Rick Green: 0:12

This is the intersection of faith and the culture. It's WallBuilders Live where we talk about the hottest topics of the day- faith, culture, elections all of those things from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. My name is Rick Green. I'm a former Texas legislator and America's Constitution Coach and I have the honor of being here with David Barton. He's America's premier historian, our founder at WallBuilders, a great mentor and someone that's really educated the American people on the truth about our history, where we came from and what the secret sauce is that produces a great nation. Tim Barton is with us, national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders, someone that has just some powerful, powerful presentations right now that are so needed in our culture. The research that these guys have done in their library that has, frankly, that's the largest private collection of founding fathers documents that anybody has, it's an incredible working collection where they don't just have stuff you go in there and look at. They actually study it and then put it out there for us so that we can get good answers to what we need to do to restore our nation. So it really is an honor and a privilege to be able to be here with these guys and work with them on a daily basis here on WallBuilders Live. Speaking of daily,

Rick Green: 1:17

if you'd like to grab some of our programs in the past few days or weeks that you might have missed, you can do that at our website, WallBuilders Live. com and that's also the place to make a contribution, takes money to make a radio program work. We are a listener-supported radio program, so to all of you across the nation that support us and help us amplify this voice of truth out there, thank you, thank you, thank you. We appreciate you. If you've never done that before and you'd be willing to help us out, please go to WallBuildersLive. com , click on the donate button and make that one time our monthly contribution. We greatly appreciate that. We are going to dive into a presentation given just a couple of days ago by David Barton, and this is just timely. I mean, we need this message where everybody's kind of looking for answers right now and asking questions about what do we do and how do we bring our nation back to a revival place where we could restore these founding principles and restore our constitutional republic and restore biblical values. So let's jump in. Here's David Barton.

David Barton: 2:14

God's word, the Bible, contains timeless principles. They apply for all people, all geographic locations, all times, all generations, all ages, it doesn't matter. They apply to everything. Now in America, where we are now, we have a lot of drama that's gone on in the recent years and a lot more drama that will happen, because we're just humans. That's the way it is and despite the drama that we have, that's been there for all generations to some degree. That's why Jesus told his disciples let not your heart be troubled, don't let it be afraid. We don't get caught up with what the circumstances around us may be. Having said that, let's take some Bible principles and apply them, perhaps to where we are today, where America is today, and doing that and looking at some Bible principles, let me start with an animal that's mentioned often in the Bible, a lion.

David Barton: 2:58

There's a lot we can learn from the lion. The lion is one of the creatures that's repeatedly talked about, lessons from the lion, and so, as you look at the lion and look at the lessons that we can learn from the lion, one of the things we know about the lion and where his rank is and his culture is he is called the king of beasts. He is kind of like the top of the food chain. He is the big thing in the jungle or in the wild. And as you look at those animals, those lions, when a lion roars, everything else runs. It's like everything's scared of the lion. The lion's kind of like scared of nothing. So consider that and how that works. Because when you look at a lion, they live on the Savannah in Africa and as you look at that Savannah, interesting thing, when a lion, a male lion, roars, and you can hear that across the Savannah, we're told that that roar goes out to five miles. Now, if you're a parent, maybe you've yelled at your kids before, maybe you've yelled at a neighbor, guarantee you they didn't hear you five miles away. So the lion lives on the Savannah and as such, they have to live and eat off the Savannah.

David Barton: 3:59

And one of the hunting plans they use is fairly interesting. And what will happen is that male lion, that big, fearsome creature, will get at one end of the Savannah and at the other end all the female lions will group together at the other end. Now, when they're in place and they're far apart and maybe miles apart on the different ends of the Savannah, that male lion will roar and he will open up and just let it rip and he scares everything and they all start running away from it. Hearing that roar, they don't want to be caught, they run away and the problem is they run right into the waiting teeth of the females. You see, as it turns out in the lion culture, the male lion while he's big and fearsome, he is the worst hunter, he's the slowest, now he's powerful, he's dangerous, but it's the females that are the real killers in the group. They're the ones that can do the real damage. They don't make the noise, but they do the damage. And so when he makes the noise and everybody runs away from the noise you run right into the mouth of the waiting lionesses and you become the food.

David Barton: 4:58

So what you learn is that if you want a safe place with a lion, a big roaring lion, what you have to do is you have to run to the roar. You run right at it because he's the slowest of the animals. Everything... that's counterintuitive. We've got to run away from it. No, you run to it. And so there was a lesson in nature about running to the roar, and that's significant because the Bible tells us that our enemy, Satan, is like a roaring lion, we're told about it in 1 Peter. So when that lion roars, our first instinct should not be fear. Our first instinct should not be flight. We need to think about it and say wait a minute, he's as a roaring lion. Is this something where I need to be offensive minded? I need to turn and go in the other direction. He wants me to flee. That's part of his plan. I shouldn't be doing that, and so what we want to do is say, alright, we need to learn this concept of running to the roar.

David Barton: 5:45

Now let me give you another biblical example that makes the same point a different way. Let's take, for example, the lion, again running to the roar. Why is that a good idea? Well, among other things, remember that the Bible also tells us in Proverbs 28 that the righteous are bold as a lion. We need to start thinking like the lion. We need to be offensive minded ourselves.

David Barton: 6:07

See, the problem we have oftentimes is the Bible uses a lot of analogy for we, God's people, and one of the analogies it uses is Jesus is shepherd and we are the sheep. And that's not bad, because that's a good analogy. But the problem is, if you think like a sheep, you'll start acting like a sheep. We're told in Proverbs 23:7 that as a man thanks in his heart, so is he. So if we're thinking like sheep, we're not going to be offensive minded. Sheep are the prey. They're not the ones that have the strength, they're the ones that get devoured. And so you want to think like a lion, and that means to be offensive minded, because that's what the Bible says we are and that's why we should not be the ones running away. I mean, that's just not who God made us to be. So that's one concept.

David Barton: 6:50

Let me take you to a different Bible verse that makes the same point. Let's go, for example, to what the Bible tells us about a place called Heaven and a place called Hell. Now, we know the Bible says much about both of those places, how to get to both of those places, but let's just focus on the concept of Hell for a minute. We know that's a very real place because the Bible tells us it's a very real place. If I can, for example, take you into this passage in Revelation 21. It talks about this real place. It says it's a lake that burns with fire and sulfur. This is the second death. It's a place that we're told about in the Bible.

David Barton: 7:24

Who is it that goes to this place? Who is it that goes literally into Hell? Well, the Bible tells us the answer to that in the first part of that verse. It tells us that the faithless and the detestable and the murderers and the sexually immoral and the sorcerers and the idolaters and all liars, really bad folks doing really bad stuff. This is who ends up in hell. Except, you may notice that there's a blank there. Now, what is missing in that blank spot? It's interesting that the list of all these bad, abominable things, all these really murderers and liars, the list starts with two interesting words, starts with the cowards and the fearful.

Rick Green: 8:02

Alright friends start to interrupt David's presentation. But we've got to take a quick break. Stay with us. You're listening to WallBuilders Live.

Tim Barton: 8:15

Hey guys, we want to let you know about a new resource we have at WallBuilders called the American Story. For so many years people have asked us to do a history book to help tell more of the story that's just not known or not told today and, we would say, very providentially, in the midst of all of the new attacks coming out against America, whether it be from things like the 1619 project that say America is evil and everything in America was built off slavery, which is certainly not true or things like even the Black Lives Matter movement, the organization itself, not the statement black lives matter, but the organization that says we're against everything that America was built on and this is part of the Marxist ideology. There's so many things attacking America. Well, is America worth defending? What is a true story of America? We actually have written and told that story, starting with Christopher Columbus, going roughly through Abraham Lincoln. We tell the story of America not as the story of a perfect nation or a perfect people, but the story of how God used these imperfect people and did great things through this nation. It's a story you want to check out.

Tim Barton: 9:12

Wallbuilders. com , the American Story.

Rick Green: 9:17

We're back on WallBuilders Live. We are in the middle of a presentation from David Barton called Running to the Roar, and we wanted to share it with you, our WallBuilders Live listeners. Let's jump right back in.

David Barton: 9:27

Nearly everything on this list is for what they did do. They killed someone or they were liars. It's interesting that when you get to cowards and the fearful, that's something they didn't do. They didn't have backbone, they didn't stand up, they weren't offensive minded. So it's interesting that the list starts off with people who didn't do anything. They were fearful, they didn't get involved, they didn't challenge what was going on. So that's a Bible verse and that again you get the mentality of running to the roar. Don't be cowardly, don't be fearful. So there's other things we can point to as well, and this all deals with getting a different mindset and another Bible verse that gives us that example of how to think,

David Barton: 10:06

if you look in the Bible, the book of Job is very interesting. He starts out, Job got a good relationship with God. He's a very honorable man, has a lot of integrity, good family. God's really blessed him. Satan shows up and says, yeah, he only serves you because he gets all the benefits. And God says that's not true, he'll serve me regardless of what happens. And so they get this thing where that Job is really kind of put on trial in the sense of it's a character test for him. He's still going to do the right thing, no matter what happens. So after these 37 chapters of Job and his friends if you can call them friends, I mean it's kind of debatable the way they acted and debated and talked about him and accused him of things. Nonetheless, for 37 chapters that goes on.

David Barton: 10:43

And then God shows up. And when God shows up, the whole conversation changes. And God says essentially, you guys think you know so much, so let me ask you some questions and you answer them for me. And he goes into a series of lessons from nature. He says did you make this animal this way, or this animal this way, or have you never seen the way this animal responds? And one of the animals that God talks about is the horse and specifically, in talking about the horse, this is the way God describes the.... Did you make the horse this way? Because I did. And look at the way God made the horse. He said do you give the horse its strength or clothe its neck with a flowing mane? Do you make it leap like a locus, striking terror with its proud snorting? It paws fiercely, rejoicing in its strength, and charges into the fray. It laughs at fear, afraid of nothing, it does not shy away from the sword. The quiver rattles against its side, along with the flashing spear and the lance. In frenzied excitement, it eats up the ground. It cannot stand still when the trumpet sounds. At the blast of the trumpet, it snorts aha! It catches a scent of battle from afar, the shout of commanders and the battle cry.

David Barton: 11:51

Now, what we're talking about here is a battle horse that God makes these battle horses and we've seen them throughout history. You go back to the Egyptians, the Syrians and the early Jews. I mean the war horse. That was a big deal. That was a powerful instrument to have on your side in battle. But it goes across history. You have the Romans and the Greeks and the Babylonians and their use of war horses. You have that also with the Celts. You come all the way into American history.

David Barton: 12:14

War horses were a big part of American history as well. Now, because of our culture, today we don't think of horses in that sense. But this was a very tangible example that God gave them because they saw it all the time, they thought about it. It was part of their culture. And so he says don't you realize that I'm the one who made the horse that way? Notice some of the ways he made the horse. It laughs at fear, afraid of nothing, it does not shy away from the sword. Again, it's offensive minded, it's not fearful and cowering. It says, in frenzied excitement, it catches the scent of battle. Oh, I love a good fight, essentially. I mean, we don't think like that, but this is the way God made the horse. It says, it cannot stand still when the trumpet sounds. Oh, I hear another battle coming. I've got to be there. Again, it's being offensive minded. It's another Bible verse telling us the same thing that you run to the roar, you don't run away from it, you engage.

David Barton: 13:00

Another example of this is what we see with social media. You know what's happened with social media? It's really grown over recent years and now it's starting to narrow it down because it's starting to really kind of control the message. And in recent years we've seen literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of groups and organizations pulled down or shut down or de-platformed. But it's interesting, there's been literally just prayer groups that have been taken off. They've been taken off because we don't like the stuff you're praying for, praying for the nation, or praying for family or morality or whatever, so we'll de-platform you.

David Barton: 13:31

We've seen the same thing go with groups that are traditional family groups, believe that God made a nuclear family. A nuclear family means a mother and a father and children and believe that that's the structure God... And well, we can't have you having that message on our platforms. We see the same thing with pro-life groups. Some 70 different pro-life groups have been de-platformed simply because they believe that life begins at least at conception and they want to protect that life from the moment of conception. And because you have that view, you can't use our platforms anymore.

David Barton: 14:01

We've seen the same thing with what would be called conservative groups, that talking about the Constitution, talking about the right of free speech or something else, that's going to get you de-platformed. And so you see all this de-platform going of biblical values or traditional values or moral values or constitutional values, and yet you find without any difficulty, across the same platforms, groups with an opposite message, whether it be communist groups or anarchist groups or whether it be Antifa, anti-fascist groups, and they can be very violent and advocate violence and have participated in violence, and they're still up on the platform. And so as you look at this, you kind of scratch your head and say what's the message here? And the message here is if you believe these things, you need to shut up, because if you don't, we're going to de-platform you and take you off. You just need to be quiet about those things. You don't need to be talking about the Constitution or about prayer, or about life or about family, because if you do, you won't be able to reach any of your friends anymore. We'll cut you off from your friends and we'll just de-platform you. So that's an intimidating kind of message.

David Barton: 15:01

So the Bible tells us at this point, in Hebrews 10: 38, it says, God says, I take no pleasure in the one that shrinks back. In other words, if you're going to get intimidated and back up, God says, I'm not in favor of people just backing up out of intimidation. Again, this is the concept of being offensive minded, and so what happens is, with all these platforms, whenever this happens, if you get wind of a battle, you need to be bold and run into it, not away from it. Don't get intimidated. Say, okay, I'm going to double down, because this is what's right, this is what's true, and I'm going to keep speaking the truth. In that sense, we don't win by not engaging. You've got to be on the battlefield to win the battle. Now, none of us really like battles, but that's not a question for us to decide. God put us here. We're supposed to take care of things until he comes back, and that means we have to engage in telling the truth and engaging in battles that preserve truth and preserve biblical values. So that's another Bible verse that tells us alright, we need to be running to the roar. There's another example of this. I want to go to something that's happening kind of in the culture right now. At WallB uilders, we work with state legislators all over the nation, we work with federal legislators, we work with county officials, et cetera.

David Barton: 16:11

And we were contacted by state representatives and in their state they look at their history and social study standards periodically. It may be 10 years in some states, or 12 years or whatever it is. So when it came up for time to review the American history and social study standards, the official proposals that came back from the educators in their state to the legislature said okay, here's our new standards legislature, we need you to approve this. And the proposals were amazing. What the proposals did was those history standards they proposed removing out of American history, we should no longer study the American Revolution, we should no longer study the Civil War. We should no longer study World War I or World War II or the Holocaust. We want all of this gone. That's amazing.

David Barton: 16:56

I mean there's not much left about American history at that point. Yes, there actually is, because see, if you can get rid of this stuff right here, what you have done by taking these aspects out, what you have done is you've gotten rid of things that have documentable facts, every one of these things, you can establish what the truth is, because you have history to show what it is. But if you can get rid of the history, well then you can move more into philosophically or politically based indoctrination. If we're not telling kids what actually happened, we can tell them what we want it to be or what we perceive it to be, and so this is a way of shifting the whole culture. Well, we can't stand by and say there's just nothing I can do about it, or we can say no, no, no, no, you're not going to do this in my school district.

David Barton: 17:35

I'm going to engage, because the Bible so many times says recall the former days, remember the former times. We learn lessons from what's happened in previous generations. That's why we study previous generations, so that we won't make the mistakes and we can learn from the inspiration of the good things that happened. So you've got this attempt to even back us off of our own history. And a good thing to remember here is castles. You go back to the old medieval days. Castles, a biblical word for that is a stronghold, and as you look at a stronghold like that, that's pretty formidable. I mean, that would seem to be tough to attack. But the Bible tells us in Proverbs 21:22 that a wise man attacks the city of the mighty and tears down their stronghold.

Rick Green: 18:14

All right, we've got to take another break here. Folks, Stay with us. That's David Barton. You've been listening to, Running to the roar. We'll pick up where we left off when we come back on WallBuilders Live.

Tim Barton: 18:34

Hey, this is Tim Barton with WallBuilders, and as you've had the opportunity to listen to WallBuilders Live, you've probably heard the wealth of information about our nation, about our spiritual heritage, about the religious liberties, about all the things that makes America exceptional, and you might be thinking, as incredible as this information is, I wish there was a way that I could get one of the WallBuilders guys to come to my area and share with my group whether it be a church, whether it be a Christian school or public school or some political event or activity. If you're interested in having a WallBuilders speaker come to your area, you can get on our website at www. WallBuilders. com and there's a tab for scheduling, and if you'll click on that tab, you'll notice there's a list of information from speakers bios to events that are already going on, and there's a section where you can request an event. To bring this information about who we are, where we came from, our religious liberties and freedoms. Go to the WallBuilder's website and bring a speaker to your area. This is Tim Barton from WallBuilders, with another moment from American History.

Tim Barton: 19:39

After the final victory at Yorktown, the Continental Army awaited the outcome of peace negotiations with Great Britain. Pastor Israel Evans, a chaplain in the Army proposed to George Washington that they build a structure where church services could be held during the months of waiting. Washington approved the plan and urged his officers to ensure that the soldiers attended service. Pastor Evans further knew if we were to secure the liberties they had fought for, sound education would be crucial. He declared, every parent and every friend of the freedom of his country ought to be attentive to the improvement of our youth in the principles of freedom and good government, and then the people will stand fast in their liberty for a long time. Our schools today need to return to teaching the principles of freedom and good government in order for America to survive and prosper. For more information about Pastor Israel Evans and other colonial patriots, go to WallBuilders. com .

Rick Green: 20:33

We're back here on WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us. We've got more of David Barton coming up. I want to encourage you once again to visit our website at WallBuildersLive. com . This presentation, Running to the Roar. Man, we need this right now. Here's David Barton, Running to the Roar.

David Barton: 20:49

According to the Bible, if you're a wise person, you attack strongholds. You go after those things that say ah, that's just too big. See we talk to ourselves to be intimidated and we get fearful and cowardly when we need to be saying oh, is that a stronghold? Great, I love attacking strongholds. That's what we've seen in the Bible with Caleb and Joshua. The reason they weren't wiped out with the older generation and the children of Israel in the wilderness is because they had a different viewpoint that said, God can defeat this enemy. So when they finally get to the promised land, they're the only two old guys that get to go in. A whole new generation has come along. Caleb says give me the mountains, because that's where the giants are. I want to go where the giants are, and that mentality of attacking the stronghold is what you see so many times repeated throughout the Scriptures. So attacking the stronghold is the right thing to do. Storming the castles is another way of saying that, but it's all being offensive minded, and so that's just another way of saying run to the roar, be offensive minded. Now, these are a number of biblical examples of the same principle. So they're all making the same point, different verses, but it's being offensive minded. Now, as we look at where the country is today, you can look at all sorts of polling.

David Barton: 21:58

You can look at studies that are done on where the culture is and where we're headed. You can look at legislation, what the trends were. If you look at what's happening today versus 15- 20 years ago, there's a lot of things that concern us because we don't think it's moving in the right direction. We don't think it's moving in a healthy direction and we're kind of overwhelmed with that. So what happens as a result is we see the condition of the country and say, boy, we really need a revival. And I will say that we're taking this seriously because we're really praying for revival. I mean, I have literally been in stadiums with 80,000 to 100,000 people who spent the whole day in a stadium praying and fasting. People are praying for revivals. There was a particular year documented that over 50,000 groups met at civic locations on a specific day praying for revival across the nation. So people are praying for revival and that's a really good thing to pray for. It's something that a nation needs. It's something that America needs. But here's the question I've got, we're praying for that, but so all this prayer that we have going,

David Barton: 22:56

how do we know when our prayers have been heard and answered? Now, living in the country, in Texas as we do, we went through a recent drought. It was a really bad drought, lasted, about seven years. It was really tough in our lakes and agriculture and so much industry, and so we were praying for rain. We were praying and fasting for rain here in the state and you know what? We saw the answer to that prayer. We saw the storms come and the rain clouds and dump the rain and the lakes got full again and our stock tanks got full, and so we saw the answer to those prayers. When you're praying for revival, what do you look for? Because we knew when the rain came, great, our prayers have been answered. How do you know when your prayers have been answered

David Barton: 23:38

with a revival? This is a little more difficult, but we have a lot of places we can go to get the answer for this. One is the Bible. There are a lot of revivals that happen in the Bible, so we can study the example of revivals. What happens in a revival? How do you know when one comes? How long does one last? What happens to the culture during the revival? And so you have Biblical revivals in both the Old and the New Testament. For example, just in the Old Testament alone you have the revivals that occurred under Asa, Jehoshaphat and Josiah. So we can study those passages and see about revivals.

David Barton: 24:07

But as Americans we also have the benefit of having had a number of revivals in our own history. We've got the First Great Awakening, the Second Great Awakening and Third Great Awakening and some scholars say, well, the third and the second are the same thing. We've got the turn of the century revivals. However you break it up, we've had a lot of revivals in American history. So there's a lot of history we can study to see what a revival looks like and what it does. And so when you take all that we have from Bible and from American history, turns out that there's six common factors that go with a revival. You find it in the Bible, you find it in history.

David Barton: 24:37

So if we're praying for revival, let's look at the six things that probably will happen with a revival to help us recognize when revival actually occurs. So to do that, look at those six things, need to first kind of give a mindset on this. We need to approach this with the right perspective and, living in America as we do, we have difficulty with perspective in two areas because of the culture in which we now live. Let me explain it this way- If you look at what we have now, these two harmful areas of thinking that we have particularly as a church, number one deals with our obsession on a national focus. Now, a lot of this is really driven by our news sources, and I don't care what side of the spectrum you're on politically, you have a news source from which you get information, and those news sources all tend to be national news. You turn on cable somewhere, whether you're looking at the right, left or center, you're going to get national news. You probably didn't hear any story about Watertown, Iowa. Probably didn't hear anything about Jacksboro, Texas. Probably nothing about Yukon, Oklahoma. Very little about Scottsb luff, Nebraska, and yet these are places where people live.

David Barton: 25:41

So what happens? We get so much national news that our focus is looking at the national level. So we look at things that happen, for example, in Washington DC at the federal level. We look at what's going on at the Capitol, the laws that are being passed, the decisions of the Supreme Court, or we look at the president, what the president is doing. And it's very easy to get paralyzed because nearly none of us can do anything to make that different. I know lots of members of Congress. I know hundreds of state legislators and as well as I know them, as good a relationship as we have, I can't call Congress and say that's a silly law, pass a different one. It's not going to happen.

Rick Green: 26:17

All right, friends, we are out of time for today. We will catch you tomorrow right here on WallBuilders Live, and we will pick up right where we left off with David Barton's presentation, Running to the Roar. Get more information at our website, WallBuildersLive. com . As always, we thank you for listening to WallBuilders Live.