Hey folks, this is Jesse Cope, back with another episode of the American Soul Podcast. Hope y'all are doing well wherever you all are, whatever part of the day you're in. I 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 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, 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 sins. For the sake of your son Jesus Christ alone, Father. Thank you for the time to record this podcast. Thank you for the people that listen to it and share it. Please be with them and their families. Help us to do your will, Father, above all else. Be with those who are hurting and alone. Be with those around the world who are persecuted for the sake of your son Jesus Christ. Who are tortured, imprisoned, killed, and everything else, Father. Help us to comfort them, support them, encourage them in any way that we can. God, our steps, please. Help us to turn back to you as a people, Father. Help us to draw others to you. To show them a little bit of your son Jesus Christ. Forgive us when we fail. Be with our leaders. Both in the pulpit and in the state. Give them wisdom and courage and a strong faith. Help them to rule and fear of you. Be with our educators across the nation. Administrators, counselors, teachers, coaches, staff, parents at home. Help us to teach our children your commandments and your statutes. Bless the marriages of those who are married, Father. Help us to exemplify the relationship between Christ and the church to those around us. And help us to love you with all that we are and love our neighbors as ourselves. And please God, no words, our Father. Your Son's name we pray. Amen. How have you spent the last 24 hours? Are you pleased with it? Does it line up with God more importantly? Are your priorities his priorities? There's no guarantee, folks, that comes along with following Jesus Christ. For an easy life. In fact, quite the opposite. Jesus tells us that there will be suffering, and that takes many different forms. But there's eternal treasure, eternal glory. A crown that lasts forever. If we will cling to Christ, turn to him. Folks. Things like that quote from John Adams, I understand more the older I get. It was something along the lines of the longer I live, the more I read. The more I understand, the less I know. I think I I've got that close. But one thing I do know, the only path to God, to eternal life is through Jesus Christ alone. Marriage verse or verses for today. Titus two. As for you, Titus, promote the kind of living that reflects wholesome teaching. Teach the older men to exercise self control, to be worthy of respect, and to live wisely. They must have sound faith and be filled with love and patience. Similarly, teach the older women to live in a way that honors God. They must not slander others or be heavy drinkers. Instead they should teach others what is good. These older women must train the younger women to love their husbands and their children, to live wisely and to be pure, to work in their homes, to do good, and to be submissive to their husbands. Then they will not bring shame on the word of God. In the same way, encourage the young men to live wisely. Pretty clear, folks, it's really not near as ambiguous as so many of us pretend that it is. Bible verses, the scripture for today. We're gonna start with 2 Peter 2, verses 1 through 22. But there were also false prophets in Israel, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will cleverly teach destructive heresies and even deny the master who bought them. In this way they will bring sudden destruction on themselves. Many will follow their evil teaching and shameful immorality. And because of these teachers the way of the truth will be slandered. In their greed they will make up clever lies to get hold of your money. But God condemned them long ago, and their destruction will not be delayed. For God did not spare even the angels who sinned, he threw them into hell in gloomy pits of darkness, where they are being held until the day of judgment. And God did not spare the ancient world except for Noah and the seven others in his family. Noah warned the world of God's righteous judgment. So God protected Noah when he destroyed the world of ungodly people with a vast flood. Later, God condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and turned them into heaps of ashes. He made them an example of what will happen to ungodly people. But God also rescued Lot out of Sodom, because he was a righteous man who was sick of the shameful immorality of the wicked people around him. Yes, Lot was a righteous man who was tormented in his soul by the wickedness he saw and heard day after day. So you see, the Lord knows how to rescue godly people from their trials, even while keeping the wicked under punishment until the day of final judgment. He is especially hard on those who follow their own twisted sexual desire and who despise authority. These people are proud and arrogant, daring even to scoff at supernatural beings without so much as trembling. But the angels who are far greater in power and strength do not dare to bring from the Lord a charge of blasphemy against those supernatural beings. These false teachers are like unthinking animals, creatures of instinct born to be caught and destroyed. They scoff at things they do not understand, and like animals they will be destroyed. Their destruction is their reward for the harm they have done. They love to indulge in evil pleasures in broad daylight. They are disgraced and a stain among you. They delight in deception even as they eat with you in your fellowship meals. They commit adultery with their eyes, and their desire for sin is never satisfied. They lure unstable people into sin, and they are well trained in greed. They live under God's curse. They have wandered off the right road and followed the footsteps of Balam, son of Beor, who loved to earn money by doing wrong. But Balaam was stopped from his mad course when his donkey rebuked him with a human voice. These people are as useless as dried up springs or as mist blown away by the dark by the wind. They are doomed to blackest darkness. They brag about themselves with empty, foolish boasting. With an appeal to twisted sexual desires, they lure back into sin those who have barely escaped from a lifestyle of deception. They promise freedom, but they themselves are slaves of sin and corruption, for you are a slave to whatever controls you. And when people escape from the wickedness of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and then get tangled up and enslaved by sin again, they are worse off than before. It would be better if they had never known the way to righteousness than to know it and then reject the command they were given to live a holy life. They prove the truth of this proverb, a dog returns to its vomit. And another says a washed pig returns to the mud. Psalm one nineteen, verses one hundred thirteen through one twenty eight. I hate those with divided loyalties, but I love your instructions. You are my refuge and my shield. Your word is my source of hope. Get out of my life, you evil minded people, for I intend to obey the commands of my God. Lord, sustain me as you promised, that I may live. Don't let my hope be crushed. Sustain me and I will be rescued, and I will meditate continually on your decrees. But you have rejected all who stray from your decrees. They are only fooling themselves. You skim off the wicked of the earth like scum. No wonder I love to obey your laws. I tremble in fear of you, I stand in awe of your regulations. Don't leave me to the mercy of my enemies, for I have done what is right and just. Please guarantee a blessing for me. Don't let the arrogant oppress me. My eyes strain to see your rescue, to see the truth of your promise fulfilled. I am your servant, deal with me in unfailing love, and teach me your decrees. Give discernment to me your servant, then I will understand your laws. Lord, it is time for you to act, for these evil people have violated your instructions. Truly I love your commands more than gold, even the finest gold. Each of your commandments is right. That is why I hate every false way. Proverbs twenty eight verses nineteen through twenty. A hard worker has plenty of food, but a person who chases fantasies ends up in poverty. A trustworthy person will get rich a ritual reward, but a person who wants quick riches will get into trouble. I mean, man, we could talk about a lot here. Um I think the biggest thing is in 2 Peter chapter 2, talking about getting tangled back into the sins of the world once we have seen that the way is through Christ alone. And at least the way I read it, folks, it's so important to keep talking to God, asking for his guidance and his protection, and to do his will each day and for forgiveness for whatever sins we commit throughout the day, whether it's actions or thoughts, and just to cling to him, because there is no other hope besides Jesus Christ. Like I have absolutely no hope of getting to get to heaven without Jesus Christ. There's even if suddenly, magically, I could live every single day perfectly with not one single sinful thought or word or action for the rest of my life, it wouldn't be enough. The only hope that I have is Jesus Christ standing in my place in my stead and taking the brunt of my sin. Which he's already done. Right? So all right, Medal of Honor for today. And of course, I thought I had it all set up again. I think I did this on the last podcast, and I didn't. But that's okay. Wilmon. It's interesting first name. Wilmon Wilden Blackmar, Lieutenant, highest rank captain, U.S. Civil War, Hotel Company, 1st West Virginia Cavalry, U.S. Army, April 1st, 1865. Five Forks, Virginia, USA. At a critical stage of the battle, without orders, led a successful advance upon the enemy. Man, these Civil War citations, you just you know there was a lot more to the citation than what we're saying. Accredited to Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, not awarded posthumously, presented october twenty third, eighteen ninety-seven, born july twenty fifth, eighteen forty one, Bristol, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, died july sixteenth, nineteen oh five, Boise, Idaho. Buried Cedar Grove Cemetery, 10 Tac 52, Tac 5, Dorchester, Massachusetts, United States. Wilmon Wilden Blackmar. So we're gonna get into the next Thanksgiving-ish proclamation. Love this time of year, folks, on the podcast. Just, I mean, I love this time of year in general, but it's great. 1781 by the United States and Congress assembled a proclamation. Really pay attention when we're going through these again, folks, to the humility that you see there, the acknowledgement of the need to turn to God, the asking for his guidance in our public life as a nation. This wasn't something, this was not a private citizen making this proclamation. This was Congress in a public act as a political body. And they were very open about the need to turn to God and Jesus Christ, not just in our private lives, but particularly in our courts, in our governing bodies, in our schools and seminaries, right? So realize that because it's important because when people tell you today that, oh, we were born a secular nation, you can't have God involved in the state, that's not even remotely true. And this is just one more little piece of evidence that it wasn't true. Whereas it hath pleased Almighty God, the supreme disposer of all events, Father of mercies, remarkably to assist and support the United States of America and their important struggle for liberty against the long continued efforts of a powerful nation. It is the duty of all ranks to observe and thankfully acknowledge the interpositions of His providence in their behalf. Through the whole of the contest from its first rise to this time, the influence of divine providence may be clearly perceived in many signal instances, of which we mentioned but a few, in revealing the counsels of our enemies when the discoveries were seasonable and important, and the means seemingly inadequate or fortuitous, in preserving and even improving the union of the several states, on the breach of which our enemies placed their greatest dependence, in increasing the number and adding to the zeal and attachment of the friends of liberty, in granting remarkable deliverances and blessing us with the most signaled success, when affairs seemed to have the most discouraging appearance, in raising up for us a powerful and generous ally and one of the first of the European powers, in confounding the counsels of our enemies and suffering them to pursue such measures as have most directly contribute contributed to frustrate their own desires and expectations, above all in making their extreme cruelty of their officers and soldiers to the inhabitants of these states when in their power, and their savage devastation of property, the very means of cementing our union and adding vigor to every effort in opposition to them. And as we cannot help leading the good people of these states to a retrospect on the events which have taken place since the beginning of the war, so we beg, recommend in a particular manner that they may observe and acknowledge to their observation the goodness of God in the year now drawing to a conclusion, in which a mutiny in the American army was not only happily appeased, but became in its issue a pleasing and undeniable proof of the unalterable attachment of the people in general to the cause of liberty, since great and rural grievances only made them tumultuously seek redress, while the abhorred while they abhorred the thoughts of going over to the enemy, in which the Confederation of the United States has been completed by the accession of all without exception, in which there have been so many instances of prowess and success in our armies, particularly in the southern states, where, notwithstanding the difficulties with which they had to struggle, they have recovered the whole country which the enemy had overrun, leaving them only a post or two upon or near the sea, in which we have been so powerfully and effectually assisted by our allies, while in all the conjunct operations the most perfect union and harmony has subsisted in the Allied army, in which there has been so plentiful a harvest and so great abundance of the fruits of the earth of every kind, as not only enables us easily to supply the wants of the army, but gives comfort and happiness to the whole people, and in which, after the success of our allies by sea, a general of the first rank, with its whole army, has been captured by the Allied forces under the direction of our illustrious commander in chief. It is therefore recommended to the several states to set apart the thirteenth day of December next, to be religiously observed as a day of thanksgiving and prayer, that all the people may assemble on that day with grateful hearts, to celebrate the praises of our gracious benefactor, to confess our manifold sins, to offer up our most fervent supplications to the God of all grace, that it may please Him to pardon our offenses, and incline our hearts for the future to keep all his laws, to comfort and relieve all our brethren who are in distress or captivity, to prosper our husbandmen, and give success to all engaged in lawful commerce, to impart wisdom and integrity to our counselors, judgment and fortitude to our officers and soldiers, to protect and prosper our illustrious ally, and favor our united exertions for the speedy establishment of a safe, honorable, and lasting peace, to bless all seminaries of learning, and cause the knowledge of God to cover the earth as the waters cover the seas. When somebody tells you that we were founded as some kind of random deity, secular nation, pagan nation, just read that last line again. Really, I guess that whole last paragraph. But I think it it really smacks to bless all seminaries of learning, to cause the knowledge of God to cover the earth as the waters cover the seas. They not only wanted peace, God's guidance in our schools, in our courts, in our army, his blessings on our farmers and ranchers, fishermen, etc. etc. They wanted to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ across the entire world. And this was, again, folks, it's very important to remember. This was by Congress of the United States in 1781. If you're looking for a family-friendly middle grade read, kind of along the lines of Narnia, The Hobbit, Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, that kind of stuff, if you would check out Countryside, I would appreciate it. And if you enjoy it, if you would leave a review online somewhere, I would appreciate that very much. Also, if you are getting something out of the podcast and you feel like you can leave two or three or four or five dollars a month, there's a podcast website on the Buzz Sprout webpage. You can do that and set up a little monthly donation. I would be great, very grateful for that. 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 you all. God bless your families. God bless your marriages if you're married. God bless America. God bless your nation, wherever you are around the world. Listen, we'll talk to you all again real soon, folks. Looking forward to it.