The American Soul
The American Soul
Time is Not Infinite: Why Today Matters in Faith and Relationships
What if our greatest spiritual danger isn't outright rejection of faith, but comfortable indifference? In this thought-provoking exploration of Revelation's message to the churches, we confront the reality of lukewarm faith and its devastating consequences in both our spiritual and personal lives.
Time—our most precious and limited resource—reveals our true priorities regardless of what we claim matters to us. When we examine how we actually spend our days, many of us would be shocked to discover the disconnect between our professed values and our lived experience. While we enthusiastically devote hours to sports, entertainment, and social media, our spiritual lives and closest relationships often receive merely lukewarm attention. This pattern of distracted devotion doesn't just damage our relationship with God—it creates irreparable rifts in our marriages, parent-child relationships, and friendships.
The wisdom from America's founding era provides a crucial perspective on these issues. Alexander Hamilton articulated that "civil liberty is founded in natural liberty," which he described as "a gift of the beneficent Creator." Unlike nations where the state controls religious expression, America was designed with the understanding that spiritual foundations must support civic institutions, not the other way around. President Rutherford Hayes reinforced this principle, noting that America's success depends "not upon the constraint of force but upon the loving devotion of free people" choosing to honor God's principles.
Through a stirring examination of historical religious persecution—from the Catholic Church's actions against the Waldenses to the atheistic bloodshed of the French Revolution—we gain sobering clarity about what happens when any institution or ideology gains unlimited power. The pattern of persecution against those who stand for truth transcends time periods and specific belief systems, reminding us that "peaceful coexistence" often proves temporary when opposing worldviews compete for dominance.
Don't wait until it's too late to rekindle your passion for what truly matters. Make today the day you choose to be "hot" rather than lukewarm in your faith and love. Your time is finite—invest it where eternal returns await.
The American Soul Podcast
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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. I'm sure to appreciate you joining me, giving me a little bit of your time and attention. A little piece of your time and attention, a little piece of your day. I know y'all have other things in your life that are pulling at your attention, pulling you in one direction or another, so I appreciate you spending a little bit of it here with me. I will try and use it wisely. I will try and use it wisely. Hopefully it'll give us all some tools for our toolbox, as we used to say in the Marine Corps, and hopefully it will help us all draw a little bit closer to God and Jesus Christ, both as individuals and as a nation. For those of y'all who continue to share the podcast with others and telling us about it, thank y'all so much, very, very grateful for that. For those of y'all who continue to pray for me and for the podcast, I definitely need that. So thank you, 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. Thank you for the example that your Son set before us. Thank you for the example that so many men and women who have come before us set, following him, following him. Help us to focus each day on storing up for ourselves treasures in heaven, with you and your son, jesus Christ, and not here on earth. To focus on your will and the things that are important to you, not what the world tells us should be important. Thank you for the time to record this podcast, father. Thank you for the people that listen to it and share it. Please be with them and their families, guide them, bless them, surround them with your angels, protect them from evil of any kind, guide our thoughts, our words and our actions. Father, please help us to love your Son truly and therefore to follow his commands, to love you with our whole heart, mind, soul and strength, to love our with our whole heart, mind, soul and strength to love our neighbors as ourselves. Help us to care for the widow and the orphan, the poor and the needy. And, father, please bring us all home to you and your Son, jesus Christ and your timing. In the name of your son, jesus Christ, we ask and pray, and God, my words are Father, please, amen.
Speaker 1:So I had a couple things, as always. Have you made time for God today? How did you spend your time yesterday? We always talk about this. Have you made time for God, jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit? Have you made time for your spouse, if you're married?
Speaker 1:But at some point, folks, we have to look back at the previous day, the previous week, the previous month, right, and see how we're actually spending our time. I mean, it's great to say that we want to follow God and Jesus Christ and that desires a wonderful starting point, folks. But at some point we have to actually take stock of how we're spending that time. Right, it's a lot like a bank account or an investment. That's probably a better way to look at it. But we have a certain amount of time in our lives and we get to invest that time. However we want to wisely, poorly, right.
Speaker 1:There was somebody on x that made the comment about how cruel god seemed, or a god that would force us to follow his commands was, and they were talking about in marriage. But I've had people make that comment in general before. But, folks, that's kind of a false argument anyway, because God doesn't force us, and some of us and I'm one of them folks In fact, I meant to say this earlier, this was on my mind. I used to say this a lot on the podcast in the first couple of years. I don't probably should say it more often but look, folks, if you're looking for somebody, perfect, I'm not that guy.
Speaker 1:If you turn the podcast on and you really like what you're hearing, that's wonderful and I hope that you do, and I hope that it draws you closer to God and Jesus Christ. But if you think that I don't have any skeletons in my closet or that there's nothing that I've done in my past that would make you shocked, you're barking up the wrong tree. I'm so far from perfect in my life, as we all are really and again, I'm not a proponent at all of we're all equally good and bad. We're not, and you know that in your own life because there are certain people that you know are simply better individuals or worse individuals than others, and that gets back to this free will, right? But let me finish this first thought. I'm not that guy, but I can point you to him. I can point you to Christ, who is the only only person who was ever perfect and sinless throughout their entire life. Folks, not Mary, not Joseph, not the disciples, not the thief on the cross, not anybody else, folks, just Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1:But the free will thing, right, he gives us free will. We get to choose whether to follow his commands or not, and the problem is a lot of times we choose not to and then things go awry, like he tells us they will. And then we get mad at God, basically for giving us the ability to choose to do right or wrong. And that's really what it boils down to. We're really often like kind of spoiled children, right, we tell God well, that's so mean that you would make us do this. And he doesn't to begin with, but we go along with that and God says, hey, you get to choose. You can follow me or you cannot. Now there's consequences and rewards, et cetera, but you get to choose. And then we choose and we choose to go our own way and it turns into a dumpster fire and then we get mad at God. Right, any of those of y'all that are parents, or probably even if you're not parents but you're an older sibling, you have seen this play out.
Speaker 1:I'm going to tell a story on my mother and my aunt that I used to love when I was a little boy. Those were two of my favorite people to be around because they just loved life. They just enjoyed when they were together. It seemed like they just enjoyed every single second of it, and I just can't think of people that I have seen laugh harder or deeper or more genuinely than those two when they were together and they would start telling stories on each other and and man, they had the goods right on on each other. But I can still remember I'm pretty sure this is the first time I heard the story. I heard it multiple times over the years but and if my aunt ends up listening to this at some point, forgive me if I got the details wrong, but this is the way I remember it I was sitting in my grandparents' dining room, by their fireplace, listening to my mother and my aunt, and so when they were little girls and my mother was the older sibling when they were little girls, they were.
Speaker 1:They were waiting on a bus, I think, and it was way up North where they lived at this point, and there was snow. They had just gotten a lot of snow, enough snow that it filled up the barges on the side of the road and it was real fresh and so you couldn't really tell where exactly the road ended and the ditch began and the way the story at least the way I remember it is my aunt who I love dearly, by the way was younger and she was out dancing around and she had her little lunch pail and they were waiting on the school bus and my mother looked over and said hey, you're, you're going to fall off in that ditch and you're going to get all wet and muddy and snowy, et cetera. And, being the younger sibling, my beloved aunt looked back and said no, I'm not, no, I'm not younger sibling. My beloved aunt looked back and said no, I'm not, no, I'm not. And she did one more little twirly spin and she found that ditch and fell down in it and the lunch kit exploded and there were either something like skittles or m&ms or something like that in there and they went everywhere. So there was my aunt falling down into this ditch full of snow and scraped her arm or something, and her lunch kit was everywhere and the bus was starting to come up the road and there were all these little colorful dots all over the snow now where the Skittles or M&Ms or whatever had landed and that shell that colored candy shell had started to melt into the snow. I wish that they were here to tell you all that story.
Speaker 1:I didn't tell it as well as they did, but the point, folks, is, so often we get mad at God for the decisions that we make. We get mad at God that our faith isn't stronger, but we're not spending any time reading the Bible. We're watching TikTok and Instagram reels and Facebook. We're scrolling through Facebook and X and making all these comments and we're watching YouTube videos. And we're not watching YouTube videos that are like self-help, like how to clean your kitchen sink or how to repair a garbage disposal or fix a door that won't shut right. We're watching trash, junk. You know and there's a lot of truth that China and some of our enemies are engaging or setting algorithms for us and our children to watch junk. They don't want us watching healthy. They don't want us watching videos that make us better citizens, right, they want us watching trash that makes us less moral, less virtuous, dumber, because they want us to be easier opponents. They want us to be more rotten in the core right.
Speaker 1:But I know I got way off track here, folks, but the bottom line is we need to take stock of how we're spending our time before we start blaming God for our weak faith or our broken marriage or our broken relationship with our children or our parents or our friends. How are we spending our time Each day, each month? And look and look, folks. If you have been somebody that has spent your time poorly, uh and and particularly in regards to another individual, and you need to make amends for that, you truly have to make amends. You can't just come up and say, oh sorry, I didn't even watch this video. I'm not not going to tell you I did, but I saw enough of the heading and the caption. It was just heartbreaking. The woman had accused her husband, I guess years ago, of molesting their children and he hadn't done it. And the truth finally came out and this woman offered an apology, but it wasn't sincere, she didn't really seem to care that much. She was just kind of halfway apologizing. If we have been that person, folks, who has spent our time poorly and we've hurt our children, our parents, our spouse, given a half effort, apology isn't going to cut it. Apology isn't going to cut it. It's going to have to be a truly deep down, sincere apology and it's going to have to be backed up by actions. We're going to have to literally change drastically what we've been doing and start doing what we should have been doing for days, weeks, months, years, maybe even decades.
Speaker 1:There's a lady on X that I follow who does some great work mentoring young women from a biblical point of view, has some wonderful posts and a pretty good following. She talks a lot about Titus 2, all the verses that we talk about here so often, and one of the things that she talks about is her own experience and how basically she was a pretty selfish, self-centered, arrogant wife for the first half of her marriage to date, like the first 20 years. She said I just I was argumentative, combative, arrogant, selfish wife and I made our house miserable, made our husband miserable, I think sometimes she kind of jokes about whether why he stayed and she said you know, for her her point to these young women is all of that really started to change when she started to follow scripture folks. But there had to be drastic change and it couldn't just be words. She had to actually start to follow Titus 2, 1 Peter 3, 1 Corinthians 7, ephesians 5, proverbs 5, 19, hebrews 13, 4, song of Solomon. Right, and that's true of us. When we realize that we're spending our time poorly and it's affecting those relationships poorly, we have to make a drastic change and address that. I know I got way off there, folks. I apologize, but it's really important stuff.
Speaker 1:We're going to get back into Revelation. This is chapter three, I think the message to Sardis, to the angel of the church in Sardis write. He who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars says this I know your deeds, I know that you have a name, that you are alive, but you are dead. Wake up and strengthen the things that remain, which were about to die, for I have not found your deeds completed in the sight of my God. So remember what you have received and heard and keep it and repent. Therefore, if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief and you will not know at what hour I will come to you. But you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their garments and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy. He who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments and I will not erase his name from the book of life and I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. A few things here. He who overcomes right A lot of times when we read those Medal of Honor citations, I think about overcoming right.
Speaker 1:There are worse things than death, folks. That's why it's so important to cling to God and Jesus Christ and to do everything we can to do their will and be grateful, not because our works don't earn us salvation, folks there's nothing we can do to earn our way in but because we trust in Jesus Christ. Our name is written in the book of life and because we confess Christ. Right, Like right here before you, I confess that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the only Son of God, that he died for my sins and that God raised him from the dead and he is my Lord and Savior. And because of that, jesus Christ is going to confess me before God and his angels. His blood covers my sin. He stands in my place, where I should stand. Verse three right. Remember what you've received and heard and keep it and repent. Therefore, if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief and you will not know at what hour I'll come to you. This really is what we've been talking about for the last 10 minutes or so.
Speaker 1:Folks, there's going to come a point. There comes a point because we're human, especially that there aren't any more second chances. If you wait until you die to accept Jesus Christ, it's too late. That's why I cannot recommend that you do anything more than that now. And there comes a point at which it's too late for your relationship with your parents. If you never take the time to repair that relationship and then they die, folks, there's not another chance for you to repair that relationship.
Speaker 1:There comes a point sometimes when it's too late with our kids. If you break that relationship so wholly and this isn't a all things are not possible with God comment, because they are All things are possible with God but we're also human. And if you push your kids away for so long, there comes a point when they just aren't interested in being around you anymore. They might respond to you on a text message or a phone call, but they don't really want anything to do with you other than maybe your money. Same thing is true with your spouse. Folks, at some point, if you are so cold and indifferent to that spouse and each day there are 15 other priorities in front of them, day after day, month after month, year after year at some point that spouse is going to go away. Even if it's not physically, folks, it may just be emotionally, they may just find other things. I cannot tell you how many times in my different lines of work I have seen men and I'm sure it's the same with women, ladies, if you're listening out there, I'm just using the examples that I've seen men who would work these really long hours, not because they needed to, not because they even wanted to really, but because they didn't want to go home.
Speaker 1:When we read scripture, we need to actually listen to it, hear it, keep it and repent of the times that we don't do that, because at some point Jesus Christ is going to come back. At some point it may be too late for that kid or that parent or that spouse, but if you have today, folks, it's not too late. Message to Philadelphia and to the angel of the church in Philadelphia right, he who is holy, who is true, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, and who shuts and no one opens says this of the synagogue of Satan, who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie. I will make them come and bow down at your feet and make them know that I have loved you because you have kept the word of my perseverance. I also will keep you from the hour of testing, that hour which is about to come upon the whole world to test those who dwell on the earth. I am coming quickly. Hold fast what you have so that no one will take away your crown. He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God and he will not go out from it anymore, and I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem which comes down out of heaven from my God, and my new name. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes, again, folks, perseverance, and notice up here, back in verse 8.
Speaker 1:I know your deeds. Behold, I have put before you an open door which no one can shut, because you have a little power and have kept my word and have not denied my name. We don't have to have a ton of power, folks. We don't have to have a ton of money and wealth and fame and fortune and strength and speed. It's God's job, even if we just have just a little bit of faith, a little bit of power, and if you ask him, he will give it to you, folks, 100%, without doubt. Just a little bit, father. Give us faith, strengthen our faith, help us to persevere all the way to the end.
Speaker 1:Lost my place. Message to Laodicea, laodicea. I don't know To the angel of the, oh, laodicea, laodicea. I don't know To the angel of the church in Laodicea, write the amen. The faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God says this. If nothing else, it ought to be entertaining for those of y'all who actually know the pronunciation, just to laugh at me.
Speaker 1:I know your deeds that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. Because you say I am rich and have become wealthy and have need of nothing and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. I advise you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and that the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed, and eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see those whom I love. I reprove and discipline. Therefore, be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and will dine with him and he with me. He who overcomes. There it is again. There's a ton here, folks, in this last little bit. I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. So because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. There's a lot more here Buying gold refined right, eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see Clothes, white garments so that you may close yourself, stand in, or anyone who opens the door.
Speaker 1:I want to focus, though, on this 15, 16, and 17. So often, folks, we claim to follow Jesus Christ, but are we really hot? Are we really passionate about following Christ, or are we just kind of lukewarm? Is it just something that we get up and just kind of do? I'm reminded of George Washington's prayers. You know one of his prayers that we read through out of his journal every so often. He actually talked about the fact that he needed to seek forgiveness for his attitude. He'd done the right things, he'd followed God, he'd prayed throughout that day, right. But he said, I've done it with such a half-hearted attitude, I've done it so indifferently read scripture, prayed and I haven't really been. It's not really a priority, it's just something I've done, and this is true of your marriage too, by the way. Again, we're supposed to exemplify that relationship between Christ and the church, so it makes sense.
Speaker 1:But, folks, if we're lukewarm and I'm so guilty of this so often if we're lukewarm in reading scripture I'm so guilty of this so often If we're lukewarm in reading scripture, we need to fix ourselves. If we're lukewarm in our prayer life, if it's just something we're scrambling to get through, we need to fix ourselves. If we're lukewarm I cannot stress this enough about your spouse. Every day, you should be the opposite of lukewarm towards your spouse. They are one out of seven billion, seven billion folks. I can't even create an analogy that fits that, other than your relationship with God and Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit and your time in eternity. We should be absolutely on fire for our spouse each day and, more than that, for God and Jesus Christ each day. And if we are not and it's going to happen it happens, folks.
Speaker 1:The problem is when we pretend that it happening is okay, and I think that's where we've a lot of us have gotten in America today and really in Western civilization as a whole, as we've gotten okay with being lukewarm. And the ironic thing, the thing that ought to really get us fired up is we're not lukewarm about sports and entertainment. We get super excited about sports, entertainment, politics, new clothes, whatever it is. Man. We get super excited yelling at the TV during a game, all these great stats, how fast this pitcher pitches, how many shots this basketball player made, how many passes or touchdowns this football player made right player made, how many passes or touchdowns this football player made right. And then somebody wants to talk to us about God and Jesus Christ and we're like, oh, yeah, they're okay. Or our spouse comes looking for our attention and we're like, well, yeah, I guess I don't really want to. The problem in that scenario, folks, it's not God and it's not Jesus Christ and it's not your spouse. The only one left is you. You're the problem. We need to get our priorities in line and we need to get our attitudes in line with those priorities.
Speaker 1:And I wanted to read a couple of quotes, alexander Hamilton one of them. Right, he was one of the authors of the Federalist Papers. The fundamental source of all your errors, sophisms and false reasonings is a total ignorance of the natural rights of mankind. Were you once to be acquainted with these, you could never entertain a thought that all men are not by nature entitled to a parity of privileges. You would be convinced that natural liberty is a gift of the beneficent Creator to the whole human race and that civil liberty is founded in that. You need to look at his comment here. What is civil liberty founded in? God, the Father of Jesus Christ, the Son and the Holy Spirit. God, the father of jesus christ, the son and the holy spirit, that's that, the beneficent creator. Civil liberty is founded in that that natural liberty is a gift of the beneficent creator.
Speaker 1:It's not the other way aroundigious liberty is not based on civil liberty, right or your, and it's like the quote by Winthrop or whoever I can't remember, we talked about in America. It's religion that's got to prop up the state. It's Christianity that has to be the foundation of the state. In other places it might be the other way around. It might be the state Right. Which is what they saw. We saw in Europe, it's what you see in a lot of the Muslim countries. It's what you see in communist nations. Even though it's atheism, that's still a religion, folks, you're still worshiping. You're just worshiping the state instead of God right. In those places, the state props up religion. In those places the state props up religion, the state demands adherence to whatever religion, whether it's the Roman Catholic Church, greek, orthodox, anglican, whether it's the communist socialist state, whether it's Islam. The state demands allegiance. So the state is propping up religion. But in America it's the other way around.
Speaker 1:The only way our institutions can function is by acknowledging that all of our liberties come from, are based in, the principles of God and Jesus Christ. One more inaugural address Rutherford Hayes. 19th President, looking for the guidance of that divine hand by which the destinies of nations and individuals are shaped, I call upon you, senators, representatives, judges, fellow citizens, here and everywhere, to unite with me in an earnest effort to secure to our country the blessings not only of material property, but of justice, peace and union, a union depending not upon the constraint of force but upon the loving devotion of the free people. And that all things may be so ordered and settled upon the best and surest foundations that peace and happiness, truth and justice, religion and piety may be established among us for all generations. Our founders knew that you couldn't force people to a faith or away from faith. That's what had been done for centuries in Europe. That's what you see in Muslim nations. That's what you see in communist socialist nations in the 20th century. You can't force people to faith or away from faith. It doesn't work. You have to have the ability to choose that on your own. But they also knew that if we didn't choose, if we didn't as a free people, if we didn't choose to look for that guidance of the divine hand of God, the Father of Jesus Christ, that we were going to fall apart. We wouldn't have peace and happiness, truth and justice. Because if we lose virtue and religion, christianity, right Religion and piety, then everything else goes away. All right, we will move on.
Speaker 1:So we're going to go back into Fox's Book of Martyrs. We haven't been in there. In a couple days We'll read some other little bit of D-Day and that sermon by Samuel Langdon. This is Fox's Book of the Martyrs, or History of the Lives, sufferings and Triumphant Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs, from the introduction of Christianity to the latest periods of pagan, popish and infidel persecutions, embracing, together with the usual subjects contained in similar works usual subjects contained in similar works the recent persecutions in the cantons of Switzerland, the persecutions of the Methodist and Baptist missionaries in the West Indian India islands, and the narrative of the conversion, capture, long imprisonment and cruel sufferings of Assad Sadiq, a native of Palestine. Sadiq, a native of Palestine.
Speaker 1:Likewise, a sketch of the French Revolution is connected with persecution compiled to talk about some of that we really care about and the mistakes they've made. You know, anytime somebody brings up, for example, something about the Marine Corps and we've done a lot of stupid stuff in the Marine Corps, especially lately it seems that always is a hard pill to swallow, but it never helps folks to pretend that you can't make mistakes, because then you just keep making the same ones and they get worse. And that's of course, part of the big problem with the Roman Catholic Church is the claim to infallibility, which is impossible for any human institution, including the church as a whole. We make mistakes, and so I wanted to come back and read this preface before we get into that. This work is strictly what the title page imports. A compilation Fox's Book of the Martyrs has been made the basis of this volume. Liberty, however, has been taken to a bridge wherever it was thought necessary to alter the antiquated form of the phraseology, to introduce additional information and to correct any inaccuracy respecting matters of fact which had escaped the author of the original work or which has been found erroneous by the investigation of modern research or which has been found erroneous by the investigation of modern research.
Speaker 1:The object of this work is to give a brief history of persecution since the first introduction of chemistry Not chemistry Christianity Until the present time. In doing this, we have commenced with the martyrdom of Stephen and, following the course of events, have brought the history of persecution down to the year 1830. In all ages, we find that a disposition to persecute for opinion's sake has been manifested by wicked men, whatever may have been their opinions or sentiments on religious subjects. The intolerant Jew and the bigoted pagan have exhibited no more of a persecuting spirit than the nominal professor of Christianity and the infidel and the avowed atheist. Indeed, it seems to be an inherent vice and unsanctified nature to endeavor, by the pressure of physical force, to restrain obnoxious sentiments and to propagate favorite opinions. It is only when the heart has been renewed and sanctified by divine grace that men have rightly understood and practiced the true principles of toleration.
Speaker 1:We do not say that none but real Christians have adopted correct views respecting civil and religious liberty, but we affirm that these views owe their origin entirely to Christianity and its genuine disciplines. Disciples, though nearly all sects, have persecuted their opponents during a brief season when men's passions were highly excited and true religion had mournfully declined. Yet no denomination except the papal hierarchy has adopted as an article of religious belief and a principle of practical observance the right to destroy heretics for opinion's sake. The decrees of councils and the bulls of popes issued in conformity with those decrees place this matter beyond a doubt. Persecution, therefore, and potpourri are inseparably connected, because claiming infallibility what she has once done is right for her to do again. Yea must be done under similar circumstances, or the claims of infallibility given up.
Speaker 1:There is no escaping this conclusion. It is right, therefore, to charge upon potpourri all the persecutions and horrid cruelties which have stained the annals of the papal church during her long and bloody career of darkness and crime, every sigh which has been heaved in the dungeons of the Inquisition, every groan which has been exhorted by the racks and instruments of torture which the malice of her bigoted votaries, stimulated by infernal wisdom, ever invented, has witnessed in the ear of God against the mother of harlots and those kings of earth, of the earth who, giving their power to the beast, have aided her in the cruel work of of desolation and death. The valleys of Piedmont, the mountains of Switzerland, the vine-crowned hills of Italy and France and all parts of Germany and the Low Countries have by turns been lighted by the fires of burning victims or crimsoned with the blood of those who have suffered death at the hands of the cruel emissaries of popery. England too has drunk deep of the wine of the fierceness of her wrath, as the blood of Cobham and the ashes of Smithfield martyrs can testify. Ireland and Scotland likewise have each been made the theater of her atrocities. But nowhere has the system been exhibited in its native, unalleviated deformity as in Spain, portugal and their South American dependencies. Least was established by the holy inquisitors that these countries resembled a vast whispering gallery where the slightest murmur of discontent could be heard and punished, such has been the effect of superstition and the terror of the holy office upon the mind, completely to break the pride of the castilian noble and make him the unresisting victim of every mendicant friar and hem-sandaled monk. Moreover, the papal system has opposed the march of civilization and liberty throughout the world by denouncing the circulation of the Bible and the general diffusion of knowledge. Turn to every land where popery predominates and you will find an ignorant and debased peasantry, a profligate nobility and a priesthood licentious, avaricious, domineering and cruel.
Speaker 1:But it may be asked, is potpourri the same system now as in the days of Cardinal Bonner and the Bloody Mary? We answer yes. It is the boast of all Catholics that their church never varies, either in spirit or in practice. For evidence of this, look at the demonstrations of her spirit in the persecutions in the south of France for several years after the restoration of the Bourbons in 1814. All have witnessed with feelings of distaste, detestation, the recent efforts of the Apostolicals in Spain and Portugal to crush the friends of civil and religious liberty in those ill-fated countries. Liberty in those ill-fated countries. The narrative of Assad Shadi clearly indicates that the spirit of popery has lost none of its ferocity and bloodthirstiness since the Piedmontese War and the Bartholomew Massacre. Where it has power, its victims are still crushed by the same means which filled the dungeons of the Inquisition and fed the fires of the Autodethay.
Speaker 1:This is the religion to diffuse which strenuous efforts are now making in this country. Already, the papal church numbers more than half a million of communicants. This number is rapidly augmenting by immigration with an E from Catholic countries and by the conversion of Protestant children who are placed in their schools for instruction. The recent events in Europe will no doubt send to our shores hundreds of Jesuit priests. Recent events in Europe will no doubt send to our shores hundreds of Jesuit priests with a portion of that immense revenue which the papal church has hitherto enjoyed.
Speaker 1:Another thing which will no doubt favor their views is the disposition manifested among some who style themselves liberalists, to aid Catholics in the erection of mass houses, colleges, convents and theological seminaries. This has been done in numerous instances, and when a note of warning is raised by the true friends of civil and religious liberty, they are treated as bigots by those very men who are contributing of their substance to diffuse and foster the most intolerant system of bigotry and cruel, unrelenting despotism the world has ever seen. Other sects have persecuted during some periods of their history, but all now deny the right and reprobate the practice, except Catholics. The right to destroy heretics is a fundamental article in the creed of the papal church, and wherever her power is not cramped, she still exercises that power to the destruction of all who oppose her unrighteous usurpation. All the blood shed by all the other Christian sects is no more, in comparison to that shed by the papacy, than the short-lived flow of a feeble rill raised by the passing tempest. Lived flow of a feeble rill raised by the passing tempest to the deep, overwhelming tide of a mighty river which receives as tributaries the waters of a thousand streams. We trust the present work, therefore, will prove a salutary check to the progress of that system whose practical efforts have ever been and must ever be licentiousness, cruelty and blood.
Speaker 1:The narratives of Assad Shadiq, mrs Judson, the persecution in the West Indies and in Switzerland have never before been incorporated in any book of the martyrs. They serve to show the hideous nature of persecution and the benefit of Christian missions. At the close of this volume will be found a sketch of the French Revolution of 1789 as connected with persecution. It has long been the practice of infidels to sneer at Christianity because some of its nominal followers have exhibited a persecuting spirit and although they knew that Christianity condemns persecution in the most pointed manner, they knew that Christianity condemns persecution in the most pointed manner, yet they have never had the generosity to discriminate between the system and the abuse of the system by wicked men. Infidelity, on the other hand, has nothing to redeem it and it poses no restraint on the violent and headlong passions of men. Coming to men with the Caesarean cup of licentiousness in her hand, with fair promises of freedom, she first stupefies the conscious and brutifies the affections, and then renders her votaries the most abject slaves of guilt and crime. This was exemplified in the French Revolution.
Speaker 1:For centuries, the Bible had been taken away and the key of knowledge rested from the people. For a little moment, france broke the chains which superstition had flung around her. Not content, however, with this, she attempted to break the yoke of God. She stamped the Bible in the dust and proclaimed the jubilee of licentiousness unvisited either by present or future retribution. Mark the consequence Anarchy broke in like a flood, from whose boiling surge blood spouted up in living streams and on whose troubled waves floated the headless bodies of the learned, the good, the beautiful and the brave. The most merciless prescription for opinion's sake followed a word, a sigh or a look, supposed Anemical, to the ruling powers, was followed with instant death. The calm which succeeded was only the less dreaded because it presented fewer objects of terrific interest, as the shock of the earthquake creates more instant alarm than the midnight pestilence when it walks unseen, unknown, amidst the habitations of a populous city.
Speaker 1:The infidel persecutions in France and Switzerland afford a solemn lesson to the people of this country. We have men among us now, most of them, it is true, vagabond foreigners, who are attempting to propagate the same sentiments which produced such terrible consequences in France. Under various names, they are scattering their pestilent doctrines through the country. Under various names, they are scattering their pestilent doctrines through the country. As in France, they have commenced their attacks upon the Bible, the Sabbath, marriage and all the social and domestic relations of life. With flatteries and lies, they are attempting to sow the seeds of discontent and future rebellion among the people. The ferocity of their attacks upon those who differ from them, even while restrained by public opinion, shows what they would do provided they could pull down our institutions and introduce disorder and wild misrule. We trust, therefore, that the article on the revolution in France will be found highly instructive and useful, will be found highly instructive and useful, so probably we're going to go back and read that every once in a while, I think, as we go through this this.
Speaker 1:But one of the biggest points here, if not the biggest, is that anytime you give these systems whether it's roman catholic church, whether it's islam, whether it's communism, socialism you know this was in the 1800s, so they didn't have those horrific examples of the 20th century. But anytime any of those institutions gain total power, persecution follows. When they don't have total power, there's at least a check on the persecutions that they wish to inflict or that they will to inflict. But if they have total power, there's no, and that's why the idea of peaceful coexistence is so dangerous, because peaceful coexistence that quote-unquote peaceful coexistence is only possible when those organizations, those imposters, those institutions, whatever you want to call them, don't have total power. When they get in a position of total power, then they have zero desire for peaceful coexistence. And all you have to do is look at history, which is why we're reading through this. So we'll read a little bit of chapter four, here, papal persecutions.
Speaker 1:Thus far, our history of persecution has been confined principally to the pagan world. We come now to a period when persecution under the guise of Christianity committed more enormities than ever, disgraced the annals of paganism. Disregarding the maxims and the spirit of the gospel, the papal church, arming herself with the power of the sword, vexed the church of God and wasted it for several centuries, a period most appropriately termed in history the Dark Ages. The kings of the earth gave their power to the beast and submitted to be trodden on by the miserable vermin that often filled the papal chair, as in the case of Henry, emperor of Germany. The storm of papal persecution first burst upon the Waldnesses in France. Persecution of the Waldnesses in France.
Speaker 1:Popery, having brought various innovations into the church and overspread the Christian world with darkness and superstition, spread the Christian world with darkness and superstition. Some few, who plainly perceived the pernicious tendency of such eras, determined to show the light of the gospel in its real purity and to disperse those clouds which artful priests had raised about it in order to blind the people and obscure its real brightness. The principle among these was Berengarus who, about the year 1000, boldly preached gospel truths according to their primitive purity. Many, from conviction, assented to his doctrine and were on that account called Barangarians. The Barangarianists succeeded Peter Brewis, who preached at Thalois, probably murdering all these names folks, I'm very sorry under the protection of an earl named Hildephantus. And the whole tenets of the reformers, with the reasons of their separation from the Church of Rome, were published in a book written by Bruce Brewis under the title of Christ 1140,. The number of the Reformed was very great and the probability of its increasing alarmed the Pope, who wrote to several princes to banish them from their dominions and employed many learned men to write against their doctrines doctrines AD 1147, henry of Thaloise being deemed their most eminent preacher. They were called Inertians and, as they would not admit of any proofs relative to religion but what could be deduced from the scripture themselves, the popish party gave them the name of Apostolics. At length, peter Waldo or Valdo, a native of Lyons eminent for his piety and learning, became a strenuous opposer of Popery and from him the Reformed at that time received the appellation of Waldens or Waldois. Pope Alexander III, being informed by the Bishop of Lyons of these transactions, excommunicated Waldo and his adherents and commanded the bishop to exterminate them, if possible, from the face of the earth and hence began the papal persecutions against the Waldenese.
Speaker 1:I think we'll stop there here for today and we'll pick back up on the next podcast. Yeah, we went quite a bit over where I thought we were going to with that, so I apologize. We were going to get into the history of the rise, progress and termination of the American revolution by Ms Warren, but we'll jump back in on that on the next one. God bless y'all. God bless you all. God bless your families. God bless your marriages. God bless your nation. Wherever you are around the world listening, god bless America. We'll talk to you all again real soon, folks Looking forward to it.