Speaker 1: 0:03

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 energy, effort, a little piece of your day, when I know you have other things pulling you one direction or another. For those of y'all that continue to spread the word about the podcast and tell others about it, thank y'all so much, incredibly grateful for that. For those of y'all that continue to leave kind words online or tell me in person, thank you so much. And for those of y'all that offer prayers for the podcast and for me and for God to use it however he sees fit, incredibly grateful for that. Thank you very much. I'm incredibly grateful for that. Thank you very much.

Speaker 1: 1:08

Not a lot on the homestead. I was trying to think I had a snake recently that was trying to eat the eggs. Again, I had to dispatch of that. It was a rather lively one. Trying to kill a rat snake in flip-flops not necessarily perhaps the easiest, definitely not the brightest decision. I'm sure it was quite entertaining to watch from afar. Got a little bit of work done outside trying to get back into the garden.

Speaker 1: 1:50

They did have some really interesting folks. I've talked about the Epic Times before. I'll just throw this out real quickly. One of the things that they have in each weekly paper is usually a little gardening section and they had in the last issue they had a little gardening section and they had in the last issue they had a little article about squash vine borers and if you're a gardener at all and you've dealt with those things, you know how insidious they are and I have tried all sorts of tactics and they gave me a new one. So I'll try that. But I was pretty excited about it. But great newspaper. If you get a chance to take it and you enjoy reading the newspaper, I highly recommend it.

Speaker 1: 2:30

Father, thank you for today. Thank you for you, father, and your Son, jesus Christ and your Holy Spirit. Thank you for your love, mercy, your grace and your forgiveness. Thank you for the time to record this podcast. Thank you for the people that listen to it. Be with them and their families, guide and bless them, surround them with your angels.

Speaker 1: 2:50

Protect us, father, from evil of any kind. Forgive us our sins in thought and word and deed. Draw us close to you. Help us to care for the widow and the orphan, the poor and the need. You Help us to care for the widow and the orphan, the poor and the needy. Help us to offer a cup of water to children. In your name, in the name of your Son, jesus Christ, guide our country and the countries of all those listening around the world back to you, father and your Son, jesus Christ. Give us perseverance, protect us from the devil, keep our souls safe and bring us home to heaven. Help us to trust in your promises and to know that you can do that, because you've told us that you can and that you will Forgive us our doubts and our fears and our unbelief. Father, help us to overcome it. We do believe. Watch over educators across the land that are going back. Be with them. Be with our children. Watch over our military and our law enforcement, those who work in our prisons. Guide us in all that we do. Lord, please, and God, my word's here. In your son's name, we pray Amen.

Speaker 1: 4:19

Have you made time for God today? Have you read your Bible or carved out a little piece of the day in which to do it, and have you prayed? Have you talked to God, asked for his forgiveness, told him thank you for his many blessings, prayed for those around you, yourself included, and our enemies. I struggle with that one. Are we really putting God first, or are we just claiming that we do? And if you're married, is your spouse your second priority, this person that you theoretically promised to love, nourish, cherish, respect, submit to, depending on your particular role in that marriage, whether you're the husband or the wife? Are you fulfilling those roles or are you just making excuses so you can do what you want? I had something else and I cannot. Oh, I do remember I was reading through the writings of Samuel Adams. I think it was out of volume four and I forgot to highlight this. There's so much stuff out there, folks.

Speaker 1: 5:42

I haven't said this in a while. Actually, I'm going to tell you a couple of things I haven't said in a while. One is if you're looking for somebody perfect to listen to online I'm not him. I can point you to the one guy that is actually perfect, and there's this book that he wrote, and it's a pretty important book to read. In fact, it's the most important book you'll ever read in your entire life and I can point you in that direction.

Speaker 1: 6:06

I try to each evening on the podcast. But I'm going to make some mistakes. I've already made some on this podcast. I'll make some more. Lord knows. I've made some in my life, some that are so bad I wish I could just crawl into bed and curl up and not come out again. And some of y'all know some of my deep, dark secrets and some don't, and I don't feel any need to rehash those publicly. But if you're looking for somebody perfect, you're going to have to move on from here to somebody else.

Speaker 1: 6:44

But I'll go ahead and tell you anybody that claims to be perfect outside of Jesus Christ, or anybody that claims that someone else is male or female, that any other human being in the entire history of the world has ever been perfect. They're not telling you the truth, they're lying. The telling you the truth, they're lying. So the second thing just completely, completely. Oh no, there it is. See, it came back. Thank you, lord.

Speaker 1: 7:18

The amount of information that points to us being a Christian nation is astounding folks. I mean, it's overwhelming. It really is quite impressive A feat that the left has managed and that we've gone along with it, to convince us that we were not born a Christian republic. When you go back and start to dig into our founding, before our founding, after our founding school in particular, the only support that the left would get would be from really from malevolence, and I guess maybe you can make the argument that that's partially true today. But a lot of people that I trust their opinion on say that there's a whole lot of ignorance out there, and that's certainly true. Whether that leads to the voting or whether true education would change the voting or not, I think it would. I'm very hopeful that it would and that we can change that someday. But if we were really teaching our history, the evidence that we were born a Christian Republic is overwhelming.

Speaker 1: 8:42

I was reading through Samuel Adams' writings I think it was volume four again and he was talking about education, the importance of education and virtue and following the principles of Christ, and he talks about that in a number of places and it just. I wanted to clarify something I think I talked about yesterday and then we'll get into what we're going to read from Sam Adams today. But, folks, there's a lot of people out there that seem to have this idea that every single person involved in public education is evil. There's some really bad teachers, some really bad administrators, coaches no doubt I mean some of them that are abusing children. I mean there's some really horrific ones, staff members, but there's some really good ones out there too, folks, the problem is that the system is so messed up. The days are too long, the year's too long. Lack of discipline, the lack of ability of the school districts to discipline the students. The incessant testing, particularly in subjects that have little to no relevance on the life of the majority of the students. The constant focus on athletics which we've done that, folks. We've pushed all this stuff, we've allowed it.

Speaker 1: 10:01

The values of the left that have come in the revisionist history, the lack of history, just period. We've created a system where even the really good educators and teachers, or teachers, counselors, coaches, administrators their hands are tied and it's really easy for us to sit there and look at the situation and go well, if it's so bad, they ought to leave. Okay, that's really easy to say when somebody's put 15 or 20 years of their life into a career and maybe they shouldn't have gone in it to begin with. You can make that argument because the system's been pretty jacked up for a while. But some of these people really care about kids Truly deeply.

Speaker 1: 10:50

My father told me as I was starting to lose my, the shine was coming off of the Marine Corps, because it really started to come off, folks, in the last couple decades. The left has been doing a bang-up job of destroying our military for decades, but the last couple have been pretty bad. And he said, look, you can either stay in and try and change it from the inside or you can get out and try and change it from the outside. And there's pros and cons to both. Change it from the outside and there's pros and cons to both. Well, some of these really good educators got out of education and they're trying to change it from the outside, but some stayed in and they're doing the best they can to change it from the inside. And the best thing we can do is to fix that system so that those people can actually educate. And that's a whole other discussion and I spent way too long on this.

Speaker 1: 11:47

But don't be misled. Don't think that every single person involved in public education today is horrible, because they're not. And if your solution is to completely dismantle public education period and not have public education, you won't have a republic much longer anyway, and we're already on that path, but that certainly will destroy. We have to have an educated citizenry. However that happens, it can look different, but we've got to have an educated citizenry. The fact that the reason we're in the trouble we're in today is because we don't. We have a Bible illiterate society because we haven't educated on the Bible and we have a history illiterate. That's probably not the right way to say that, but we have people that don't know our own history, and those two things are just destroying us. They're devastating us. So we're going to read.

Speaker 1: 12:41

Usually I do these proclamations of Thanksgiving in November and I'm already pretty excited about that but I found one that I don't think I've ever read before and it's by Sam Adams, so I thought I would throw it in here. It's from February of 1794, I think. Let me double check that real quick. Yeah, february 19th, and we're going to read through it. And this is by Sam Adams, by His Honor, sam Adams, lieutenant Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1794.

Speaker 1: 13:22

A proclamation for a day of public fasting, humiliation and prayer. It having been the invariable practice from time to time, when our pious and renowned ancestors took possession of this land, at the approaching season of the year to set apart a day publicly, to acknowledge an entire dependence on the Father of mercies for every needful blessing and to express sorrow and repentance for the manifold transgressions of his holy laws, and the practice being highly becoming all people, especially those who profess the Christian religion. Right, so a little bit there he's already saying this has been practiced for a long time and we're going to keep it up. We're going to have a day of public fasting, prayer, acknowledgement of our dependence upon God, the Father, jesus Christ, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Right, and the point is to express our sorrow and repentance for our sins. And this is publicly, folks. This isn't privately, this isn't in some corner closet somewhere by ourselves. This is as a state, as the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, right.

Speaker 1: 14:39

I have thought fit, by and with the advice of the council, to appoint Thursday, the 17th day of April next, to be observed throughout this commonwealth as a day of public fasting, humiliation and prayer, earnestly exhorting the ministers of religion to assemble with their respective congregations on the same day that, deeply lamenting our ingratitude to our Heavenly Father, to whom we are under all possible obligations, and our many deviations from those right and safe paths into which, as our Supreme Governor. He hath plainly directed us. We may, with one heart and voice, humbly implore His gracious and free pardon through Jesus Christ. Right so, as a people, publicly, this is the governor. This is after the Declaration, after, right, the Revolution, and after the Constitution was ratified. And he's saying hey, we're going to get together publicly as a group and we're going to pray to God, the Father of Jesus Christ, and we're going to ask him to forgive us for our sins and hope that he will help us turn back to him, at the same time humbly beseeching him mercifully to regard our lives and health so that no infectious and mortal distemper may prevail amongst us. To favor our land with alternate benefits of rain and warmth of the sun, and that our hopes of a plentiful harvest may not be disappointed by devouring insects or any other calamity. To prosper our trade and fishery and the labor of our hands. To protect our navigation from the rapacious hands of invaders and robbers on the seas and graciously to open a door of deliverance to our fellow citizens in cruel captivity in a land of barbarians. To continue, right so he's asking God to guide our schools and seminaries. God, not communism, socialism, atheism, islam, buddhism, hinduism, secularism. God, the Father of Jesus Christ To guide our schools, to guide and succeed the councils of our federal government, as well as those of the several states in the union that, under their respective constitutions, they may be led to such decisions as will establish the liberty, peace, safety and honor of our country. Again, federal government and state governments to be guided by God.

Speaker 1: 17:43

You have to be beyond cynical to assume that our founders would make proclamations like this publicly across the whole state and tell the people of that state to set aside a day of fasting and prayer asking these things and at the same time, want nothing to do with Jesus Christ in our public life, want nothing to do with Jesus Christ in our public life. You have to set your brain on a shelf to make that kind of assumption and you have to be totally dedicated to a narrative that has no historical basis in order to make that kind of statement. It doesn't make any sense. It's not logical. It's completely illogical. It doesn't make any sense. It's not logical. It's completely illogical To inspire our friends and allies, the Republic of France, with a spirit of wisdom and true religion that, relying on the strength of His almighty arm, they may still go on prosperously till their arduous conflict for a government of their own founded on the just and equal rights of men, shall be finally crowned with success, and, above all, to cause the religion of Jesus Christ and its true spirit to spread far and wide till the whole earth shall be filled with his glory. That last part may be the most important for us as Christians in America today.

Speaker 1: 19:00

There's a lot of people out there right now that claim to follow Christ, that are adding things to the Bible that aren't there, they're adding burdens to others that aren't there and they're closing the door to salvation by telling people that are trying to come to Christ well, not only do you have to come to Christ, but you have to believe in this other human being and you have to be part of our church in order to receive salvation. And if you're not part of our church and you don't do exactly what we tell you not the Bible, but what we tell you and if you don't pray to this other human being that we're telling you is sinless even though no human being is sinless other than God and Jesus Christ and if you don't pray to this person that we're telling you to right, that we're telling you is God who isn't, then you don't have salvation Right and you see Sam Adams here above all, to cause the religion of Jesus Christ in its true spirit to spread far and wide. General Christianity, folks, not any particular denomination, not Methodist, not Baptist, not Catholic, not Protestant of any kind, the general principles of Jesus Christ to spread far and wide. Again, governor, state, all the people of the Commonwealth coming together for a day of prayer and fasting to ask God, the Father of Jesus Christ, for these things, and I do earnestly commend that all unnecessary labor and recreation be suspended on the day. So don't go out and have a party and grill and all that stuff that's not necessary. Don't go do any work that you don't have to do that day, like if you've got an ox in the ditch and you've got to go pull them out or something. That's all right, but spend the day focused on this, talking to God, asking, truly asking him to do these things. How often do we do that? But our founders did. We do that, but our founders did, given at the Council Chamber in Boston the 19th day of February, in the year of our Lord, 1794, and in the 18 and consent of the council, john Avery, junior secretary. God save the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Speaker 1: 21:38

We're so messed up, folks, we can't even. We're as messed up as a football bat. We have no idea where we came from. We have no idea the price that our founders paid men and women to give us a country based on the principles of Christ, and we're just handing it away. We're rejecting God. We told him we didn't want anything to do with him about 80 years ago and then we told him we were going to start to murder our own children and offer them up as sacrifice.

Speaker 1: 22:17

You've got a democratic national convention One of the two main parties in our country that literally has a van parked outside of its convention within the last couple of weeks, ripping babies limb from limb, and they're celebrating that. And we think that there's peaceful coexistence there. Folks, we're going to have to wake up at some point. I tell you what I'm going to go ahead and shut down for today, because I'm over and I'm just getting all wound up. So God bless y'all, god bless your families. God bless your marriages. God bless America. God save us. We'll talk to y'all again real soon, folks Looking forward to it.