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. 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 and for the podcast. Thank you Very, very 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 and your Son, jesus Christ and your Holy Spirit. Thank you for your love and your mercy, your grace and your forgiveness of sins. For all your many blessings, father, the ones we admit and the ones we don't, for whatever reason. Thank you for the time to record this podcast and the people that listen to it and share it. Please be with their families. Be with them. Comfort those who are brokenhearted. Comfort those who are scared, who are alone. Help us to feel your presence, father, your peace, your joy and your comfort. Strengthen our faith. Forgive us our sins. Father, remove anything from our lives that separates us from you, that takes us away from you. Forgive us our iniquities that are stacked up over our heads. Forgive us when we go back to the same old sins time and time again. Help us to truly love your son, jesus Christ, and therefore to follow his commands, to love you with our whole heart, soul, mind and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Be with our military and our law enforcement, firefighters, ems workers. Comfort them, keep them safe, give them wisdom and courage and a strong faith. Bring them home safe to their families. Protect them from evil. And God, my words here Father, please, in your son's name, we pray Amen. Have you made time for God today? Have you made time for Jesus Christ? Have you made time to read your Bible? What a great gift, blessing privilege that is, and yet so often I rush through it. Just put a check in the box Because I have other priorities. Right, I have other things that are more important than reading the Bible. The Bible If you're married, does your spouse know it?

Do you know what your roles and responsibilities are as either a husband or a wife from Scripture? Do you know where to find them? Can you quote them? Do you act on them? Can you quote them? Do you act on them? Do you follow them? Christ tells us that if we really love him, we follow his commands. Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Right, that's the first one. The second one, the greatest, at least. Love our neighbors as ourselves. And who's our closest neighbor if we're married? Are we loving our spouse?

Verse for marriage today is from Genesis 2, verse 24. A number of places you can find this in the Bible. Therefore, shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh. We don't give enough authority. We don't give enough authority to God today. We don't give enough authority to god today. We don't give enough authority to the word cleave.

Also, folks, if you don't get up each day, if you didn't go into marriage wanting to spend, to constantly be around your spouse, interact with your spouse, touch your spouse, love your spouse, that is probably a pretty good indication that you should have gotten a business partnership or a roommate instead of a spouse. Instead of a spouse, we've become one flesh. Folks, there's no other relationship that you can do that with Not a single other relationship in all the world that you will ever have, even as I say jokingly even if you live in one of those countries around the world today that allows polygamy. You're still talking about two or three out of seven billion folks. Can you imagine the worth of a coin? If there was only one coin made a certain way out of seven billion coins, can you imagine how much that would be worth Out of seven billion coins, can you imagine how much that would be worth? And yet we have a living, breathing human being that is one out of seven billion. How do we treat them? Do we cleave to them? Are we one flesh with them?

Scripture reading for today. We're going to start with 1 Timothy 3, verses 1-16. This is a trustworthy saying. Excuse me, if someone aspires to be a church leader, he desires an honorable position. So a church leader must be a man whose life is above reproach. He must be faithful to his wife. He must exercise self-control, live wisely and have a good reputation. He must enjoy having guests in his home and he must be able to teach. He must not be a heavy drinker or be violent. He must be gentle, not quarrelsome, and not love money. He must manage his own family well, having children who respect and obey him. For if a man cannot manage his own household, how can he take care of God's church? A church leader must not be a new believer, because he might become proud and the devil would cause him to fall. Also, people outside the church must speak well of him so that he will not be disgraced and fall into the devil's trap.

In the same way, deacons must be well respected and have integrity. They must not be heavy drinkers or dishonest with money. They must be committed to the mystery of the faith now revealed and must live with a clear conscience. Before they are appointed as deacons, let them be closely examined. If they pass the test, then let them serve as deacons. In the same way, their wives must be respected and must not slander others. They must exercise self-control and be faithful in everything they do. A deacon must be faithful to his wife and he must manage his children and his household well. Those who do well as deacons will be rewarded with respect from others and will have increased confidence in their faith in Christ Jesus.

I am writing these things to you now, even though I hope to be with you soon, so that, if I am delayed, you will know how people must conduct themselves in the household of God. This is the church of the living God, which is the pillar and foundation of the truth. Without question. This is the great mystery of our faith. Christ was revealed in a human body and vindicated by the Spirit. He was seen by angels and announced to the nations. He was Psalm 88, verses 1 through 18.

O Lord, god of my salvation, I cry out to you by day. I come to you at night. Now hear my prayer, listen to my cry, for my life is full of troubles and death draws near. I am as good as dead, like a strong man with no strength left. They have left me among the dead and I lie like a strong man with no strength left. They have left me among the dead and I lie like a corpse in the grave.

I am forgotten, cut off from your care. You have thrown me into the lowest pit, into the darkest depths. Your anger weighs me down With wave after wave. You have engulfed me. You have driven my friends away by making me repulsive to them. I am in a trap, with no way of escape. My eyes are blinded by my tears Each day. I beg for your help, o Lord. I lift my hands to you for mercy. Are your wonderful deeds of any use to the dead? Do the dead rise up and praise you? Can those in the grave declare your unfailing love? Can they proclaim your faithfulness in the place of destruction? Can the darkness speak of your wonderful deeds? Can anyone in the land of forgetfulness talk about your righteousness? O Lord, I cry out to you. I will keep on pleading, day by day. O Lord, why do you reject me? Why do you turn your face from me? I have been sick and close to death since my youth. I stand helpless and desperate before your terrors. Your fierce anger has overwhelmed me. Your terrors have paralyzed me. They swirl around me like floodwaters all day long. They have engulfed me completely. You have taken away my companions and loved ones. Darkness is my closest friend. Proverbs 25, verses 20 through 22.

Singing cheerful songs to a person with a heavy heart is like taking someone's coat in cold weather or pouring vinegar in a wound. If your enemies are hungry, give them food to eat. If they are thirsty, give them water to drink. You will heap burning coals of shame on their heads and the Lord will reward you when you go back to Timothy, chapter 3, and you look at the requirements for those who aspire to be a church leader or a deacon, there's two things that you'll notice. One is the fact that, as a church leader, you have to be able to control your own home. Right, and that really applies across a bunch of fields, not just in the church. If a man can't control his own home, how is he going to lead in the church and business and academia, etc, the military, etc, etc. Right? The other, though, is you'll notice that the church leader and the deacon are lifestyles, support, encouragement, which is not a good thing. Folks, it's never a positive to encourage someone in sin, whether you're talking about adultery, abortion, feminism, abortion, feminism, lgbtq lifestyles, no-fault divorce, theft, gossip, slander, greed, covetousness, right, there's never a positive.

Medal of Honor for. Off the coast of Chile, on board the USS Ospy, june 20, 1872, risking his life, benson leaped into the sea while the ship was going at a speed of four knots and endeavored to save John K Smith, landsman of the same vessel, from drowning. Accredited to Yokohama, japan, awarded posthumously no, presented 1872, born 1842, denmark. Died August 4, 1890, boston Harbor, massachusetts. Buried Woodlawn Cemetery, chelsea, massachusetts, pi Grave 26. James Benson. That's an interesting accreditation to Yokohama, japan. There's got to be some more to that story.

The history quotes for today are actually going to come from Andrew Jackson, who was our seventh president, lawyer, congressman, us senator, judge on the Tennessee Supreme Court. Nickname was Old Hickory, major general in the Army winning the Battle of New Orleans. But before I get to that, I don't know how many of y'all are struggling with this in your own life, the lives of your friends, but this fascination of Charlie Burke has really bothered me. I said that on a previous podcast and I kind of thought it would go away. I've been around death before in my life it's not unique both in the normal passing of time and in circumstances where it seemed a life was cut short or didn't seem that way it was, and for some reason this is really bothering me. I didn't know Mr Kirk I don't even know that much about him really, although I'm learning more after his assassination but I wanted to try and read some quotes that offered a little bit of comfort to us as Christians and hopefully will draw some others toward Christ.

President Jackson wrote to Mary and Andrew Jackson Hutchings on the death of their firstborn in 1834. My dear Hutchings, I am truly happy to find that you have met the severe bereavement with that Christian meekness and submission, as was your duty. This charming babe was only given you from your Creator and benefactor. He has a right to take away and we ought humbly to submit to His will and be always ready to say Blessed be His name. We have one consolation under this severe bereavement that this babe is now in the bosom of its Savior. At another point he wrote a letter to the family of General Coffey who had died. Rely on our dear Savior. He will be father to the fatherless and husband to the widow. Trust in the mercy and goodness of Christ and always be ready to say with heartfelt resignation may the Lord's will be done.

There's a number of others that we could read from him and from other great leaders who have offered consolation to people, but I wanted to read one from June 8, 1845, just a little bit before his death, and by a little bit I mean minutes. He called his family and servants to his bedside my dear children, do not grieve for me. It is true, I am going to leave you. I am well aware of my situation. I have suffered much bodily pain, but my sufferings are, but as nothing compared with that which our blessed Redeemer endured upon the accursed cross. That all might be saved who put their trust in him. God will take care of you. For me. I am my God's, I belong to him. I go but a short time before you and I hope and trust to meet you all in heaven, both white and black.

If you have lost someone recently, or know someone that has, or if there's a loss in your life, that's, maybe it's not recent, maybe it's a while back, maybe it's somebody you don't even know, like Charlie Kirk and his family, I would offer up two things. One pray and support and encourage those who are left behind. Two, remember that as Christians we don't grieve without hope. We have hope because of Jesus Christ. We have the ultimate hope, the greatest hope there is. The only real hope there is that we are going to be reunited with those we love in heaven because of Jesus Christ, because of him alone. Nothing we can do, folks. There's absolutely nothing you can do to earn that salvation and eternal life. For me, it's a free gift that God gives. And cling to that hope and try and share that hope with others and try and lead others to obtaining that hope if they have it A little bit lighter. Note at the end If you are looking for kind of a fun, family-friendly read for your kids or grandkids, I would humbly recommend Countryside.

There's a couple books in the series. You can find it on Amazon Barnes Noble hard copy paperback e-book and, if you enjoy it, if you would leave a review, I would appreciate it. God bless you all. God bless your families, god bless your marriages, god bless America. God bless your nation. Wherever you are around the world listening, we'll talk to you all again real soon. Folks Looking forward to it.