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. I sure do appreciate y'all joining me, giving me a little bit of your time, a little piece of your day. I will try and use it wisely. For those of y'all that continue to share the podcast and tell others about it, thank you so much. For those of y'all that continue to leave me words of encouragement, excuse me, thank y'all so much, whether it's in person or online. And for those of y'all that continue to pray for the podcast and for me, thank you again very much.

Homestead not a lot. There's definitely water Hanging in the air. My father-in-law was down recently looking at the weather and said the humidity was 100%. It's one of those days where you can walk outside and the mist is so thick that you can't see across the pasture and you can feel the water just kind of collecting on your skin as you walk. Not a whole lot else.

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, 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 them, bless them, surround them with your angels. Protect us, lord, from evil of any kind. Bring us home to you and your timing. Help us to trust you, to lean on you, not on our own understanding. Help us to acknowledge you in all our ways. Guide our paths. Help us to follow the commands of your son, jesus Christ, to love you with our whole heart, mind, soul and strength, to love our neighbors as ourselves. Guide our leaders. Give them a strong faith. Give them wisdom and courage. Help us to elect men who rule in fear of you. Give us the words to say, lord, when we need to say them. Guide our steps. Forgive us our sins. Be with those who are alone, who are hurting, who are scared. Be with children who are alone and hurting and scared. Comfort them. And, god, my words are for the place In your son's name. We pray Amen.

Have you read the Bible? Have you spent a little time with God? Are you planning your day around God? Are you trying to cram God in around the edges of your day? Is he really our first priority, your first priority, or is it something that we just say? And if we're married, are you making time for your spouse first each day, second only to God? Are you planning your day around them, this person that's supposed to be the most important person on earth to you, and really folks, what do you have to do that's more important than God and your spouse each day? You ought to really try and answer that question honestly for yourself. Answer that question honestly for yourself. If you, whatever that answer is, if there's things that you really think are more important, then go ahead and think about that and realize what that means.

There's a story that has come out within the last week or so. I think it came out about a week ago. It's not uncommon, sadly, but they recovered the bodies of some more Israelis. I think it was six of them, maybe six, eight people I don't remember how many folks. You can look it up if you aren't already aware of it. I think it was six of them, maybe six, eight people I don't remember how many folks you can look it up if you aren't already aware of it and there's a lot of people that at least claimed to be really shocked, and the thing that's shocking to me is that we're shocked.

Our very first war as a nation was against Muslims. Not because we started it, not because we had any hostility toward the Muslims. That was the whole point of the Treaty of Tripoli. By the way, that line by John Adams that the left loves to throw around, that we're not in any sense a Christian nation. They didn't even take a whole sentence, right. They just take a few words out of one sentence, out of one paragraph, out of the entire treaty, and what it meant is we're not like an old world Christian nation that's going to go to war with you simply because you're Muslims. We don't have any fight with you just because of that. We hope that you turn to the Lord. But we're a Christian nation in the true sense of the nation that we try and follow the principles of Christ.

But since the very beginning of our nation and long before that, other people have had to deal with the followers of this particular religion. And the actions are consistent the actions of Hamas on October the 7th and Israel of last year. Those are the actions of good Muslims doing what they're taught to do, and they're not fringe folks. It's not like the far left, the fringe left, the extremists, the terrorists, the crazies. It's mainstream, if not in action then in desired outcome. And this is true of Islam and it's also true of the left.

And it's just shocking that we continue to think that there's some kind of point, this vain kind of illusion or fantasy, where we can all sing Kumbaya together and live together in peace, and they can be in their house murdering and raping and pillaging and we can be in our house right next door not doing that and we're never going to have any crossover, we're not going to have any problems there. You know, you can have the house next door where all the abortions take place and they murder children and sacrifice children, and then you can have your house right next door where all the abortions take place and they're murdered children and sacrifice children, and then you can have your house right next door where none of that happens and it's never going to cross over and we're going to be just fine. And I think for a lot of Christians we forget multiple times in the Bible where God tells us to hate what's evil, and that's the word he uses. Folks hate To hate evil, to cling to what's good. We get confused between praying for the person, the individual and coexisting and condoning the ideology.

We're going to get into the Constitution of Vermont, july 8, 1777. There was another constitution in Vermont a few years later. Get the date on that July 4, 1786. So about ten years apart, a little less 1786. So about 10 years apart, a little less. But the paragraphs that I'm going to read today, as far as I can tell, are pretty similar. Maybe not exactly the same, but I'm going to go with the first one, just because that's right around the beginning of the Revolution, after the Declaration obviously. And we're going to read a few sections. Let's see if I can find there's the first one.

This is under the section titled A Declaration of the Rights of the Inhabitants of the State of Vermont. This is section or article three that all men have a natural excuse me, an unalienable right to worship Almighty God, all capitalized According to the dictates of their own conscience and understanding, regulated by the word of God, and that no man ought or of right can be compelled to attend any religious worship or erect or support any place of worship or maintain any minister contrary to the dictates of his conscience. Nor can any man who professes the Protestant religion be justly deprived or abridged of any civil right as a citizen on account of his religious sentiment or peculiar mode of religious worship, and that no authority can or ought to be vested in or assumed by any power whatsoever that shall in any case interfere with or in any manner control the rights of conscience in the free exercise of religious worship. Nevertheless, every sect or denomination of people ought to observe the Sabbath or the Lord's Day and keep up and support some sort of religious worship which to them shall seem most agreeable to the revealed will of God. That's a great section here, because it really exemplifies the general, almost universal according to Justice Joseph's story sentiment of the founding generation, not just the high and mighties, but all the people, and that is what we think of.

Religious freedom today means that you can do whatever you want, worship whoever you want, whenever you want, however you want. It can be the one true God. It can be some false God, allah, buddha, hindu. It can be Satan. It can be Mother Nature, it can be a tree, if you want to worship a tree, or a goat, or a sheep or a rock or some symbol or science, if you want to worship science or science, if you want to worship science, or the state if you want to worship the state, and that's not at all what our founders intended, and you can see that in this article here.

What they didn't want is they didn't want a particularly Catholic or Orthodoxy, but any state religion, they wouldn't have cared. They didn't want the Baptists or the Methodists or the Church of Christ being in a position to force other people to support their particular denomination, to support their ministers, their buildings, right. But they wanted and expected, really, right, you see this? People ought to, you don't have to, but you really should observe the Sabbath, which is God, the Father of Jesus Christ, the Son and the Holy Spirit, right, it's not any other false religion. And so, when you look back at this founding generation, what they were trying to do is they were trying to prevent Catholic Church, orthodoxy, baptist, methodist, whatever from combining with the state and then being able to force Christians to support some denomination that they didn't belong to, to pay for the ministers, to pay for the buildings, right. And then, if they didn't, that there would then be some penalty, prison, torture, confiscation of property, execution, even. These were all things that occurred that the church sanctioned through the state in the centuries previous to this in Europe, and they didn't want that. But they were not at all saying that every single type of religion had to be accounted for in public life by the state. They were specifically saying they were outlining these freedoms particularly for Christians.

And again and again our founders understood two sides of the coin. One you can't force a man to any faith or to no faith. But two the other side of that is if we wanted our republic to function, if we want liberty to exist for future generations, we have to have the principles of Christ involved in our public life. That has to be the foundation for our education, our institutions, our law enforcement, our military, our firefighters right. All of the alphabet soup organizations that we have, our courts, our laws, our constitutions, right? We've had a number of presidents that have talked about that. If we take the principles of Christ out of all these places, what do you have left that binds society together? Nothing. I think that was Garfield, I can't remember Again.

Constitution of Vermont, 1777. People ought to observe the Sabbath, the Lord's Day, and keep up and support some sort of religious worship which to them shall seem the most agreeable to the revealed will of God Somewhere. Yeah, all men have a natural and unalienable right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own conscience and understanding, regulated by the Word of God, by the Bible. Throw that little part in for the number of Christians that, shockingly, today seem to think that it would be okay to take the Bible away from other Christians. Tell you what? That would just absolutely infuriate our founding generation, considering that was basically why the pilgrims and so many of our early founders came, so that they could read the Bible without threat from the church or the state.

This is section six under chapter two, plan or frame of government Interesting. Section five doesn't have anything to do with the main topic, but I guess it kind of does. Their colonels of militia and all commissioned officers under that rank, in such manner and as often as by the said laws, shall be directed. Section six every man of the full age of twenty-one years, having resided in this state for the space of one whole year next, before the election of representatives, free man of this state. I state your name solemnly, swear by the ever-living God or affirm in the presence of Almighty God that whenever I am called to give any vote or suffrage touching any matter that concerns the state of Vermont, I will do it. So as in arty conscience, I shall judge with roost conduct, in the best good of the same and established by the constitution, without fear or favor of any man.

Not sure I read that. All right, but the point is that you had to live in the state for a year, which is again something we talked about the other day. There ought to be a requirement, even if you move from one state to another, one community to another. There ought to be a time that you have to reside there before you can vote. But the other is that swear by the ever-living God or affirm in the presence of Almighty God and I can tell you right now we're not going to get through or affirm in the presence of Almighty God, right, and I can tell you right now we're not going to get through all of this in Vermont. So we'll come back to it. There's a couple other sections I want to go through, but one of these.

There's a number of places where there's an oath or affirmation of allegiance required of officers, judicial, executive, military in the state, and each one starts off with I do solemnly swear by the ever-living God or affirm in the presence of Almighty God. Obviously, almighty God, a reference there to God, the Father, jesus Christ, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and this was a Christian nation. And so you have to be pretty cynical to assume that they would require, as the most important part, the first part of these oaths of affirmation, that they were going to swear by God, but then they didn't want anything to do with God and Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit and our constitutions, our laws, our institutions, our military courts. You really kind of have to put your brain on a shelf to twist it that much. It just won't fly. Just another little piece of evidence, another tool you can add to your toolbox the Constitution of the State of Vermont, 1777.

A number of places where they show the importance of God as primary to our young republic. And the reason we're falling apart today in our older republic is because we're ignoring that. God bless y'all, god bless your marriages, god bless your families. God bless America. We'll talk to y'all again real soon, folks, looking forward to it.