverbs thirty verses eighteen through twenty. There are three things that amaze me, no, four things that I don't understand. How an eagle glides through the sky, how a snake slithers on a rock, how a ship navigates the ocean, how a man loves a woman.

SPEAKER_00:

An adulterous woman consumes a man, then wipes her mouth and says, What's wrong with that? Medal of Honor for today.

SPEAKER_01:

Paul Luther Bolden. Staff Sergeant, highest rank master sergeant, World War II, India Company, 120th Infantry, 30th Infantry Division, US Army. December 23rd, 1944, Petit Coup, Belgium. He voluntarily attacked a formable enemy strong point at in Petit Coup, Belgium on twenty third, december nineteen forty four, when his company was pinned down by extremely heavy automatic and small arms fire coming from a house two hundred yards to the front. Mortar and tank artillery shells pounded the unit when Staff Sergeant Bolded and a comrade on their own initiative moved forward in a hell of bullets to eliminate the ever increasing fire from the German position. Crawling ahead to close with what they knew was a powerfully armed, vastly superior force, the pair reached the house and took up assault positions. Staff Sergeant Bolden under a window, his comrade across the street where he could deliver covering fire. In rapid succession, Staff Sergeant Bolden hurled a fragmentation grenade and a white phosphorus grenade into the building, and then, fully realizing that he faced tremendous odds, rushed to the door, threw it open, and fired into thirty five SS troopers who were trying to reorganize themselves after the havoc wrought by the grenades. Twenty Germans died under fire of his submachine gun before he was struck in the shoulder, chest, and stomach by part of a burst which killed his comrade across the street. He withdrew from the house waiting for the surviving Germans to come out and surrender. When none appeared in the doorway, he summoned his ebbing strength, overcame the extreme pain he suffered, and boldly walked back into the house firing as he went. He had killed the remaining fifteen enemy soldiers when his ammunition ran out. Staff Sergeant Bolden's heroic advance against great odds, his fearless assault, and his magnificent display of courage in re entering the building where he had been severely wounded cleared the path for his company and ensured the success of its mission. Accredited to Madison, Madison County, Alabama, not awarded posthumously, presented august twenty third, nineteen forty five at the White House by President Harry S. Truman. Born june fifteenth, nineteen twenty second, Hobbs Island, Madison County, Alabama, died may twenty first, nineteen seventy nine, Owens Crossroads, Alabama. Buried Moon's Cemetery, Owens Crossroads, Alabama.

SPEAKER_00:

Paul Luther Bolton.

SPEAKER_01:

Christmas message to the American people broadcast over NBC Radio December twenty-fifth, nineteen twenty-nine. My fellow citizens, at this Christmas tide, when we celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace, our hearts turn with deep sympathy to those who suffer from economic distress which has come upon the world during the past months. Yet in the spirit of Christmas we find strength and hope. The same faith which sustained the shepherds on the hills of Bethlehem sustains us now. The same star which guided the wise men still shines in the heavens. The same message of peace on earth, goodwill toward men, comes to us across the centuries with undiminished power. In this holy season let us remember that the greatest gifts are not material things, but courage, kindness, and mutual helpfulness. Let neighbor be mindful of neighbor, and let every American resolve to do his part in restoring confidence and prosperity. To the sick, the sorrowing, and the unemployed I send a special word of sympathy and hope. To the children of our land I send the assurance that the Christmas spirit lives and will not fail them. May the blessings of peace, of health, and of returning prosperity rest upon every home in America. I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a happier new year.

SPEAKER_00:

Herbert Hoover, the White House, december twenty fifth, nineteen twenty nine.

SPEAKER_01:

They're very different. But we have different we have roles and responsibilities that God clearly lays out. And we ought to view husbands and wives who follow those roles equally positively, and we ought to view husbands and wives who rebel against or reject those roles in the same negative light. Otherwise, we're just being hypocritical, right? You look at Revelation chapter 13 and you go to verse 10. This means that God's holy people must endure persecution patiently and remain faithful. That's really hard, folks, at least for me. I assume it is for some of y'all too. It's easy to say, it's hard to do. I think one of the things, at least for me, that I have to remember is that it's kind of like that old Marine Corps recruiting poster says nobody promised you a rose garden. And God did promise us a rose garden and mansions, but not in this life. In fact, he told us that we would have trouble in this life. And as our pastor, one that I loved dearly years ago, said, if there's not something in our lives that is causing us to suffer for the name of Jesus Christ, not because we're being idiots, but because we're following Christ, he really questioned whether we followed Christ at all. Remember the name of Paul Luther Bolden and his story, and the comrade that went with him, whose name we don't know, and the sacrifice that he gave, his life for our nation. And remember President Hoover's Christmas message in the depths of economic distress of the depression, talking about the fact that the peace on earth and goodwill toward men, that message comes to us still across the centuries, lacking no power, with undiminished power, and that our greatest gifts are not material things, folks. If you happen to be looking for a family-friendly middle grade read along the lines of Narnia or The Hobbit, Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, that kind of stuff, I would humbly suggest Countryside. There's two books in the series if you get a chance to check them out. And if you enjoy them, one or both books, if you would leave a review online, I would greatly appreciate that. Those reviews help immensely. And if you feel like you're getting something out of the podcast, every once in a while, if you have three or four or five dollars a month that you can donate to the podcast, I would be very grateful for that too. There's a web page on the Buzz Sprout website for the podcast where you can set up that donation.

SPEAKER_00:

Hallowed be thy name.

SPEAKER_01:

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 of power and glory forever and ever. Amen. God bless y'all. God bless your families. God bless your marriages if you're married. God bless your nation, wherever you are around the world. Listen. God bless America. We'll talk to you all again real soon, folks. Looking forward to it.