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 to 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 and tell others about it, thank you. For those of y'all who continue to pray for me and for the podcast, thank you very much. 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 love and your mercy, your grace and your forgiveness of sins through the merit of your son Jesus Christ. Guide our steps. Help us to do your will in all things. Help us to truly love your Son Jesus Christ and therefore to follow his commands, Father. To love you with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength. To love our neighbors as ourselves. Forgive us when we fail. Forgive us, Father, when we waste the talents that you've given us. When we give up our time and energy and affection to things that don't matter. Forgive us our hypocrisy, our judgment of others. Forgive us when we don't. Forgive others in the same manner which you've forgiven us. And forgive us as a nation, Father. Forgive us for turning away from you and your son, for rejecting you and your son, for supporting all the various evils that we have supported, abortion, feminism, sexual immorality of every kind. Help us to turn back to you, Father, please. Be with those listening today, wherever they are, across the nation and around the world. Comfort them. Help them to feel your presence. Be with their families, bless their narratives, and guide us all in raising our children to know you and your son Jesus Christ. In his name we pray. And guide my words here, Father, please. In your son's name we pray. Amen. How have you spent the last 24 hours? If you went back and looked, and you could add up all the time that you spent on different things, and you made a little pie chart or a bar graph or column graph or just a table. Are you pleased with that? If you are, do your priorities line up with God? If you're not, pleased with how you spent your time. What do you need to do to adjust that today? Even if it's just something small, folks, right? And our top two priorities have to be God and then our spouse each day. Right? So the marriage verse for today is 1 Corinthians 7, verses 2 through 6. But because of immoralities, each man is to have his own wife, and each woman is to have her own husband. The husband must fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Stop depriving one another except by agreement for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer and come together again, so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. But this I say by way of concession, not of command, meaning that you don't have to not come together by agreement, right? He's giving you that option. And so often today, folks, we try and separate temptation and the devil opening the door into our marriages from these verses. We try and make them two separate things. And they're not, they're very much tied together. Alright. Bible verses, see where we left off. I think we're gonna pick up with 1 Peter 3, 8, verses 4 through 6. Finally, all of you should be of one mind. Sympathize with each other, love each other as brothers and sisters, be tenderhearted, and keep a humble attitude. Don't repay evil for evil. Don't retaliate with insults when people insult you. Instead, pay them back with a blessing. That is what God has called you to do, and He will grant you His blessing. For the Scriptures say, if you want to enjoy life and see many happy days, keep your tongue from speaking evil, and your lips from telling lies. Turn away from evil and do good. Search for peace and work to maintain it. The eyes of the Lord watch over those who do right, and his ears are open to their prayers. But the Lord turns his face against those who do evil. Now, who will want to harm you if you are eager to do good? But even if you suffer for doing what is right, God will reward you for it. So don't worry or be afraid of their threats. Instead, you must worship Christ as Lord of your life. And if someone asks about your hope as a believer, always be ready to explain it. But do this in a gentle and respectful way. Keep your conscience clear. Then if people speak against you, they will be ashamed when they see what a good life you live because you belong to Christ. Remember, it is better to suffer for doing good if that is what God wants than to suffer for doing wrong. Christ suffered for our sins once for all time. He never sinned. But he died for sinners to bring you safely home to God. He suffered physical death, but he was raised to life in the spirit. So he went and preached to the spirits in prison. Those who disobeyed God long ago, when God waited patiently while Noah was building his boat. Only eight people were saved from drowning in that terrible flood. And that water is a picture of baptism, which now saves you. Not by removing dirt from your body, but as a response to God from a clean conscience. It is effective because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Now Christ has gone to heaven. He is seated in the place of honor next to God, and all the angels and authorities and powers accept his authority. So then, since Christ suffered physical pain, you must arm yourselves with the same attitude he had and be ready to suffer too. For if you have suffered physically for Christ, you have finished with sin. You won't spend the rest of your lives chasing your own desires, but you will be anxious to do the will of God. You have had enough of the pat in the past of the evil things that godless people enjoy, their immorality, their lust, their feasting and drunkenness and wild parties, and their terrible worship of idols. Of course, your former friends are surprised when you no longer plunge into the flood of wild and destructive things they do, so they slander you. But remember that they will have to face God, who stands ready to judge everyone, both the living and the dead. That is why the good news was preached to those who are now dead. So although they were destined to die like all people, they now live forever with God in the Spirit. You have done many good things for me, Lord, just as you promised. I believe in your commands, now teach me good judgment and knowledge. I used to wander off until you disciplined me, but now I closely follow your word. You are good and do only good. Teach me your decrees. Arrogant people smear me with lies, but in truth I obey your commandments with all my heart. Their hearts are dull and stupid, but I delight in your instructions. My suffering was good for me, for it taught me to pay attention to your decrees. Your instructions are more valuable to me than millions in gold and silver. You made me, you created me. Now give me the sense to follow your commands. May all who fear you find in me a cause for joy, for I have put my hope in your word. I know, O Lord, that your regulations are fair. You disciplined me because I needed it. Now let your unfailing love comfort me just as you promised me, your servant. Surround me with your tender mercies, so I may live, for your instructions are my delight. Bring disgrace upon the arrogant people who lied about me. Meanwhile, I will concentrate on your commandments. Let me be united with all who fear you, with those who know your laws. May I be blameless in keeping your decrees, then I will never be ashamed. Blessed or Proverbs twenty-eight fourteen. Blessed are those who fear to do wrong, but the stubborn are headed for serious trouble. Verse 67, I used to wonder off until you discipline me, but now I closely follow your word. 75, I know, O Lord, that your regulations are fair. You disciplined me because I needed it. As a parent, if we're really doing a good job, if we really love our children, we discipline them. And we need to remember that about our father too. It doesn't seem very pleasant, right? But he does it because he loves us. I forget that too often. Medal of Honor for today. Ernest H. Bjorkman Ordinary Seaman, Interim 1899 through 1910, USS Leyden, U.S. Navy, january twenty first, nineteen oh three, on the rocks of Block Island, Rhode Island, USA. On board the USS Leyden, twenty one, january nineteen oh three, Bjorkman displayed heroism at the time of the wreck of that vessel. Accredited to New York, not awarded posthumously, born april twenty fifth, eighteen eighty one, Malmo, Sweden, died september sixteenth, nineteen twelve, Edgewater, Colorado, United States, buried Crown Hill Cemetery, twenty six, Tech 22, Edgewater, Colorado. Twenty-nine, thirty-nine, forty-one years old. Ernest H. Yorkman. Some of y'all probably most of y'all don't have this problem, but a lot of times when I read these, you know, you think that the Medal of Honor winners that survived they went on to lead this wonderful, charming life for the rest of their life. And as we can see from these citations, often that's that's not the case. In this case, the guy's life was obviously cut short if he died at age 41. I don't I don't know why, but you kind of think sometimes that those people ought to be untouchable, right? All right. So we're gonna get back into for a couple more days this article by Miranda Devine, Lawlessness as a Choice in premise, volume 54, number 10. So this is a couple of quotes from her. The decriminalization of pot and public urination has only turbocharged the sense of chaos and disorder in blue cities. It marks a rejection of the fabulous broken windows theory that was the key to turning New York City around under Giuliani. The theory holds that addressing minor crimes such as vandalism and public intoxication creates an atmosphere of order and lawfulness. By contrast, the policy of ignoring so-called minor crimes encourages disorder and lawlessness. So a few Bible verses that I think go along with this. Isaiah 5.20, woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness, who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. You look at Proverbs 29 2 When the righteous increase the people rejoice, but when a wicked man rules, people groan. Proverbs 28 5, evil men do not understand justice, but those who seek the Lord understand all things. Proverbs 24 24. He who says to the wicked, You are righteous, peoples will curse him, nations will abore him. And then Proverbs 17, 15, He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous, both of them alike, are an abomination to the Lord. Anytime that we do these things, folks, any time that we approve of crimes and condemn those who actually do the right thing, we're just setting ourselves up for heartache. And one of the things you hear often is this decriminalization of pot, right? The people that really push for that either haven't been around the tragedies that marijuana, weed, pot, whatever you want to call it, often cause, or they've been around them, but they just selfishly want the ability to do what they want to do regardless. And then even if we pretend for a minute, what so many people that argue for that, that pot isn't any worse than alcohol, isn't alcohol bad enough? Like, do we really want to add something else equally bad out there? Another sentence here that I agree with a lot of this by Ms. Divine, but this one I don't. She says people don't knowingly or willingly vote for their quality of life to deteriorate. But they do, folks, they have been. This is not just a trend of voters on the left from the last election cycle or even the last three or four election cycles. You can go all the way back to Teddy Kennedy. And before that, the left has been voting this direction for decades, folks, and we just don't want to see it on the conservative Christian side for some reason. But it is a consistent trend of voting for this chaos, right? So you look at another of her quotes. It's common sense that law and order is an 80-20 issue. You don't need a pollster to say so, although, according to a recent AP NROC poll, 81% of Americans across the political persuasions say crime is a major problem. Okay, but our actions don't line up with that. Because a huge chunk, again, of the population continue to vote for the left. Right? That's the action. That's the vote. And the actions are what matter.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.

In a world not defined by Jasmine Crockett, it makes no sense that progressives would remain stubbornly on the wrong side of their own voters. They're not, folks. This is the hard truth that a lot of us are going to have to get our heads wrapped around. The left, the voters of the left, they're not on a different side than these progressive leaders. They're on the same side, and they have been for decades. And that's just something that we just don't want to admit for whatever reason. But it is. And we're going to talk about this some more, and we're going to get into some more historical quotes. I know we didn't get into any today, but we will hoax. But this idea of fringe or extreme left, it's just simply not true. When you look at actions over decades, over the last century for leftism, for the bucket of isms, as we say, socialism, communism, Nazism, fascism, leftism, and for centuries with Islam, this idea of fringe or extreme, it's just not there. It's very mainstream, these evil actions. All right, we're going to get into it some more. We'll talk about it some more on the next podcast. If you're looking for a family-friendly middle grade read, I would humbly recommend Countryside. It's kind of along the lines of Narnia, The Hobbit, Harry Potter, that kind of stuff. And if you enjoy it, there's two books out in the series right now, working on the third one. If you would leave a review, I would greatly appreciate that. And then if you feel like you're getting something out of the podcast and you can leave two or three or four dollars a month, uh there's a donation page on the Buzzstrout website for the podcast. 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, the power, and the glory forever and ever. Amen. God bless y'all. God bless your marriages, God bless your families. God bless America, God bless your nation, wherever you are, around the world, folks. We'll talk to y'all again real soon. Looking forward to it.