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Building On The American Heritage Series - Politics in the Pulpit
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Are you ready to challenge conventional narratives of American history? We're shaking historical foundations by illuminating the significant role pastors held during the American Revolution. Their influence was so profound, it guided key players like John Adams and even echoed in British records. We spotlight heroes like Reverend John Wise who boldly advocated for freedom before the Declaration of Independence was even drafted. From their pulpits, these brave preachers stirred the spirit of revolution and guided government officials on matters of morality.
We're exploring the intriguing relationship between pastors, government, and politics. Our analysis of Romans 13 and Hebrews 11 leads us to uncanny similarities. From ancient biblical figures like Samuel and David to Jesus, we highlight teachings on issues that are surprisingly political in nature. Join us as we push boundaries, investigating the responsibilities and roles of pastors in matters of state and society.
But we're not staying in the past. We're delving into present-day issues - faith, government restrictions, and the role of the church in contemporary society. We're demystifying myths surrounding pastors being forced into silence by IRS tax code and discussing the constitutional protections they can enjoy. And to wrap things up, we reinforce the significance of faith as the cornerstone of our lives and society, with the Bible as our ultimate guidebook. It's time to reclaim our history, understand our present, and shape our future.
Let the torch of freedom burn .
Speaker 2You found your way to the intersection of faith and politics . Walbuilders Live with David Barton Rig Green , also found online at WalbuildersLivecom and Walbuilderscom and also on Facebook . You can follow us there as well and comment on the shows , as you get a chance to listen to them , and in fact you might have a show you'd like us to cover , a topic or an interview . You can email that to us at radio at Walbuilderscom , and we also encourage you to let your local station know if you'd like to hear us locally . We're not on the station there close to you , so if you're not familiar with which station we're on close to you , then go check it out at WalbuildersLivecom . Here we go to building on the American Heritage Series with David Barton . Well , david , our topic today is pastors the influence they had on the revolution and whether or not they should be having influence today in the culture . What about the revolution ?
Speaker 1Well , when you go back to the revolution and look at people who were actually there , who participated , like John Adams from start to finish , signed the declaration , signed the peace treaty , ended , john Adams , 1816 , when giving a list of who was most responsible for independence in America , went through and said well , you've got the Reverend Dr Samuel Cooper , you got the Reverend Jonathan Matthew , there's George Woodfield , there's Reverend Charles Chunt , preachers Not only the attest point to it , the British did as well . The British were the ones who named the American preachers the black rope regiment . And the British said if it hadn't been for the preachers , america would still be a happy British colony . So they gave them a military name Black rope regiment . And they also went after them in military manner . When they came to America and were going to the various states , the British burned church after church after church and went to New York City , 19 churches burned , 10 of the ground . They went across New Jersey burning church . They went across Virginia burning churches . We lost 4,300 soldiers to British bullets . We lost 11,400 soldiers to prisoner of war camps . But when a preacher got put in prisoner of war camp , you just about count that off Because they blame them for the revolution .
Speaker 1They specifically blame them for the revolution . You go what the preachers have to do with the revolution . Why would John Adams point to preachers and historians have documented that every single right set forth in the declaration of independence had been preached from the American pulpit prior to 1763 . That means the declaration of independence is nothing more than a list of the sermons . We've been in the church leading them to the revolution . Now we used to study that .
Speaker 1I hear some old books . This is one called the Chaplain's and Clergy the American Revolution . It's an old book , 1860s . It's online . People can read it in Google books , but it talks about all these preachers who built America . You have one here , the Pulpit of the American Revolution , also from the 1860s , and these are the famous sermons that were preached that shaped America and servants and preachers . I mean this is a great example .
Speaker 1This is a guy named the Reverend John Wise . He preached America in the 1680s . He did two books in 1710 , 1717 talking about rights , but back in the 1680s he has already preached that all men are created equal , that they're endowed by their creator with certain inedible rights . He's already preached that , according to the Bible , when you look at taxes , taxation without representation is tyranny . He's already preached that . When you look at forms of government in the Bible , that the consent of the government is what God prefers , and we go wait , those are all lines in the Declaration . Those are some of the most famous lines in the Declaration . That's exactly right . This is a hundred years before the Declaration it's . It is . In 1772 . The founding fathers took his sermons and printed it in this book . This is from 1772 . They spread this all over America so they wanted to republish it and get it back out . They wanted Americans taking right and so they republished his sermons . Two years later they had to reprint it because it was so popular . Two years later they write the Declaration . And guess what Lines right out of here show up in the Declaration .
Speaker 1So when you look at the role of pastors , they had a huge impact . Here's , for example , a sermon preached by Reverend Foster , but in front of John Hancock . What are they doing preaching in front of ? Because there's preachers who help government officials think right about government . Here's a sermon preached in front of Oliver Wolfe . He's a signer of the Declaration ? Yeah , but he's the governor of Connecticut . This is preached in front of the entire government of Connecticut . Here's a sermon preached in front of John Taylor Gilman . He's a signer of the Constitution , yeah , but he's the governor of the Hampshire . This is a preacher preaching to the government , saying hey guys , here's what God says about government . So I mean , you look at all these preachers , you look at what we had in the beginning . America would not be the nation it is with the rights we have , but hadn't been for preachers , and that's why John Adams lists all these preachers as being responsible for what we enjoy in America today .
Speaker 2All right , david , have us some questions from the audience on pastors . Sounds good .
Speaker 1I understand preachers were involved in the revolution , but that was before the first amendment of the Constitution .
Speaker 2So aren't they now supposed to stay out of politics ? Well , I have to admit , at my age my first picture of pastors in the revolution is from the movie the Patriot , and remember the pastor going in to fight . So that was a depiction of some of the pastors being involved , but that was before the Constitution , yeah .
Speaker 1Well , you have pastors involved in the revolution as military guys , as chaplains , as legislators , as guys riding state constitutions . Then you move into the period of the Constitutional Convention . A number of those guys the Constitutional Venture Ministers 29 to 56 senators of declaration held seminary degrees . So you get all these ministers involved in every area , every category of life . As a matter of fact , when you look at the First Amendment , it is signed at the bottom by a minister , the Reverend Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg . That minister had been back at a pastor at a church in New York City in 1777 . That minister in New York City , when the British came into New York City in 1777 , there were 19 churches down , they burned 10 of them to the ground . He stood outside his church watching as it gets desecrated . He said I've got to be involved . And he got involved . He helped write the original Constitution for the state . He turns around , gets elected to the Continental Congress , then he's elected to the Federal Congress . He's elected Speaker of the House in Congress .
Speaker 2He does the First Amendment Well you got to stop for a second . This is a pastor , a pastor Serving in Congress , not only a member of Congress . Speaker of the House .
Speaker 1Speaker of the House and so now he's over the writing of the First Amendment and we're going to think that a pastor , over the writing of the First Amendment , that's going to write an amendment that says I can't be involved . I don't think so . He got involved and he wrote the First Amendment or helped write it . He helped oversee the writing of it as a Speaker of the House so that pastors would be protected . And that's where our problem today is . We misunderstand the First Amendment .
Speaker 1The First Amendment is not to secularize government in any way , shape , fashion or form . It's to limit government from secularizing society . The First Amendment says Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or reverting the free exercise or up . Only limitation in the First Amendment is what Congress can't do . It's not what pastors can't do , it's not what churches can't do . It's not what religious individuals can't do . It only says Congress , you can't set up a national religion In Congress , you can't stop anybody from expressing their faith . That's all the First Amendment's about . That's no limitation on a pastor . I mean it is wide open that . Let pastors still serve in Congress and let pastors still be legislators .
Speaker 1And , by the way , you actually had several pastors who got framed in the First Amendment . Hugh Williamson is a signer of the Constitution . He's also a minister . He's a framer of the First Amendment . Frederick Augustine Buhlenberg , the Speaker of the House , pastor his brother was serving in Congress with him . He's a pastor of Peter Gabriel Buhlenberg . He's a pastor as well . So you got all these pastors serving in Congress and were to think that they wrote an amendment that would limit themselves from doing anything .
Speaker 2So they didn't stop with the fighting for the revolution . No , even before that they were planning the seeds of liberty from the pulpit . They were in the state legislatures after that and they were in Congress , in Congress , giving us the First Amendment .
Speaker 1All they did was limit the government from stopping those expressions from occurring . They did nothing to limit the expressions themselves , nothing to limit pastors , nothing to limit churches . The only thing the First Amendment limits is Congress shall make no law . Now , prior to the First Amendment , there was actually a couple of states that tried to limit the role of pastors . You had , for example , down in Georgia . They said no minister can serve in the legislature . Virginia had that . It's interesting that Thomas Jefferson is the one who went to bat in Virginia and said hey , ministers shouldn't be incapacitated from serving . They have the same rights of every other citizen . They don't lose rights .
Speaker 1And when Georgia did that in 1777 , john Witherspoon , who's a signer of the Declaration , who was in Congress throughout the revolution , he wrote a letter down to the legislature in Georgia saying why would you say a minister can't serve ? Is he less of a citizen than anyone else ? After having done so much in the revolution , does he now lose the rights to participate that he fought for ? So he was a minister , he was serving in Congress , serving in Congress . And now they're saying , hey , ministers can't serve in Georgia . And the reason they gave was the gospel is so important , you shouldn't be distracted from the ministry of the gospel by being in the civil arena . And it's kind of interesting , witherspoon actually got humorous , he said so . I guess if I was to profligate in the moral I could serve in the legislature . But being a minister of the gospel and having a moral and religious position , I can't serve . Or you're saying that I can only be in the legislature if I sit aside in my religion , in my faith , in my morality .
Speaker 1So what you find is by 1791 , so many of those states had dropped that provision . There had been an early attempt , and it's an understandable attempt , because even Thomas Jefferson supported the early prohibition of ministers because so many of the ministers were Anglican , they had been part of the state established church by Great Britain , and so when Baptist or Methodist or Quakers or whoever tried to preach the Anglican ministers would whack them , they would find them , they would throw them in jail . That's all for this special episode . And so what happened was , after we separated from Great Britain , jefferson puts in a prohibition with the minister of serving , because he's seen these guys trying to whack the other ministers .
Speaker 1Well , just a couple of years ago he said hey , it's real clear that this is not the position of the Anglican ministers . As a matter of fact , jefferson said of all the Anglican ministers in Virginia I think there were about 120 Anglican ministers only 20 supported the state-established church . So it was real clear . The majority didn't . He said let's lift the prohibitional ministers . These guys aren't trying to create a theocracy , they aren't trying to create an established nomination and that's why the First Amendment says Congress can't create that established nomination and it takes away any ability of whatever minister to get together and say we're going to all be Anglicans or Baptist or Presbyterians or whatever . So while there were a couple of states that tried to limit ministers , the founding fathers quickly put that to rest . So it's real clear that in the First Amendment they weren't trying to limit ministers because when that popped up in other states they went and whacked it . In other states , whether it be Jefferson or John Lewis , it slapped it down .
Speaker 2I remember you saying on one of our programs we talked about separation of church and state . So here you're saying these were actually pastors able to move within both arenas . They were able to do state and church because they weren't trying to take over one of the other , they were just serving as citizens .
Speaker 1Is pastors simply reading the Bible , because Jesus tells us in Matthew 22 , 21 , you render to Caesar what Caesar's and you render to God what's God's . You got spiritual duties , you got civil duties and they were doing both . They were rendering to Caesar and they were rendering to God , and they never separated their faith from either arena . There was nothing in the First Amendment to separate faith . It only separates institutions . We're not going to let the Anglican church take over the Congress . We're not going to let the Presbyanything else or the Congress take over the , or the Congress take over the church . So what it says is Congress , you can't establish a national denomination At Congress . You can't stop anybody's free exercise or religion . No limit there to secularize any aspect of society .
Speaker 2Okay , Dave , back to the audience for a question about pastors and government . Shouldn't pastors keep their focus on the church and not on politics ? Well , that's a little bit of what you were referring to earlier . Some of these states had said we don't want pastors doing both . Should they just be focused on the gospel ?
Speaker 1Well , outside of American history , you do have a biblical precedent for what's happening . And what's happening today is we have really a false paradigm that's created of what a minister is . A minister of the gospel , that's a preacher . You stay in the pulpit . Well , actually , if you believe the Word of God is inspired , is inerrant and infallible which I do , and that's a tenet of Christianity for 2,000 years you go over Romans 13 .
Speaker 1In Romans 13 , the inspired and inerrant and infallible Word of God twice in verse 4 and once in verse 6 , it says that those that are in civil government are quote ministers of God . Really , god uses the same word for those guys in government that he does for ministers in the pulpit . He doesn't see a distinction between them . They're both ministers , same word . And then , as you get into Hebrews 11 , which lists all the heroes of our faith , as you look from verses 22 to 34 , everybody listed as a hero of our faith was involved in civil government . Now , why would God hold that up to us if he thought it was wrong to be involved in the civil arena .
Speaker 2It's just the American history and the revolutionary period . Did you have pastors involved ? Biblically , biblically , you have ministers in government .
Speaker 1Well , consider how many . Just go through the kings of Israel . Just read the book of Chronicles , read the book of Kings , read the book of First Satan , samuel the six books deal with the kings . Look at the role of ministers in all those kings .
Speaker 1Samuel , did Samuel keep his mouth shut when he got around ? Saul , he's ours , give him God's all . Saul , you shouldn't have done that . I told you to do this . You got a minister speaking in the civil arena . You turn around with David as a minister speaking . Yeah , nathan and Gad jumped up to David . The immorality , you got to go . You can't do it . You murder , you're in trouble . Oh , by the way , david , you want to build a temple ? Here's what God says about it . They weren't the advisors you have . Even Ahab and Jezebel wouldn't go out to war until they got a minister in , got a prophet , and said , hey , what's going to happen ? Jehoshaphat , the same thing . The role of the prophet was to speak to the king . That's God's minister . You take any prophet in the Old Testament . God had them speaking into the civil arena you just gave me .
Speaker 2I had a picture of pastors now today being those prophets , being the pastors . We , the people , are the king , if you will . We're sitting in the congregation .
Speaker 1The pastor should be speaking into that arena All those issues and those that we , the people , elect in the government position . The pastor should be speaking into that arena as well . That is the biblical presence . So , even though it is also American president , who cares if American history says it , if it's against the Bible ? But in this case American history lines up with the Bible and you really do have ministers involved in the civil arena from the Bible and from American history .
Speaker 2Okay , david . Another question on pastors in government .
Speaker 1Jesus didn't seem to spend much time talking about government or politics in his time . So what about my pastor ?
Speaker 2Well , did Jesus talk about politics ? In fact , I think he talked to politics , maybe even called some politicians , some names .
Speaker 1He calls some folks out and he called Herodown , he called the civil leaders out , he addressed them specifically on several of their policies . And in addition to that , I guess the answer to this question is what constitutes politics ? Does policy constitute politics ? Because Jesus sure talks about policy . And , by the way , who defines what politics is ? Now we talk about marriage . Is that a political issue or is that a biblical issue ? Well , it has become a political issue . 20 years ago it was only a biblical issue . It was not a political issue .
Speaker 2And if it becomes a political issue , is it no longer ? That's right ? Is it taken away from ?
Speaker 1them ? Abortion , the acknowledgement of God , all these things that have become political issues . They were biblical issues long before . So are we saying that every time the government says , oh , that's our issue , we suddenly can't talk about it if the Bible talks ?
Speaker 2about it . Yeah , just because it's controversial , does that now take it off the board ? That's right . No longer can it be addressed .
Speaker 1What we have to do is say , ok , if it's in here , I'm going to talk about it . And oh , by the way , in Matthew 20 , Jesus dealing with the inviability of contracts between employers and employees . Wait , that's labor relations stuff . Yeah , that's politics . We don't talk about that . Jesus talked about it . Why shouldn't we talk about it ? You have in Luke 19 , jesus talking about no fault divorce . He says look , moses allowed divorce for the hardness of your heart . No fault divorce . You could put away your wife or any . Cause he says , from the beginning it was not so . He made the man and woman and said don't divide them . So no fault divorce . That's a big political issue . We've got probably two dozen states that they're trying to do something to reform divorce , make the waiting period longer , get away from no fault divorce . Cause it caused divorce , whatever it is , have covenant marriage . That's political stuff .
Speaker 2Well , let me ask you this in a different way then If Jesus spoke to it and pastors should speak to it I know our topic today is pastors , but for me as a voter , then should I not be voting based on that biblical of each of those issues , not just abortion and marriage , but also taxes ? I mean , there's a biblical view on ?
Speaker 1all of these issues . Now , god does create a prioritization of issues . He gives us his top 10 in the 10th Commandments . He says this is a tenor of my teaching . So we do have to look at the four things that appear in the 10th Commandments . You have the public acknowledgement of God . You have the protection of innocent life abortion . You have the protection of the preservation of marriages as he created it , whether it's biblical , but the right political position on marriage . You have the protection of private property in the eighth and the tenth commandments . Beyond that , there's all sorts of guidance on taxes . There's all sorts of guidance on labor relations employees . There's all sorts of guidance on , and divorce would relate to the marriage thing .
Speaker 2Well , not to take away my personal responsibility to read and study and do those things , but if my pastor's not speaking to those things , most citizens are not going to know what the position is .
Speaker 1The pastor should be expounding the application of the word of God on every aspect of life . And this is one of the problems we have in America today is , on any given Sunday , about 60% of the nation is in church . 67% of the nation thinks the church is irrelevant today . Now , that means that people who are going to church think it's irrelevant and , quite frankly , I agree with them in many areas . I am a Christian .
Speaker 1If I hear a salvation message 52 weeks out of every year , what do I get from Monday morning ? I'm already a believer . I mean , I need something I can go out on Monday morning and apply . When I go to work , when I go to school , when I go to my family , what do I take and apply ? I need something practical , some discipleship , some application to the things that are going to happen . We have made the word of God irrelevant by talking about one or two or three things and nothing else . And if you go back and look at what Jesus taught , you bet he talked about eternal life and he talked about repentance , but he also talked about a ton of what we would call public fallacies . And we need to say , hey , I'm going to follow the model of Jesus , I'm going to talk about all these things . So Jesus told Peter feed my sheep the will of the sheep , not the ones who are outside the fold . Feed the sheep , and that's what pastors need to take responsibility to do .
Speaker 3Hey guys , we want to let you know about a new resource we have here at Wild Builders called the American Story .
Speaker 3For years , people have been asking us to do a history book and we've finally done it . We start with Christopher Columbus and go roughly through Abraham Lincoln , and one of the things that so often we hear today are about the imperfections of America or how so many people in America that used to be celebrated or honored really aren't good or honorable people . One of the things we acknowledge quickly in the book is that the entire world is full of people who are sinful and need a Savior , because the Bible even tells us that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God . And yet what we see through history , and certainly as Evan in America , is how a perfect God uses imperfect people and does great things through them . The story of America is not a story of perfect people , but you see time and time again how God got involved in the process and used these imperfect people to do great things that impacted the entire world from America . To find out more , go to WildBuilderscom and check out the American Story .
Speaker 1Jesus and the Great Commission is His authority to give Him in heaven and earth . So go and teach . And he says teach them everything I have taught you .
Speaker 2Now , that includes evangelism , but it's everything I have taught you , you just listed off a lot of things that had what a difference the pulpit would , the impact of the pulpit on our nation , if we were teaching those things .
Speaker 1That's exactly right , and we need to change our paradigm as the church , as pastors , as people who sit in the pews and say wait a minute . We can't let the government take these things off the table just because it wants them . If they are in the Bible , I'm going to talk about them . They're not political . If they're in the Bible , they're . Even though they're policy issues . They're not political , they're biblical , and that's a big difference . We need to talk about what's biblical and not let the government tell us what we can't talk about , which , by the way , leads to another thing .
Speaker 1There's a great website to speak up movement and what you find is the government and secularists have really intimidated the church into thinking there's certain things they can't talk about . That is not true , even though they say , oh , you lose your IRS tax exemption . Go to speak up movement , look at the website . Government can't take your exemption away . That exemption came from the constitution , not from the government . All the government does is give you a letter recognizing that your tax exempt . You lose the letter , you don't lose your tax .
Speaker 2You're hitting on a big issue right here , dave , because I think a lot of pastors , if they were listening to the things we just talked about , might say well , I'm afraid to talk about that because I might lose that tax exemption . Say , the website again speak up movement , so speakupmovementcom . They can go there , orga .
Speaker 1Okay , they can go there and learn about what that's right or not , supposedly not supposed to say , but what the law says and by the way , we've been pushing the IRS on this to prove because see the IRS , this , this policy is about 50 years old . There was never 350 years . There was no limit on what the pulpit said and in about 1954 Lyndon Baines Johnson passed an amendment , says oh , you know , we can't do this 513 C3's you keep your mouth shut over certain issues . That has never been challenged in court . It was not even a policy debated in Congress . They added it as an amendment right or to a bill . Then it went through without debate . It's like sneak it in and they're dead at night and it's not paying attention , and so it's now become a national policy . We've never added debate on it and we've never litigated it .
Speaker 1Now , if you take this and go into court , you're saying no , wait a minute . You're saying that pastor loses his right to free speech . You're saying that pastor loses his right to association , to choose who he wants to associate with and talk about that association , whether it be political entities or anything else . You're saying that he loses his free exercise of religion . He believes with all of his conscience that abortion is wrong , but he can't talk about it because it won't constitute our congress to censor what a pastor can say this . So what happens is really four constitutional grounds that protect the pastor on whatever he says in the pulpit . So with that , this , this group , a lot of defense funds speak up them has developed lawsuits that they're willing to take at the IRS . But they can only take them at the IRS if they get the IRS to come after a church . So what they've been doing for the last several years is getting pastors to clearly cross the IRS line and talk about political issues in the pulpit which are truly just biblical issues . But they're and , by the way , they even call candidates names and political names from the pulpit . Because if I say you know , I look at the president . He's the most pro-abortion president we've ever had in history . He's enacted over 41 pro-abortion policies . Is that politics or is that just reporting the truth ?
Speaker 1So all these guys have been going in . They even said look , you cannot vote for certain candidates because they are pro-abortion . You as a christian cannot support the shedding of innocent blood and if you vote for that candidate , you're wrong . They're calling candidates by name . We take those and we turn them into the IRS , say oh , irs , you got to come after this preacher . He crossed the line he could and we know they crossed the line . We're encouraging them to cross the line because we want the IRS to come . Years now IRS refuses to go after any of those guys . Now why would they do that ? Because there's 370 000 churches in america . If they come after those guys , we hit them with that lawsuit and we win the lawsuit . Then 370,000 churches know that there's no limitation on what you say . So they would rather let 200 churches cross the line and not get in trouble than lose control of 370,000 churches . This is huge .
Speaker 2David . So these pastors spoke from the pulpit on an issue as controversial as abortion or marriage or all sorts of other issues that are in the box , and then named candidates and their positions on the issue , and let me say also .
Speaker 1There's pastors speaking to the pulpit and things I disagree with , but that doesn't matter . But they have the freedom to do that . There's some guys coming out all sorts of the Bible's against anywhere at any point in time . I'm against the war on terror . I'm against president Bush . We need to do the war on terror . I'm against president Bush . They've got the right to do that from the pulpit . The government has no right to go into the pulpit and tell you what you can or can't .
Speaker 2Limit them in them .
Speaker 1Because you've got the right of free speech . You know they don't limit anybody . They don't limit unions from saying that they want . They don't limit teachers from saying what they want . They don't limit political parties from saying why would preachers be the only one they would limit ?
Speaker 2Well , it sounds like they're not , then If these pastors have been able to do that , they're able to do the sermons to IRS . Irs hasn't gone out . We can send that to the world .
Speaker 1These guys , these pastors , have gone through legal training and they have deliberately crossed the lines and please come after me because I need to follow all the rules the IRS line , not the constitutional line , the IRS line or the biblical line . Have it crossed the biblical line or the constitutional line ? They crossed the IRS line , which is really a paper tiger . It sounds like and that's all points A paper tiger , and that's why I recommend going to Speak Up Movement , SpeakUpMovementorg Alliance Defense Fund , one of the premier constitutional groups in the United States . They defend pastors for free . We're finding out that . You know what ?
Speaker 2there is no limitation , david , that's a wealth of information , not just for pastors but for those of us in the pews as well . Let's get another question from the audience . My church is full of different political views , but we're all united by faith in Christ . Should I be concerned that introducing politics into the pulpit will breed disunity in the church ? Well , here we go . Small or large church , they're all gonna be a diverse population there in that church .
Speaker 1The bigger question is who cares about unity ? What you want is biblical foundations , because Jesus said you know , when I come , it's gonna I'm gonna be bringing a sword , I'm gonna divide a family , there's gonna be two against one , one against two , because when you start holding up a standard of truth , there's people who don't want to embrace the truth . So your objective should not be church unity . Your objective should be to declare the word of God that will wean things out . You may recall , the disciples came to Jesus in Matthew 15 . They said , jesus , the stuff you just taught , don't you realize ? The Pharisees were offended over that . He said look , it's the truth . They're either gonna get it now or they're gonna have to get it at the judgment , but I'm not gonna stop speaking the truth .
Speaker 1So when you go from that standpoint and you go , for example , to 1 Timothy 1 , verses 8 through 10 , where it says the purpose of law is to , I mean Paul makes it real clear . He says the law is good as it should be used , knowing this law is not made for righteous person but for the lawless and wicked , for the ungodly incentives , for the unholy profane . The law is made to regulate murderers and manslayers , or murderers of mothers , murderers of fathers , fornicators , homosexuals , kidnappers , liars , perjurers and all this other stuff . So if I come out in a position that says , wait a minute , the Bible says the law is made to regulate sexually immoral , whether it's homosexual or whatever , and so we need to have laws that say this , which we had up until just a few years ago in the Supreme Court said oh , all those laws have to go away because we disagree with them . I don't care what the Supreme Court says . God's made it really clear what is right and wrong in the scripture .
Speaker 2So even if your congregation is split on that issue , there's still a duty to preach what the truth is .
Speaker 1If I . This is where Jeremiah called the pastors back then a bunch of dumb dogs , and that is dumb meaning they keep their mouth shut . They don't bark . They should bark . They should bark when they see danger approaching . But they were dumb dogs . They wouldn't bark at the danger which go over Revelation 21-8 and 22-15 , you find there's another list of things that God says . This is not to be tolerated in society . That's what formed the basis of the common law , which is the Seventh Amendment of the Constitution . This is still common law today , but suddenly we think we shouldn't talk about it because it's divisive . It's more important to get people to think biblically than it is to give them unity on a false basis . You need to have unity based around the continuity of what God says and God's Word , and if people can't handle that , you don't compromise your message just because they don't like what God said .
Speaker 2And not only to think biblically but act biblically . Like you said earlier in the program , we need that application on Sunday to be able to go out on a Friday and apply what God says .
Speaker 1That's exactly it . We need to get back to using this as the basis of building our lives , our churches and our culture , everywhere we go , everything we do . If it's in this , it's not off limits to talk about in the pulpit . If it's in this , it's not off limits for living in society . If it's in this , this is what has made America successful . You don't limit it just because somebody the government says oh , that's political stuff in there , you can't talk about that . No , no , no .
Speaker 1What we want to do is Romans 12 , 1-2 , and the King James is that be not conformed to this world . Be transformed by the word of your mind , a love of the Philips translation . It says don't let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold . We've got to stop letting the government or secular people or critics within the church squeeze us into their mold . We need to go back and say , hey , this is the guidebook , this is the mold , this is the plan I'm going to follow . It's pastors who made America , it's pastors who kept America great and it's only pastors who are going to keep America going the right direction .
Speaker 2Thanks for listening . Today , folks , many of you have the DVD set of the American Heritage Series . You can get the sequel which is building on the American Heritage Series . A lot of new materials , some fantastic programs you want to have in your library . You can get it at our website today at wallbuilderscom .
