Who Is Not Against Us

A simple question cuts through the noise: who are we for? We open with Mark 9, where Jesus rebukes tribal instincts and affirms that anyone acting in his name is not an enemy. That word on unity, paired with his picture of greatness as serving a child, challenges our craving for status and control. From there, we move into the deep waters of marriage with 1 Peter 3 and Jesus’ teaching on divorce. Honor, gentleness, and shared inheritance in grace become the backbone of covenant love, and we face our modern blind spots—especially the habit of condemning some sexual sins while excusing casual divorce.

The conversation sharpens when Jesus speaks about cutting off whatever causes sin. The imagery is fierce because the stakes are real. We talk about ruthless repentance that protects the soul: tearing out practices that warp desire, closing doors to bitterness, and choosing peace without surrendering truth. Psalm 44 then resets our posture: prepare, train, and work hard, but place ultimate trust in God’s hand. That balance keeps us from both naïve passivity and brittle self-reliance. A proverb about holding the tongue adds street-level wisdom, reminding us that fewer words often mean fewer wounds.

History enters as a blunt teacher. We recount acts of terror, stories of valor under fire, and turn to Samuel Adams’ urgent counsel on liberty and vigilance. The parallels to our moment are hard to ignore. Systems drift when people grow numb, and foundations shake when citizens trade courage for comfort. We ask what principled resolve looks like today—lawful, rooted in faith, and committed to the good of neighbor. We close in prayer, centering our hope on God’s kingdom, daily provision, and the grace to live these truths at home and in public.

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Transcript

Welcome And Prayer

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Mark 9, starting with verse 38. John said to Jesus, Teacher, we saw someone using your name to cast out demons. But we told him to stop because he wasn't in our group. Don't stop him, Jesus said. No one who performs a miracle in my name will soon be able to speak evil of me. Anyone who is not against us is for us. If anyone gives you even a cup of water because you belong to the Messiah, I tell you the truth, that person will surely be rewarded. Oxford, United Kingdom, 14 February 2024. 15-year-old girl raped near the Westgate Shopping Center by Emman Abadi Mofred, an Iranian asylum seeker. Hey folks, this is Jesse Cope back with another episode of the American Soul Podcast. Hope y'all are doing well wherever y'all are, whatever part of the day you're in. Sure to appreciate y'all joining me, giving me a little bit of your time and attention, a little piece of your day. I will try and use it wisely. For those of y'all who continue to share the podcast and tell others about it, thank you for those of y'all who continue to pray for me and for the podcast. Thank you very much. Very grateful for your prayers. Father, thank you for today. Thank you for you, Father, and your son, Jesus Christ, and your Holy Spirit. Thank you for your love and your mercy, your grace and your forgiveness of sins through the merit of your Son Jesus Christ. Thank you for those people you've put in our lives that lead us closer to you, Father, and to your Son. Both the good and the bad and the ugly. Thank you for the people that listen to the podcast. Please be with them and be with their families. Guide them. Surround them with your angels. Protect them from evil of any kind. Bless the marriages of those who are married. Guide those who have children in raising them to know you. Help us, Father, to love you with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength to love our neighbors as ourselves. Forgive us our sins, our greed, our pride, arrogance, judgment of others, gossip, slander, rash words and actions, covetousness, lust, procrastination, laziness, cowardice and unbelief, Father. Help us to overcome our unbelief. We do believe. Be with our military, law enforcement firefighters, EMS. Keep them safe, Father, please. Surround them with your angels, protect them from evil of any kind. Be with their families, keep them safe. Be with our ICE agents, in particular here in America. Our military in the Middle East and around the world. Just all of them, Father. Be with those in Mexico. In war-torn areas. Suffering.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Under oppression and cruelty. Help us to turn back to you, Father, as a nation.

Mark 9: Humility And Unity

Hard Warnings On Sin And Hell

Teaching On Divorce And Its Weight

Psalm 44: Trust Over Tools

SPEAKER_00 3:36

Marriage verse for today. 1 Peter 3 1 through 7. Wives, likewise, submit to your own husbands. Do this so that even if some of them refuse to believe the word, they may be one without a word by their wives' way of life. After all, they will have observed the reverent and holy manner of your lives. Don't try and make yourselves beautiful on the outside with stylish hair or wearing gold jewelry or fine clothes. Instead, make yourselves beautiful on the inside, and your hearts with the enduring quality of a gentle, peaceful spirit. This type of beauty is very precious in God's eyes. For it was in this way that holy women who trusted in God used to make themselves beautiful, accepting the authority of their own husbands. For example, Sarah accepted Abraham's authority when she called him master. You have become her children when you do good and don't respond to threats with fear. Husbands, likewise, submit by living with your wife in ways that honor her, knowing that she is the weaker partner. Honor her all the more, as she is also a co-heir of the gracious care of life. Do this so that your prayers won't be hindered. How many of you husbands out there feel like your prayers are hindered? Stunted, perhaps, stilted? How many of you honor your wife and treat her gently as the weaker partner? Wives, how many of you are frustrated at your husband's actions? But how many of you call them in effect, if not in name? Lord and Master, how many submit to your husband? We like to complain about so many things, our marriage among them, folks, but then we I'm reminded of the proverb that talks about we like to rage against the Lord. But it's our own actions that put us in that situation. I read that proverb today. I kind of laughed at myself because I so often I like to get frustrated at God, and yet I'm the one that put myself here. It doesn't make the situation any less frustrating, but we do need to acknowledge that we're the ones that dug our own hole often. Right. Mark 9, 30 through 1012. Leaving that region they traveled through Galilee. Jesus didn't want anyone to know he was there, for he wanted to spend more time with his disciples and teach them. He said to them, The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of his enemies. He will be killed, but three days later he will rise from the dead. They didn't understand what he was saying, however, and they were afraid to ask him what he meant. Again, if you haven't had a chance to read Lee Strobel's The Case for Christ, there's some really good chapters talking about the evidence for death, resurrection, and reappearance of Jesus to his followers after his death. After they arrived at Capernaum and settled in a house, Jesus asked his disciples, What were you discussing out on the road? But they didn't answer because they had been arguing about which of them was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve disciples over to him, and said, Whoever wants to be first must take last place and be servant of everyone else. Then he put a little child among them. Taking the child in his arms, he said to them, Anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes not only me, but also my father who sent me. John said to Jesus, Teacher, we saw someone using your name to cast out demons, but we told him to stop because he wasn't in our group. How familiar does that sound, because you weren't part of our group, our party, our club. Don't stop him, Jesus said. No one who performs a miracle in my name will soon be able to speak evil of me. Anyone who is not against us is for us. If anyone gives you even a cup of water because you belong to the Messiah, I tell you the truth, that person will surely be rewarded. Notice this is a great example of how those who claim that you have to be part of their particular denomination are the only ones to receive salvation and eternal life. There's nothing about that here. Jesus doesn't say anything about the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, Greek Orthodox Baptist, Reformed Baptist, Methodist. He talks about his relationship, our relationship to him. Right? But if you cause one of these little ones who trusts in me to fall into sin, it would be better for you to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone hung around your neck. If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It's better to enter eternal life with only one hand than to go into the unquenchable fires of hell with two hands. If your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It's better to enter eternal life with only one foot than to be thrown into hell with two feet. And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out, it's better to enter the kingdom of God with only one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell. Where the maggots never die, and the fire never goes out. For everyone will be tested with fire. Salt is good for seasoning, but if it loses its flavor, how do you make it salty again? You must have the qualities of salt among yourselves and live in peace with each other. You go back up here to that previous one, folks. Whatever hell is, it's not going to be fun. Then Jesus left Capernaum and went down to the region of Judea and into the area east of the Jordan River. Once again crowds gathered around him, and as usual he was teaching them. Some Pharisees came and tried to trap him with this question Should a man be allowed to divorce his wife? Jesus answered them with a question, What did Moses say in the law about divorce? Well, he permitted it, they replied. He said a man can give his wife a written notice of divorce and send her away. But Jesus responded, He wrote this commandment only as a concession to your hard hearts, but God made them male and female from the beginning of creation. This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one. Since they are no longer two but one, let no one split apart what God has joined together. Later, when he was alone with his disciples in the house, they brought up the subject again. He told them whoever divorces his wife and marries someone else commits adultery against her. And if a woman divorces her husband and marries someone else, she commits adultery. Psalm 44, verses 1 through 8. You go back to that divorce, folks. We like to, I shouldn't say we like to, but a lot of people inside the church rightly focus on the sexual immorality of LGBTQ lifestyles. There's nothing wrong with that. They are immoral. It's clearly stated by the Bible. But a lot of times we like to turn the blind eye in our church to divorce, to no fault divorce in particular. Psalm 44, verses 1 through 8. O God, we have heard it with our own ears, our own eyes. Our ancestors have told us of all you did in their day in the days long ago. You drove out the pagan nations by your power and gave all the land to our ancestors. You crushed their enemies and set our ancestors free. We need to remember these next few verses in America today, folks, desperate desperately. They did not conquer the land with their swords. It was not their own strong arm that gave them victory. It was your right hand and strong arm, and the blinding light from your face that helped them, for you loved them. You are my king and my God. You command victories for Israel. Only by your power can we push back our enemies, only in your name can we trample our foes. I do not trust in my bow. I do not count on my sword to save me. You are the one who gives us victory over our enemies. You disgrace those who hate us. O God, we give glory to you all day long and constantly praise your name. You notice it doesn't say here that the psalmist doesn't have a bow and doesn't have a sword. He obviously does. And you would assume he's trained in how to use them. But he still puts his utmost trust in God. Prepare, use the talents that you have that God's given you. But at the end of the day, our trust has to be in God. And I'm working on that, folks. I struggle with that. Proverbs 10, 19. Too much talk leads to sin. Be sensible and keep your mouth shut. And I need to hear that often. I would argue that there's quite a few of us across the nation today that need to hear that often. Countryside. Get a chance. This is the first book in the series. You can get it. Hardback, paperback. There's some reviews if you want to look. Ebook and the second book. And if you're looking for middle grade fantasy, Narnia, Harry Potter Chronicles, Narnia already said. The Hobbit, Percy Jackson. If you check those out and if you enjoy them, if you'd leave a review somewhere, those reviews, especially the five-star ones, help immensely. Same thing for the podcast and reviews. And if you have five or ten dollars a month you can spare, uh that helps a great deal for the podcast. So thank you. All right. April 16th, 1925.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

I think we've read this one before, but we're gonna read it again just on the offhand chance. Uh Sophia Bulgaria.

Proverbs On Speech And Personal Updates

History Notes: Terror And Valor

Samuel Adams On Liberty And Vigilance

Modern Parallels And Moral Resolve

The Lord’s Prayer And Farewell

SPEAKER_00 14:21

Bulgarian Communist Party detonated a bomb. I know we've read this one before. We'll read it again anyway. Inside Saint Nadalia Church during a crowded funeral service for General Konstantin Gorgiv, whom they had assassinated two days earlier. So they assassinated this guy and then they set off a bomb inside the church. The explosion collapsed the church dome, killing about 200 people, military officers, politicians, civilians, injuring 500 others in the reign of debris and chaos. Bulgarian Communist Party directed by Soviet operatives and seeking to overthrow the government through violent revolution. Not much has changed. Not much has changed. Also known as Oscar Brooken's private Spanish-American War Charlie Company, 17th U.S. Infantry, U.S. Army, July 1st, 1898, El Caney, Cuba. Gallantly assisted in the rescue of the wounded from in front of the lines and under heavy fire from the enemy. Accredited to Green County, Ohio, not awarded posthumously. Presented June 21st, 1899. Born July 19, 1869. Byron. Yeah. Wisconsin. Died August 18th, 1938. Buried Sunset Cemetery 10, Tac 239, Tac 1, Galloway, Ohio. Oscar Brooken. Alec McKinney, also known as Maya McKinney, May 7th, 2019, Highlands Ranch, Colorado. Sixteen-year-old transgender teenager, trans man, an accomplice, Devin Erickson carried out a school shooting at a STEM school Highlands Ranch, killing one student and injuring eight others. Henriette Sukas and can't pronounce the other first name, Mustafa. April 2019. Bodies were discovered. Murders occurred in 2018 and 2019, London. Two women, 34-year-old Hungarian immigrant, 38-year-old mother of three, were raped, tortured, and murdered by Zahid Yunus, a Muslim man with a history of sadistic violence against women. He hid their bodies in a freezer in his flat. He was a convicted sex offender. Tell all these little stories, folks, just to when you hear people talking about how great illegal immigration is, or communism, leftism, socialism, Nazism, fascism, or Islam. You come back and listen to these stories about what actually happens in history instead of the talking points that so many people. We're going to get back to Candidus, October 14, 1771, in the Boston Gazette. This is Samuel Adams. And we'll see if we can read another paragraph or two, pick up where we left off. It is not my design to present at present to form the comparison between the state of this country now and that of the Roman Empire and those dregs of time, or between the disposition of Caesar and that of. The comparison, I confess, would not in all parts hold good. The tyrant of Rome, to do him justice, had learning, courage, and great abilities. It behooves us, however, to awake and advert to the danger we are in. The tragedy of American freedom, it is to be feared, is nearly completed. A tyranny seems to be at the very door. It is to little purpose then to go about coolly to rehearse the gradual steps that have been taken, the means that have been used and the instruments employed to encompass the ruin of the public liberty. We know them and we detest them. But what will this avail if we have not courage and resolution to prevent the completion of their system? Sounds again like today, folks. We know what's going on. Do we have the courage and a revolution, a resolution to prevent the completion of the destruction of America today? Our enemies would fain have us lie down on the bed of sloth and security and persuade ourselves that there is no danger. They are daily administering the opiate with multiple arts and delusions, and I am sorry to observe that the gilded pill is so alluring to some who call themselves the friend of liberty. But is there no danger when the very foundations of our civil constitution tremble? When we attempt, when an attempt was first made to disturb the cornerstone of the fabric, we were universally and justly alarmed. And can we be cool spectators when we see it already removed from its place? With what resentment and indignation, indignation did we first receive the intelligence of a design to make us tributary, not to natural enemies, but infinitely more humiliating to fellow subjects? And yet, with this unparalleled insolence, we are told to be quiet when we see that very money which is torn from us by lawless force made use of still further to oppress us, to feed and pamper a set of infamous wretches who swarm like the locusts of Egypt, and some of them expect to reveal in wealth and riot on the spoils of our country. Man, does that not sound like money taken from taxpayers today and given to illegal immigrants and mass Muslim immigrants and those who want to destroy our country like a swarm of locusts out of Egypt? Is it a time for us to sleep when our free government is essentially changed and a new one is forming upon a quite different system? A government without the least dependence upon the people, a government under the absolute control of a minister of state, upon whose sovereign dictates is to depend not only the time when and the place where the legislative assembly shall sit, but whether it shall sit at all. And if it is not, if it is allowed to meet, it shall be liable immediately to be thrown out of existence, if in any one point it fails in obedience to his arbitrary mandates. Have we not already seen such specimens of what we are to expect under such a government, and the instructions which Mr Hutchinson has received, and which he has publicly avowed and declared he is bound to obey? By one He is to refuse to his assent to a tax bill unless the commissioners of the customs and other favorites are exempted. And if these may be freed from taxes by the order of a minister, may not all his tools and drudges, or any others who are subservient to his designs, expect the same indulgence. Welfare. By another he is to forbid to pass a grant of the assembly to any agent, but one to whose election he has given his consent, which is in effect to put it out of our power to take the necessary and legal steps for the redress of those grievances which we suffer by the arts and machinations of ministers and their minions here. What difference is there between the present state of this province, which in course will be the deplorable state of all America and that of Rome, under the law before mentioned? The difference is only this that they gave their formal consent to the change, which we have not yet done. But let us be upon our guard against even a negative submission, for agreeable to the sentiments of a celebrated writer who thoroughly understood his subject, if we are voluntarily silent, as the conspirators would have us to be, it will be considered as an approbation of the change. By the fundamental laws of England, the two houses of parliament in concert with the king exercise the legislative power. But if the two houses should be so infatuated as to resolve to suppress their powers and invest the king with the full and absolute government, certainly the nation would not suffer it. And if a minister shall usurp the supreme and absolute government of America and set up his instructions as laws in the colonies, and their governors shall be so weak or so wicked, as for the sake of keeping their places to be made instruments and putting them in execution, who will presume to say that the people have not a right, or that it is not their indispensable duty to God and their country by all rational means in their power to resist them? I can't help but think of the 1947 decision of the Supreme Court, Everson v. Board of Education, that passed, decided on separation of church and state, the modern version, and Roe v. Wade as two examples where we should have had attorneys general, governors, somebody in the chain of command step up to the federal government and say, no. This is so egregiously wrong, so clearly against the entire history of our nation, to take life away from the most vulnerable, to kick God out of a country where the very first act of our Continental Congress was to turn to Him as a Congress, as a political body in prayer, and say, no, we're not going to follow those rules from the federal level. 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 of the power and the glory forever and ever.

unknown 25:26

Amen.

SPEAKER_00 25:28

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