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, whatever part of the day you're in. Sure do appreciate y'all joining me, giving me a little bit of your time and 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 so much. For those of y'all who continue to pray for me and for the podcast, thank you. Very, very grateful for your prayers. Need them and want them. Father, thank you for today. 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 sin. Through the merit of your son, Jesus Christ. Forgive us our sins, Father, the ones we admit and the ones we don't, and the ones we go back to time and time again. Forgive us our pride and our greed, our selfishness, our judgment of others. Rash words and actions, sexual immorality, lust, covetousness, gossip, slander. Forgive us for not forgiving others as you have forgiven us. Thank you for those who listen to the podcast, Father. Please be with them and their families. Bless them. Surround them with your angels. Protect them from evil of any kind. Guide their thoughts and their words and their actions. Help us to do your will in all things, Father. Each day. Help us to truly love your Son Jesus Christ. To follow his commands, to love you with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Be with those who are brokenhearted. Father, draw close to them. Draw them close to you. Help them to feel your presence. Walk beside them. Surround them with your angels. Be with those who are injured, heal their bodies. Be with those who are sick, Father. Be with those who have cancer. Who have other diseases, Father? Heal their bodies. And God, my words here. Please. Your son's name we pray. Amen. Well, how did y'all spend your last 24 hours? What did you do? Are you pleased? And if if you're not pleased and you haven't been pleased, are you making progress? If you're not spending time with God, did you at least read the Bible for three or four minutes or pray for three or four minutes? Start somewhere that's achievable, folks. Don't for example, if you haven't read the Bible in ten or fifteen years or ever, don't start with an hour and a half a day. Right? It's it's just like anything else. You gotta work your way up. And if you're married, right? Are you pleased with your conduct as a husband or a wife over the last 24 hours? How much time did you give to social media? How much time did you give to TV, Netflix, Amazon, Hulu? How much time did you give to sports? On any of those, really anything, folks, but those three things in particular, talking about social media or TV or sports. If you look up and you've given an hour and a half, two hours, three hours to one of those things, and you claim you don't have time and energy to love your spouse every day, multiple times a day, I mean you might be kidding some people. You're certainly kidding yourself, but it's not true. Bible verse for marriage, Proverbs 5, verses 18 and 19. Let your fountain be blessed and rejoice in the wife of your youth. As a loving hind and a graceful doe, let her breast satisfy you at all times, be exhilarated always with her love. Right, so when you read that, the husband obviously has a responsibility to be satisfied by his wife and her love each day, but the wife also, it's impossible to be satisfied if satisfaction isn't offered. Right. So it's a two-way street there, folks. All right, and then Bible verses for today. I think James chapter four, verses one through seventeen. What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don't they come from the evil desires at war within you? You want what you don't have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can't get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don't have what you want because you don't ask God for it. And even when you ask, you don't get it because your motives are all wrong. You want only what will give you pleasure. You adulterers, don't you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again, if you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God. Do you think the scriptures have no meaning? They say that God is passionate, that the Spirit He has placed within us should be faithful to Him. And He gives grace generously, as the Scriptures say. God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. So humble yourselves before God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world. Let there be tears for what you have done, let there be sorrow and deep grief, let there be sadness instead of laughter, and gloom instead of joy. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up in honor. Don't speak evil against each other, dear brothers and sisters. If you criticize and judge each other, then you are criticizing and judging God's law. But your job is to obey the law, not to judge whether it applies to you. God alone who gave the law is the judge. He alone has the power to save or to destroy. So what right do you have to judge your neighbor? Look here, you who say, today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit. How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog. It's here a little while, and then it's gone. What you ought to say is, if the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that. Otherwise you are boasting about your own pretentious plans, and all such boasting is evil. Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it. Psalm one eighteen verses nineteen through twenty nine. Open for me the gates for the righteous enter, and I will go in and thank the Lord. These gates lead to the presence of the Lord, and the godly enter there. I thank you for answering my prayer and giving me victory. The stone that the builders rejected has now become the cornerstone. This is the Lord's doing and it is wonderful to see. This is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it. Please, Lord, please save us. Please, Lord, please give us success. Bless the one who comes in the name of the Lord. We bless you from the house of the Lord. The Lord is God shining upon us. Take the sacrifice and bind it with cords on the altar. You are my God, and I will praise you. You are my God, and I will exalt you. Give thanks to the Lord for He is good. His faithful love endures forever. Proverbs twenty eight verses three through five. A poor person who oppresses the poor is like a pounding rain that destroys the crops. To reject the law is to praise the wicked. To obey the law is to fight them. Evil people don't understand justice, but those who follow the Lord understand completely. How often do we not have from God because we don't ask? And then when you're going back to James chapter four, verses, well, verse four. And then again, verse eight. Talking, excuse me, about loyalty to God versus loyalty to the world. We can't have it both ways, folks. This is true just pretty much in every aspect of our lives. You can't want to be in shape and sit there and eat Oreos and Cheetos and drink Coke all day. You can't want to have a great marriage, but give all your time and energy and affection to things other than your spouse each day. You can't want to have a great relationship with God, but also want the world to have a great opinion of you at the same time. You have to choose at some point, folks. We all do. We have to choose which way we're going to go. And a lot of times we like to put it off because we think we can make that decision tomorrow, and then all of a sudden we look up and we've gone past the point of being able to make that decision anymore. We've broken some relationship or we've done something and we can't go back, can't turn the clock back, and we've missed that opportunity. Medal of Honor for today. Charles Francis Bishop, Quartermaster, Second Class, Highest Rank Chief Quartermaster, Conflict, Mexican Campaign, Veracruz, USS Florida, US Navy, april twenty first, nineteen fourteen, Veracruz, Mexico. On board the USS Florida for extraordinary heroism in the line of his profession during the seizure of Veracruz, Mexico, twenty one, april nineteen fourteen. Credited to Pennsylvania, not awarded posthumously, presented january sixth, nineteen fifteen by Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels on deck of the USS Florida at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Brooklyn, New York. Born august second, eighteen eighty eight, Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, died february first, nineteen fifty four, buried Fort Rose Cranes National Cemetery, Zero Tac four five, six two, San Diego, California. This is a little bit of additional information. General Order number one hundred one dated June 15th, 1914. He was in the signal squad with three other men, Fred J. Schneppel Schneppel, James A. Walsh, and Charles L. Nordick Nordzik under Ensign MacDonald. They were stationed on the roof of the terminal hotel from 11 30 AM April 21st till sunset and returned there at daylight on the 22nd. On this roof and near them, a Marine was killed, an electrician third class was seriously wounded, and one member of the party, Nordzik, was wounded. Notwithstanding the constant fire to which they were subjected in their unusually exposed position, they were not diverted from their extremely important duty of keeping unbroken and efficient communication by signals with the USS Prairie. Charles Francis Bishop. Mexican campaign. July 4th, 1821. The highest glory of the American Revolution was this. It connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity. From the day of the Declaration, they, the American people, were bound by the laws of God, which they all, and by the laws of the gospel, which they nearly all acknowledge as the rules of their conduct. July 4th, 1837, celebrating the 61st anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence at the town of Newberry Fort. Why is it that next to the birthday of the Savior of the world, your most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day? Is it not that in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior? That it forms a leading event in the progress of the gospel dispensation? Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer's mission upon earth? That it laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity and gave the world the first irrevocable pledge of the fulfillment of the prophecies announced directly from heaven at the birth of the Savior and predicted by the greatest of the Hebrew prophets 600 years before. I think I know most of the reason a couple of these quotes have been bouncing around in my head is because we we still, a lot of us really don't understand. And I say that with confidence because if we did understand, our actions would change, right? I know I go back to marriage a lot, and I think because Christ wanted that relationship to reflect his relationship with the church. But for example, if you tell your spouse you really love them, but you don't show them each day, then you really don't. If you tell your kids you really love them, but you don't show them each day, you really don't. We don't understand that without God and Jesus Christ in America, America as a republic that produces liberty can't exist. And it's it's funny because the, maybe not funny, but the Bible verses from James today talking about not being able to be friends with God and the world, we have this desire or this thought that we can peacefully coexist in a nation built on the principles of Christ with people that reject those principles, reject Christ, reject liberty, and yet somehow we're still going to be able to have liberty, right? The two major enemies to that internally today are followers of the left and followers of Islam. And it's consistence, without exception, across the world throughout history. Neither of those, and when I say leftism, folks, I always throw it in that bucket of isms, right? Socialism, communism, Nazism, fascism, leftism. Anyway, and Islam goes hand in glove with all of those. The idea that we can peacefully coexist with those people who reject the principles of Christ and still maintain liberty in America, it just doesn't fit. And you see John Quincy Adams talking here about the fact that that indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government, the principles of Christianity, that at the founding, all of our people were bound by the laws of God, and nearly all of them, the gospel of Jesus Christ. If we really want folks to save America, there's nothing better that we can do to share the gospel. If y'all are looking for a family fun middle grade read, I would humbly recommend Countryside, kind of along the lines of Narnia or Hobbit, Harry Potter, something like that. And if you enjoy it, if you would leave a review online, I would appreciate it. They help immensely. And if you feel like you have three or four or five dollars each month that you can spare for the podcast, if you're enjoying it and getting something out of it, I would greatly appreciate that too. There's a website on the Buzz Sprout website for the podcast where you can do that. God bless y'all. Ah. 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 of power and the glory forever and ever. Amen. God bless y'all. God bless your families, your marriages, God bless America. God bless your nation, wherever you are around the world. Listen, we'll talk to y'all again real soon, folks. Looking forward to it.