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. 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 grateful for your prayers. Father, thank you for today. Thank you for this day that you have made. Thank you for all the many blessings you bestow upon us. The ones we admit and the ones we don't, for whatever reason. Thank you most of all for your son, Jesus Christ. Thank you for your promise. Among so many others. That if we confess Jesus Christ as the Son of God and that you raised him from the dead and believe in our hearts that we have eternal life with you, Father. Help us to cling to those promises. Help us to look to you when everything around us in the world or even in our own lives is chaotic and we don't understand. Be with our military and our law enforcement. Firefighters, our EMS. Protect them as they go out to protect us. Be with their families. Comfort them, protect them. Be in particular these days with our ICE agents. Protect them, keep them safe. Defeat those who are intent on evil. Father. And live or die help us to remember that we belong to you and to your son Jesus Christ. In your son's name we pray. Amen. How have you spent the last 24 hours? So are you pleased with that? What do you claim your priorities are? Does your time and energy line up with what you claim? Because that's that's the real story, folks. We can say whatever we want. We can say that God's a priority, but if we don't spend a little bit of time with him each day, he's not. We can claim all we want, that we love our spouse, that we're a good spouse, right? But if we don't follow God's roles and responsibilities for us in marriage, we're not. Marriage verse for today goes all the way back to Genesis 2.24, and it's echoed in the number of other places in the New Testament. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. I think a lot of times today, well, no. I'll say I know a lot of times today, because you can see it in the marriages. We're much more concerned with becoming one flesh with our phone or our TV or sports than we are our spouse. And then we wonder why our marriage is in shambles. It's really not hard, folks, to figure out. It's just a matter again if we really want to dig that deep and look that hard. Bible verse is scripture for today. 1 Peter 4 7 through 5 14. The end of the world is coming soon. Read that one more time. The end of the world is coming soon. Therefore be earnest and disciplined in your prayers. Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins. Cheerfully share your home with those who need a meal or a place to stay. God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another. Do you have the gift of speaking? Then speak as though God Himself were speaking through you. Do you have the gift of helping others? Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies. Then everything you do will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ, all glory and power to him forever and ever. Amen. Dear friends, don't be surprised at the fiery trials you are going through, as if something strange were happening to you. Instead, be very glad for these trials make you partners with Christ in his suffering, so that you will have the wonderful joy of seeing his glory when it is revealed to all the world. If you are insulted because you bear the name of Christ, you will be blessed, for the glorious Spirit of God rests upon him, upon you. If you suffer, however, it must not be for murder, stealing, making trouble or prying into other people's affairs. But it is no shame to suffer for being a Christian. Praise God for the privilege of being called by his name. For the time has come for judgment, and it must begin with God's household. And if judgment begins with us, what terrible fate awaits those who have never obeyed God's good news? And also, if the righteous are barely saved, what will happen to godless sinners? So if you are suffering in a manner that pleases God, keep on doing what is right, and trust your lives to the God who created you, for he will never fail you. And now a word to you who are elders in the churches. I too am an elder and a witness to the sufferings of Christ, and I too will share in his glory when he is revealed to the whole world. As a fellow elder I appeal to you. Care for the flock that God has entrusted to you. Watch over it willingly, not grudgingly, not for what you will get out of it, but because you are eager to serve God. Don't lord it over the people assigned to your care, but lead them by your own good example. And when the great shepherd appears, you will receive a crown of never ending glory and honor. In the same way, you who are younger must accept the authority of the elders, and all of you dress yourselves in humility as you relate to one another. For God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up and honor. Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you. Stay alert. Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Stand firm against him and be strong in your faith. Remember that your family of believers all over the world is going through the same kind of suffering you are. In his kindness God called you to share in his eternal glory by means of Christ Jesus. So after you have suffered a little while, he will restore, support, and strengthen you, and he will place you on a firm foundation. All power to him forever. Amen. I have written and sent this short letter to you with the help of Silas, whom I commend to you as a faithful brother. My purpose in writing is to encourage you and to assure you that what you are experiencing is truly part of God's grace for you. Stand firm in this grace. Your sister church here in Babylon sends you greetings, and so does my son Mark greet each other with a kiss of love. Peace be with all of you who are in Christ. I am worn out waiting for your rescue, but I have put my hope in your word. My eyes are straining to see your promises come true. When will you comfort me? I am shriveled like a wineskin in the smoke, but I have not forgot to obey your decrees. How long must I wait? When will you punish those who persecute me? These arrogant people who hate your instructions have dug deep pits to trap me. All your commands are trustworthy. Protect me from those who hunt me down without cause. They almost finished me off, but I refused to abandon your commandments, and your unfailing love spare my life. Then I can continue to obey your laws. Your eternal word, O Lord, stands firm in heaven. Your faithfulness extends to every generation as enduring as the earth you created. Your regulations remain true to this day, for everything serves your plans. If your instructions hadn't sustained me with joy, I would have died in my misery. I will never forget your commandments, for by them you give me life. I am yours, rescue me, for I have worked hard at obeying your commandments. Though the wicked hide among along the way to kill me, I will quietly keep my mind on your laws. Even perfection has its limits, but your commands have no limit. Proverbs twenty eight verses fifteen and sixteen. A wicked ruler is as dangerous to the poor as a roaring lion or an attacking bear. A ruler with no understanding will oppress his people, but one who hates corruption will have a long life. There's some really good stuff back in Peter four and five. And I think maybe we'll just come back and read it again on the next podcast. We'll see. Medal of Honor for today is I'm getting there. John C. Charles, John Charles Black, Lieutenant Colonel, highest rank, Revit, Brigadier General, U.S. Civil War, 37th Illinois Infantry, U.S. Army, December 7th, 1862, Prairie Grove, Arkansas, USA. Gallantly charged the position of the enemy at the head of his regiment. After two other regiments had been repulsed and driven down the hill and captured a battery, was severely wounded. Accredited to Danville, Vermilion County, Illinois, not awarded posthumously. Presented october thirty first, eighteen ninety-three, born january twenty seventh, eighteen thirty nine, Lexington, Holmes County, Mississippi, United States, died august seventeenth, nineteen fifteen, Chicago, Illinois. Buried Spring Hill Cemetery, twelve Tac 54, Danville, Illinois. John Charles Black. Another name to add to the list that we ought to remember more than we do. So many athletes and singers, songwriters, actors, actresses. We're going to get back into this article by Miranda Devine. Lawlessness is a choice. So there's a pretty good section in here, kind of in the middle, talking about some of the responses that we've gotten out of Trump sending, President Trump sending the National Guard into different cities, particularly D.C., talking about the fact that there were 1,528 arrests, 156 illegal guns, C's. Half of the arrests were illegal immigrants, many with violent convictions of rape, child molestation, assault, robbery with a deadlick weapon. There's a lot of good stuff in here, folks. But the overall comment is still. And it just makes sense, folks, that we put all this money into welfare, into all these wasteful programs. And then we wonder why our education system, for example, is a mess. Why our law enforcement, firefighters, EMFs, why they're overwhelmed. It's not hard. There's one line in here, in this article by Ms. Divine, in this little part. The hostility to law and order runs deep in a party that has made defunding the police an article of faith. You have to understand, again, folks, it's not just the party leaders. The citizens that you know in your community, your neighbors, your friends, your family, your coworkers, they've been voting for this for decades. They've been moving this direction on the left. This is not fringe, it's not extreme, whether you're talking about the left or Islam. It's mainstream for people that follow those ideologies. And we've got to come wake up to that reality. A couple more quotes in here from Miss Devine. She's actually quoting President Trump responding to a question, sure. He was asked if he would send the National Guard into Republican-controlled cities. Sure, but there aren't that many of them. If you look at the top 25 cities for crime, just about every one of those cities is run by Democrats. A 2022 report by the Heritage Foundation, the Blue City Murder Problem, found that 27 of the top 30 cities with the highest homicide rates were run by Democrats. And then the quote after these two is now inexplicably, New York City is set to elect far-left mayor Zoran Mamdani. I don't even know if that's how you say it, who wants to decriminalize misdemeanors, divert money from cops to social workers, Democratic Socialists of America, that's the party name. Decriminalize all drugs, let illegal immigrants vote and hold elected office, deal with 26-year-old criminals as youth offenders. These are all things that were part of that platform of the Democratic Socialists of America when he ran on that and was elected to the New York Assembly in 2021. He also plans to make New York a double sanctuary city for illegal aliens and transgenderism, mirroring some efforts in Minnesota by Governor Tim Waltz and Minneapolis by Mayor Jacob Bray. So the thing here, folks, is the connection between the left and Islam. And this is only inexplicable again if you believe in that the people pushing for this are fringe or extreme, that they're on the outside, right? It's not inexplicable if you understand that the evil in those ideologies is mainstream. And it has, we're going to come back and read a quote from the Tripoli ambassador that we've read a number of times on this podcast, on the next podcast, talking uh the mentality hasn't changed, folks, for centuries for Islam and for the last century for the left. It's the same mentality. I want to finish up here with a quote by Andrew Jackson. It's uh a few sentences, so forgive me. This is part of his farewell address by President Andrew Jackson. But you must remember, my fellow citizens, that eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty, and you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing. You have no longer any cause to fear danger from abroad. Your strength and power are well known throughout the civilized world, as well as the high and gallant bearing of your sons. It is from within, among yourselves, from cupidity, from corruption, from disappointed ambition and inordinate thirst for power that factions will be formed and liberty endangered. It is against such designs, whatever disguise the actors may assume, that you have especially to guard yourselves. You have the highest of human trusts committed to your care. Providence has showered on this favored land blessings without number, and has chosen you as the guardians of freedom to preserve it for the benefit of the human race. May he who holds in his hands the destinies of nations make you worthy of the favors he has bestowed and enable you with pure hearts and pure hands and sleepless vigilance to guard and defend to the end of time the great charge he has committed to your keeping. The danger, folks, today is from citizens who follow the bucket of isms and Islam. And then more than those two, the danger is from priceless conservatism and people who want to try and separate God and Jesus Christ out of the nation, but who claim to be conservatives, patriots, etc. That's our danger today, folks. That's the greatest danger by far, far more than Russia or China or North Korea or Iran or external Islam. If you, on a little happier note, perhaps, if you're looking for a family, fun, middle grade read, kind of along the lines of Narnia The Hobbit, uh if you would check out Countryside, I would appreciate it. There's two books in the series so far working on the third one. And if you enjoy it, if you'd leave a review somewhere, I would greatly appreciate that. And if you feel like you can spare three or four or five dollars a month and you're getting something out of the podcast, there is a website on the Buzz Sprout Podcast website where you can set up a donation each month for three or four or five bucks. 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. But thyness, the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever and ever.

Amen.

God bless y'all. God bless your families, God bless your marriages, God bless America, God bless your nation wherever you are around the world. Listen, folks. We'll talk to you all again real soon. Looking forward to it.