From Mustard-Seed Faith To Mob Rule: What Holds A Nation Together

Loneliness keeps rising even as our screens glow brighter, and we wanted to understand why—and what to do about it. We start by reordering the foundations of daily life: God first, then spouse, then family and neighbor. That simple hierarchy changes how we spend time, handle stress, and make sacrifices. Proverbs 5 calls husbands and wives to mutual faithfulness that is lived, not just promised. Matthew 17 reminds us that a mustard seed of faith can move the mountains in our homes and hearts, while a coin in a fish’s mouth shows how God provides in the most practical moments. Psalm 22 gives voice to anguish without giving up on trust.

From the personal we zoom out to the civic. We honor James Brady’s Medal of Honor courage, then look to John Adams’ stark warning about unrestrained democracy: passion without guardrails can turn into a mob. We examine how erasing uncomfortable history—whether French terrors, totalitarian purges, or our own national failures—only blinds us to the lessons that keep a republic healthy. Facing the record honestly strengthens love of country because it anchors hope in truth rather than myth.

This conversation aims to equip you with grounded steps: choose people over pixels, set a clear order in your home, practice small daily acts of love, read hard history with open eyes, and cultivate a faith that acts. If this resonates, share it with someone you care about, subscribe for more faith-and-history episodes, and leave a review to help others find the show. What’s one change you’ll make today to value people over screens?

Transcript

Welcome And Opening Prayer

SPEAKER_01 0:02

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 effort, energy. Hope you're getting to listen to it with somebody else. For those of y'all who continue to share the podcast with others 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, 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 sin through the merit of your son, Jesus Christ. Thank you that your son was willing to come, Jesus. Thank you that you were willing to come and die for our sins.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

So that we wouldn't have to.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Please be with those who listen to and share, support the podcast, be with their families, guide them, bless them. Surround them with your angels, protect us from evil of any kind. Help us, Father, please, to do your will above all else, to love your Son Jesus Christ truly, and therefore to follow his commands. Help us to do it with actions, not just words, Father, please.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

Be with those who are hurting and alone, those who are heartbroken, draw them close to you. Those who are sick, those who are scared, those who are injured. Be with the children, the orphans, Father, who have no parents. Be with the widows who have lost their spouses. Be with the elderly. Help us to care for them. Help us to look for those in need around us, Father, and then to act.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

Forgive us our laziness and our procrastination, our excuses, our judgment of others, rash words and actions. Be with our nation here in America and around the world where people are listening in all the different countries.

Communism’s Shape-Shifting Threat

SPEAKER_00 2:31

Help us to each turn our nations back to you, Father, and your Son Jesus Christ. And guide my words here, Father, please. Your son's name we pray. Amen. Wanted to make a quick comment about the Pope Pius XI.

Loneliness, Screens, And Priorities

SPEAKER_01 2:58

I don't know, order, executive order, speech, whatever it was that we read through on the podcast recently. You go back and you listen to that, folks, you make sure you realize his comments about the fact that that communism, you know, at first it was super clear about what it was, but but then the results were so horrible that it had to start to adjust and hide what it really was in order to convince people that it was a good idea. Right? Those internal threats to the United States, that's the greatest threat to our republic, and that's the greatest threat to liberty around the world today. It's not the external, it's the people inside who follow this leftism, socialism, communism, Nazism, fascism, Islam, these things that just all go in this pot of just evil. But at any rate, the other a couple little facts that I ran across. Uh, there's an article out of the Epic Times by Walker Larson recently, and the title is Why Meaningful Relationships Matter More Than Ever. And he left with, or he led with two sentences that I found not surprising but sad. A recent American Psychiatric Association poll found that 30% of U.S. adults report experiencing loneliness at least once per week. In fact, in 2023, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murphy went so far as to call loneliness a public health epidemic.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

We're supposed to be more connected than ever. But it seems like we connect with people less and less.

Marriage First And Roles At Home

SPEAKER_01 4:47

And to a large degree, it's the result of screens. There's definitely some positives that come with screens, folks, but there's a lot of negatives. I think I read another statistic recently that said the average American teenager is now spending something like seven to eight hours in front of a screen each day. You can check that if you want. But we're not making people a priority. And then often, folks, we're putting the wrong people in the wrong order. For example, if you're married, there's absolutely nothing and no one that should come before your spouse each day than God and Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Nothing. Not even close. And some people are going to say, yeah, well, what about the military man that has to go overseas and serve and leaves his wife and children home? Or what about uh the wife when a child's crying and needs his mother? Folks, those aren't examples of putting others in front of your spouse. Those are examples of still putting your spouse first, but just needing to change targets, right? As a wife, when you start to have children, that's one of your premier jobs is to take care of those children for your spouse, right? Because often he's out working. As a husband, one of your primary responsibilities is to protect your wife. Sometimes that means going other places. You can look at the ICE officers right now to fight against evil men so that those problems don't come back home to your wife and children. But folks, we've got to put people back in the place that they're supposed to be in, the place of importance in our lives.

SPEAKER_00 6:45

The marriage verse for today is Proverbs 5, 18 and 19.

Proverbs On Marital Faithfulness

Scripture: Faith, Miracle, And Tax Coin

Psalm 22 And Suffering

SPEAKER_01 6:52

Let your wife be a fountain of blessing for you. Rejoice in the wife of your youth. She is a loving deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts satisfy you always. May you always be captivated by her love. I always make this little comment when I read that one or often do, folks. You have, as a husband, you have a responsibility to be satisfied only by your wife at all times and always. But by the same token, it's impossible to be always satisfied at all times if satisfaction isn't offered always and at all times. The two things go hand in hand. We each have a job, we each have a responsibility in the marriage. And as with everything else God made, they they fit together. Scripture for today, we're going to start with Matthew 17, verses 10 through 27. Then his disciples asked him, Why do the teachers of religious law insist that Elijah must return before the Messiah comes? Jesus replied, Elijah is indeed coming first to get everything ready. But I tell you, Elijah has already come, but he wasn't recognized, and they chose to abuse him. And in the same way they will also make the Son of Man suffer. Then the disciples realized he was talking about John the Baptist. At the foot of the mountain a large crowd was waiting for them. A man came and knelt before Jesus and said, Lord, have mercy on my son. He has seizures and suffers terribly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. So I brought him to your disciples, but they couldn't heal him. Jesus said, You faithless and corrupt people, how long must I be with you? How long must I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me. Then Jesus rebuked the demon in the boy and it left him. From that moment the boy was well. Afterward the disciples asked Jesus privately, Why couldn't we cast out that demon? You don't have enough faith, Jesus told them. I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, Move from here to there, and it would move. Nothing would be impossible. After they gathered again in Galilee, Jesus told them, The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of his enemies. He will be killed, but on the third day he will be raised from the dead. And his disciples were filled with grief. On their arrival in Capernaum, the collectors of the temple tax came to Peter and asked him, Doesn't your teacher pay the temple tax? Yes he does, Peter replied. Then he went into the house. But before he had a chance to speak, Jesus asked him, What do you think, Peter? Do kings tax their own people or the people they have conquered? They tax the people they have conquered, Peter replied. Well then, Jesus said, The citizens are free. However, we don't want to offend them. So go down to the lake and throw in a line. Open the mouth of the first fish you catch, and you will find a large silver coin. Take it and pay the tax for both of us. Psalm twenty two verse one through eighteen. My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Why are you so far away when I groan for help? Each day I call to you, my God, but you do not answer. Every night I lift my voice, but I find no relief. Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. Our ancestors trusted in you and you rescued them. They cried out to you and were saved. They trusted in you and were never disgraced. But I am a worm and not a man. I am scorned and despised by all. Everyone who sees me mocks me. They sneer and shake their heads, saying, Is this the one who relies on the Lord? Then let the Lord save him. If the Lord loves him so much, let the Lord rescue him. Yet you brought me safely from my mother's womb, and led me to trust you at my mother's breast. I was thrust into your arms at my birth. You have been my God from the moment I was born. Do not stay so far from me, for trouble is near. No one else can help me. My enemies surround me like a herd of bulls. Fierce bulls of bastion have hemmed me in. Like lions they open their jaws against me, roaring and tearing into their prey. My life is poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax melting within me. My strength has dried up like sunbaked clay. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You have laid me in the dust and left me for dead. My enemies surround me like a pack of dogs. An evil gang closes in on me. They have pierced my hands and feet. I can count all my bones. My enemies stare at me and gloat. They divide my garments among themselves. They throw dice for my clothing. Proverbs five, seven through fourteen. So now my sons, listen to me. Never stray away from what I am about to say. Stay away from her. Don't go near the door of her house. If you do you will lose your honor, and will lose to merciless people all you have achieved. Strangers will consume your wealth and someone else will enjoy the fruit of your labor. In the end you will groan in anguish when disease consumes your body, you will say how I hated discipline. If only I had not ignored all the warnings, oh why didn't I listen to my teachers? Why didn't I pay attention to my instructors? I have come to the brink of utter ruin, and now I must face public disgrace. If you go back and read Psalm 22, you'll notice a lot there that is reiterated at the time of Christ. You know, my God, my God, why have you abandoned me? There's quite a few things there. I I think that's really important for us to remember myself. I'm talking to myself here. Things may not always turn out the way in this world that we hoped or wanted or thought they would. But God's still in charge. And at the end of the day, because of Christ, we get to spend eternity with him in joy and happiness and peace forever. Medal of Honor citation for today is James Brady, also known as James Bradbury, private U.S. Civil War Fox Company, 10th New Hampshire Infantry Irish Regiment. U.S. Army Date September twenty ninth, eighteen sixty-four at Chapin's Farm, Virginia. Capture a flag. Accredited to Kingston, Rockingham County, New Hampshire, not awarded posthumously, presented April 6th, 1865, born eighteen forty two, Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, died October seventh, nineteen oh four, buried Old Pine Grove Cemetery, one hundred sixty-four, Raymond, New Hampshire.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

James Brady.

Proverbs Warning Against Folly

Medal Of Honor: James Brady

John Adams On Democracy And Rage

SPEAKER_01 15:14

And gravely counts up several victims of democratic rage as proofs that democracy is more pernicious than monarchy or aristocracy. Is this fair, sir? Do you deny any one of my facts? I do not say that democracy has been more pernicious on the whole and in the long run than monarchy or aristocracy. Democracy has never been and never can be so durable as aristocracy or monarchy. But while it lasts, it is more bloody than either. I beseech you, sir, to recollect the time when my three volumes of defense were written and printed in seventeen eighty six, seventeen eighty seven, and seventeen eighty eight. The history of the university had not then furnished me with the document I have since seen, an alphabetical dictionary of the names and qualities of persons mangled and bleeding victims of democratic rage and popular fury in France during the despotism of democracy in that country, which Napoleon ought to be immortalized for calling ideology. This work is in two printed volumes in Octavo as large as Johnson's dictionary, and is in the library of our late virtuous and excellent vice president, Eldridge Jerry, where I hope it will be preserved with anxious care. An edition of it ought to be printed in America, otherwise it will be forever suppressed. France will never dare to look at it. The Democrats themselves could not bear the sight of it. They prohibited it and suppressed it as far as they could. It contains an immense number of as great and good men as France ever produced. We curse the Inquisition and the Jesuits, and yet the Inquisition and the Jesuits are restored. We curse religiously the memory of Mary for burning good men in Smithfield, when if England had been democratical, she would have burned many more. And we murder many more by the guillotine in the latter years of the eighteenth century. We curse Guy Fawkes for thinking of blowing up Westminster Hall. Yet Ross blows up the Capitol, the palace, and the library at Washington, and would have done it with the same Sangfreud had Congress and the President's family been within the walls. Oh my soul, I am weary of these dismal contemplations. When will mankind listen to reason, to nature, or to revelation? You say I might have exhibited millions of plebeians sacrificed to the pride, folly, and ambition of monarchy and aristocracy. This is very true, and I might have exhibited as many millions of plebeians sacrificed by the pride, folly, and ambition of their fellow plebeians and their own, in proportion to the extent and duration of their power. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaracious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty. When clear prospects are opened before vanity, pride, avarice, or ambition, for their easy gratification, it is hard for the most considerate philosophers and the most conscientious moralists to resist the temptation.

SPEAKER_00 19:26

Individuals have conquered themselves, nations and large bodies of men. Never.

Remembering History Without Erasing It

Republic Over Democracy

SPEAKER_01 19:41

My mother had a cat that she dearly loved years and years ago. We had some dogs living at the house at that time. Those dogs and that cat got along just fine. There were there we only had one or two dogs. And a good good friend of hers came over one day. And brought her dogs along with her. So there ended up being, I don't know, four or five, I think. And my mother had asked this person not to because she knew the way that dogs were. And those four or five dogs together ended up killing this cat that my mother dearly loved. But they never would have done it. The ones that lived at our house, they never would have done it without the input from these other dogs. It turned into a mob. And that's exactly what happens in democracy. It turns into a mob. It's violent. It's chaotic. It kills without reason, without rhyme. The French reign of terror is just one of countless examples. Right? I think that's the first lesson to take just from these first two paragraphs of John Adams' letter. The second one is that we make a huge mistake when we ignore history, when we try and hide and cover up history. You think about all the statues that have been pulled down in the United States lately. You think about the renaming of bases, military bases away from Confederate generals and trying to erase that history. That's part of our history. It's not a great part, but there's lessons to be learned there. And you look at the Soviets that tried to erase. I still remember watching that Olympics a few years back where they do the opening ceremony right, and the commentators for a couple of new TV stations, they noted that the Russians were having a really hard time covering the period where Stalin just absolutely butchered his own people. Same with the Chinese. And you get, you see this reference, for example, he talks about Adams, and this paragraph talks about these volumes that list all these people that were killed in France and how the Democrats in America didn't ever want that published. And the French certainly didn't ever want to look at that. You know, they didn't want to remember that. It's kind of like a lot of Germans after World War II for decades didn't want to look back at that. You see another reference here to the Catholic Church and Mary, the bloody Mary in England who burned so many good men at the stake, and he's saying, well, if it was bad, you know, but it could have been worse. But the point is, uh, you look at Fox's Book of the Martyrs, the Catholic Church is not fond of that at all. But folks, we hurt ourselves and the institutions that we love when we try and pretend that history didn't happen. And the last lesson from these first two paragraphs is the fact that our founders didn't want a democracy. They were afraid of a democracy. They wanted a republic, and rightly so. And we need to remember that today. And we see evidence. Look at Minnesota today, look at the mobs. Just the mindless chaos.

SPEAKER_00 23:11

That's what happens in a democracy. And we should never want that.

Book Plug And Support Request

SPEAKER_01 23:21

If you are looking for a family-friendly middle-grade read uh for your kids or your grandkids, or yourself, if you grew up uh on The Hobbit from Tolkien or Harry Potter from Rowling, uh Narnia from C.S. Lewis, I'm not saying that my book series is in the category with those people, but if you really like that genre, I think it'll entertain you enough, at least uh it'll make you smile a few times. If you would check it out, I would be grateful. There's two books in the series so far. And if you would leave a review for one or both, if you enjoy them, I would I would very much appreciate that. Those reviews help a lot. Also on the podcast, if you feel like you're getting something out of it on a regular basis, marriage scripture, daily scripture in general, the Medal of Honor citations or the Christian American history and heritage, if you would leave a review online for the podcast, those five-star reviews on Apple help immensely, and Spotify, among others, wherever you listen to it. And if you'd rather listen to it on YouTube or you know somebody that would, we've started to put it there recently. But also, if you have five or ten dollars a month that you can donate to the podcast, that would help a great deal.

SPEAKER_00 24:39

There's a link down at the bottom of the show notes where you can do that.

SPEAKER_01 24:48

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