Rick Green

Welcome to WallBuilders. We're going to jump into some good news today. I'm Rick Green here with David and Tim Barton, and it's Good News Friday. All right, David and Tim, let's dive into some good news. David Barton's starting us off first and he's going to take us to, I'm guessing, California. There's some good news out of California? No, not a chance.

David Barton

Well, it's almost as liberal as California. It's Frederickberg Texas, so it's-

Rick Green

What wait? that's not well, come on now. You're picking on me now that I'm moving to Fredericksburg yeah good news out of Fredericksburg.

David Barton

I like the sound of this my curiosity is after all the eclipse stuff, Fredericksburg is right in the center of that. What happened?

Rick Green

Not much, let's put it that way. Talk about anticlimactic. It was supposed to be like a million people coming to our little two or three county area no traffic jams, no problems. It was great. I think everybody got scared off by the clouds, but we still got to see it was like are the clouds covering it or is the moon covering it? You had to guess. Thel all the clouds would go away so it was kind of fun. 

David Barton

All the, all the guys here at the ranch and we probably had about 95% eclips that went over the ranch. It wasn’t quite dead center but we were on the edge of that line where you could see it while out everybody had the glasses. It was just fun, like seeing a whole crowd look up in the sky with their glasses on. So so this is, I guess, an eclipse-related story and it was anticlimactic in so many areas there were going to be this 10,000 member or 10,000 cars that were going to follow the eclipse.

Rick Green

Oh, the caravan. I heard about that. I never saw it, but I heard about it. Yeah, I know.

David Barton

It was a thing we heard about, never saw a lot of the stuff never materialized, but there was a really cool story that I thought came out of this and it goes back to actually 46 years ago. So up in Rochester, apparently, the eclipse. Rochester, New York, was one of the places where the eclipse went by. Close to it was, you know, that kind of narrow band that went across the United States, kind of from southwest to northeast. And so about 46 years ago, eclipse happened similarly up in Rochester, New York, and there was a first-year science teacher up there and that first-year science teacher, Patrick Moriarty, he was teaching ninth grade. He was 22 years old. He said, hey, the next time this is going to happen is 46 years from now. You guys, mark it in your calendar let's meet 46 years from now. And so he started telling his science classes mark your calendar, let's meet 46 years from nowAnd, lo and behold, it happened More than 100 people.

Rick Green

They planned ahead, man.

David Barton

I tell you, more than 100 people showed up at his house for this eclipse kind of party 46 years later.

So you know he's long retired.

I thought what he described was really pretty cool. He says it was so interesting seeing them walking up with bald or gray hair and looking at me like you're still my teacher. He said I can see their faces. They're adults now and I guess they looked like they were when they were 14. I think that'd be kind of tough having to look at somebody you know 46 years later when you saw them as a ninth grader. But it was. I thought that was just a cool story, a fun story. Yeah, a guy 46 years ago hey, mark your calendar. And he said everybody clearly didn't make it. But he got calls from students as far away as New Zealand saying, hey, wish I could be there. I marked my calendar, I didn't make it.

So I thought that was just a kind of a fun human interest story, with a teacher 46 years ago saying hey, let's make a big deal out of this next time it happens. 

Rick Green

That is cool, you know, and it's also a reminder of the intricate detail that God used to create everything right. Just the fact that you can actually get this thing down to. I was kind of laughing at the way they were everybody was. It's going to be three minutes and four seconds in this city and it's only going to be two minutes and 53 seconds over there. And I'm thinking to myself the clockwork with which God designed the universe is so overwhelmingly amazing. And of course, you know a lot of people today. They're just, they're worshiping the sun, so they don't get it.

But if you know and I was trying to remember, David, the other night I was giving a presentation I started talking about this just off the cuff and I couldn't remember the guy's name. Presentation I started talking about this just off the cuff and I couldn't remember the guy's name. I could remember Matthew, but I couldn't remember the rest. That was reading about the paths and the seas, and then somebody came up and they just watched you speak on it in some recording somewhere. Was it Mattson what?

was his name.

David Barton

Murray, 

Rick Green

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway, I thought about all of that as the eclipse was happening. I was just thinking you know, God designed this so incredible and there's so many mysteries that we still haven't figured out that probably we won't know for another. You know, if he tarries, you know another hundred years, 200 years.

David Barton

One of the great phrases in the book of Job is after Job thinks he knows so much and he has this conversation with God, and God finally shows up in Job 38 and says you don't have a clue what you're talking about, kid.

And he starts. He said do you know the laws of the heavens and I've always liked that phrase laws of the heavens? And just like there's laws of science, there's laws of gravity, there's laws of motion, there's laws of the heavens. God has set certain things that they will happen a certain way in heaven, throughout all of nature, and God goes through several dozen examples with Job. If you think you know so much, tell me about this and about this. And it just goes through science and anybody who thinks that God's not a science guy. I mean you need to read Job, the last five chapters there in Job. It's really impressive.

But I thought about that's another law of the heavens that eclipse. How did they know so precisely what is going to happen? How did they know? How could they predict that? It was, like you said, minutes and four seconds here, two minutes because it's the laws of the heavens. God has put laws in the heavens and we're now starting to catch up a little bit. You know it's like we're maybe in kindergarten figuring out some of his laws of the heavens, because he's got so many more that that, you know, mystify us. But I think god's laws of the heavens are really significant and there were a lot of people trying to make a really big spiritual deal out of this. I don't know, the eclipse is going over maybe 40 cities named Nineveh or whatever and God's sending a message to repent. Look, He's got that message to repent all the time. He doesn't have to send an eclipse for us to do that. I mean, that's all through the scriptures.

So it was kind of just interesting watching the reaction to all of it.

Tim Barton

Well, also, as you're pointing this out, the words that I think of, God is a God of order, and one of the things where evolution is so silly is it violates some of the basic laws of thermodynamics where that things left themselves tend toward disorder and chaos.

And if you look at our universe, if you look at our world, even though it's very chaotic, you can see there was an intelligent designer who put such intricate detail and design into the whole thing that there is such order and even going 46 years ago, that someone can look at the order and be able to predict what's going to happen in the future, with there being an eclipse with pretty spot on, accurate certainty, because we recognize the order of the universe.

So it's one of many, in my mind, one of the many proofs that there was an intelligent creator, there was a designer. It's one of the reasons that so many scientists have left a lot of the big bang kind of evolution from goo to you, camp, where now so many scientists are acknowledging there had to be an intelligent designer because, uh, the intricacies and the order that is in the universe, that's not what theoretically happens in nature by itself. Nature by itself doesn't tend toward greater order. It tends toward chaos, but God is a god of order and he designed it in such a way that it works really beautifully.

Rick Green

I know it's Good News Friday and not Foundations of Freedom Thursday, but I can't help but think about this in terms of when you say laws of heaven and you think about this order that you guys are talking about. It's the same way in society. When we have law, when we have rules, when we're aligned with the laws of nature and nature's God law, when we have rules, when we're aligned with the laws of nature and nature's God, then we get freedom, we actually get to enjoy it. So by knowing, for instance, when this eclipse was going to happen, so many people got to. You know millions and millions and millions of people got to plan, got to actually have some pretty cool, if you will, liberty within that law, got to celebrate and see something that was pretty cool.

If you don't have that, if it is total chaos and there is no order, then you don't actually get liberty. And I've been thinking a lot about the lyrics in America, the Beautiful, and that line confirm thy soul and self-control, thy liberty in law. And we tend to think, oh, law and God's word that's going to put me in. I can only do certain things and I don't get to do other things, when in fact it creates liberty. It actually allows us to enjoy more freedom.

And now you've got all of these crazy decisions being made not doing the impeachment in the Senate, like ignoring the Constitution, creating all of these causes of action that weren't actually put in place by the legislature or Congress and then manipulating that to prosecute and persecute people. The chaos that's created when we don't have law and we don't have order, like you guys are talking about. I mean, I don't know. I can't stop thinking about that right now. Just my concern that we're just destroying the Constitution. What kind of chaos is going to come from this? And yet, as you said, God's a God of order and he created the universe in that way. And when we line up with that, we actually get all kinds of wonderful blessings. When we don't, we're looking for some curses.

David Barton

Remember there's a phrase in the Bible that talks about the law of liberty, and liberty is directly tied to law. Now you get 1 Corinthians 36, that the letter of the law kills but the spirit of the law gives life. But remember, even we sing that song confirm thy soul and self-control the liberty in law. We've always tied liberty and law together when they're done the right way and we've always done it in America on that biblical precept. There's a lot of countries, China and elsewhere, that do not use that biblical precept and so you don't get freedom with the law. But in America, when you do it right, if you use the law, it produces liberty and freedom. If you don't use it right, it produces chaos and anarchy and all the things you're talking about.

And so there is a law of liberty that the Bible clearly talks about I think it's in James twice and you have to have law to have liberty and that's what the founders understood. But it was a minimum amount of law. It wasn't a law to regulate everything you did. It was law regulating basic core bad behavior and enshrining core principles. And when you enshrine those principles it works. When you just make law because you like to make law, you got a real problem, and that's where America certainly is headed.

Rick Green

Well, Tim, you have a tall order because you know, your dad's first piece of good news today was, quite literally, the sun, the moon, the skies, the heavens, the laws of nature, nature's God. So, good luck, bud. Go head, top that.

Tim Barton

This is no problem. We're going to a place where the sun, the moon, the stars, where it all exists and focus on, and that's universities. And if you ask professors, they are the sun and the moon and the stars

Rick Green

and the world definitely revolves around them, right?

Tim Barton

You know, this is the exact same thing this is. I cannot believe. This is even a headline, an article. It's really good news and yet just highlighting some of the dumb that is still happening in America. The headline says two more universities dropped Covid-19 shot mandates. This is last week. This article came out from the epic times.  Last week!

Rick Green

 How did you say? that you said the dumb that we're saying. What was that general that said don't get stuck on stupid? Remember that it was like the dumb that we're stuck.

Tim Barton

I mean dumb is permeating our society. Right? It's one of the reasons that so often I’m looking at Jesus and I’m like, Jesus, please come back soon because there’s just so much dumb that is permeating the culture and it’s so hard to deal with. Well, the California State University and the University of Redlands, those two universities have decided to lift their COVID-19 vaccine mandate for people to go to school, to go to class. Now the mandates really started in the spring of 2021. And I feel like since then we're three years past, that. We've kind of learned a lot about the vaccines and even the CDC now has acknowledged that people with COVID, without COVID, like just kind of treat everybody the same, just go about your life, normal, normal business.

The science is not backing up this continued mandate. It boggles my mind. The article points out there are still universities that are requiring that have a vaccine mandate, require students to get vaccines to presumably in some of these universities, get their boosters every so many months, where some places are encouraging boosters every three months to make sure then you're really safe from COVID-19, even though they all acknowledge that well, the booster, the vaccine, doesn't prevent you from catching COVID-19 or from spreading COVID-19. And it doesn't prevent you from dying, but we still want to encourage you to get it. It couldn't be that big pharma has partnered with anybody and nobody's probably getting royalties from the billions of dollars these companies are making through their vaccines or through these mandates. Nonetheless, the good news is that at least two universities in California have come to the conclusion that these mandates don't need to be in place for students to come attend class, when the data shows us, for young people who don't have a large number of pre-existing comorbidities right, you don't have lots of unhealthy lifestyle habits, behaviors who maybe don't have that morbidly obese scenario in their life, that COVID is not dangerous for young people in general. And even if you have comorbidities, it's not nearly as dangerous for you as it is if you are elderly. So the fact that still targeting college kids again it blows my mind.

The good news is at least two universities in California have now acknowledged that we don't have to do this anymore. Their students don't have to do this anymore. That's great for their students to not put a relatively unknown substance in their body that still is undetermined. What are the long-term consequences and side effects of this? Because most vaccines that people are getting different from this one. They've been around for 30, 40, 50 years and so you're able to do some long-term side effects studies on those.

With the covid vaccine they've only been around a couple of years. It's impossible to know if there are long-term consequential side effects from this. They haven't been around long enough to know that. So the fact that you're mandating this just seems utterly ridiculous. Again, this is good news, but it just boggles my mind that this is still a mandate at some universities, and this was a mandate up until like last week at these universities in California. So good news at least for the students out there. They probably shouldn't be going to those universities in the first place. Right, you know that's. That's a different conversation. But good news, at least some people are waking up to recognize we don't have to require and mandate this for students to go to class.

Rick Green

Yes, sanity might be returning little by little. Or, as you say, get rid of the dumb. I think we lost the ability to do cost benefit analysis. You know just a basic. What are the pros, what are the cons, what's the risk, what's the rewards? Yeah, crazy. All right, quick break guys, we'll be back. We got more good news. Stay with us, folks show.

Break

Rick Green

Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show. It's Good News Friday today, so we've got more good news to get to you and guys. Just a quick email good news from Thomas. He said he loves the show. Wanted to share something for your Good News Friday shows.

I attended a student-led prayer and worship night at our local public high school last night. While there's so much darkness in our schools, it was incredible to see these students boldly proclaiming their faith among their peers in this setting. You can find out more at enlightenedstudents.com. Thomas. Thanks for that good news. Love reports like that, guys, and we're seeing more and more of that across the country, especially after the Coach Kennedy case and our friend Kelly Shackleford getting the word out there that folks can live out their faith in the public square. So send those good news stories into us folks. We love to hear from that. Usually we just give out the email for uh questions for foundations of freedom Thursday, but love getting emails like this one as well. Send all that good news to us. Radio at wallbuilders.com. David. Back to you for a piece of good news.

David Barton

I'm going to back up to a story we covered about 10 years ago, guys, so this is kind of a maybe a good ending to a really crummy story, and we talked about the fact that 10 years have we been doing this?

Rick Green

Is that long has it been. 10 years, maybe twice that long. I don't know. Sorry, David, sorry I said 10 sounded like a lot, but 

David Barton

yeah, it's going a while, bro.

Yeah, so one of the stories was in Texas and we talked about how that fort worth Texas and fort Worth. The nickname of Fort Worth is Cowtown, usa. Of the top 20 cities in the United States, fort Worth is number 13, and it's the only red city in all of those top cities. You know everything else New York City and Chicago and whatever they're hardcore blue. But Texas has always maintained in Fort Worth some degree of sanity. They've had common sense. They kind of reflect those basic Western kind of values and it was in the school district of Fort Worth that about 10 years ago the Fort Worth was one of the first schools in the nation to say, hey, we're not doing gender bathrooms anymore, you can choose your own bathroom, identify how you want to, and so they got away from basic stuff. And we just kind of made fun of the fact that in Cal Down USA they have this cattle drive every day twice a day down Main Street in Fort Worth. For people who are familiar with animals and livestock and farms, you know there's no question about how many genders there are on a farm. That's easy stuff. It's only humans who get confused over the basics that nature has made very evident. So you look at Fort Worth they're the countdown USA, one of the first to go to this thing. And over the years there were people who said, hey, this is not right. And Fort Worth was so radical and we talked about this in a program years ago Fort Worth is so radical that they were one of only 27, I think 27 school districts that used the most radical Planned Parenthood curriculum. I mean really, really, really radical stuff. It was the San Francisco was another of the schools that used that, and so you're talking San Francisco and Fort Worth having the same curriculum really.

And there were some people who said that's not right. And so churches started organizing and saying we need to do something with the school board, we need to make some changes. And I remember one of those churches was Mercy Church and they really took that on as an initiative and here in the last couple of elections they have flat turned over the school board in Fort Worth. And so now this headline reflects what happens when that church got involved, other churches got involved, christians got involved. We made this an issue.

It says Fort Worth Independent School District Board approves abstinence-based sex education curriculum. They got rid of all the Planned Parenthood stuff. They've now gone to abstinence-based, which is the much more biblical approach to this, and they voted unanimously to do this. I mean everybody on the school board. That's how much the change was made, with these churches and Christians getting involved at school board level. So this is a real turnaround. Obviously there was some opposition from the woke folks in there, but it didn't affect the school board. But a unanimous vote to reverse has been about 10 years coming. But that's really good news and that is reflective of what we see across the United States, with churches and Christians and conservative groups getting involved, paying attention to the school board, which usually only has a two, three, 4% turnout of the vote. That is something that can be changed and doing this in the 13th largest city in the United States, in Fort Worth, that's a great model for everyone. Whether you're in a big city or a little city, this can be done.

Rick Green

All right Tim back to you, man. We got time for at least one more from each of y'all, I think. Go for it

Tim Barton

Okay well this one is dealing with a law that was passed in Texas. It was HB1181, so House Bill 1181 and it was to restrict pornographic sites online requiring them to have some type of age verification to make sure that we were not enabling children across the state of Texas to easily access very inappropriate things online and, of course, doing basic age verification. It doesn't solve the problem, but at least it offers the idea of some kind of responsible something right. I mean, in the midst of this right, it's kind of a mess, but what's so great about this? The largest porn website online challenged, sued Texas, saying you shouldn't be able to require us to have age verification. Now, just think about that right that the pornographic industry does not want to restrict children from coming on and accessing these very graphic, inappropriate content-related videos. And so they sued Texas. Other porn sites joined on. There was initially a judge that sided with them said yeah, this law is too extreme. Texas appealed and went to the Fifth Circuit and the Fifth Circuit said no, this is not too extreme. This is totally within the legal bounds of what Texas can do. Texas can uphold this.

Well, this porn website and I'm intentionally trying to not say their name because I don't want to give them any more credit or attention what they're doing is absolutely abhorrent. It is wicked, it is evil and so not something that we want to talk about and promote, even mentioning their name. But what's really humorous and ironic about this is this large pornographic website said that, well, if you're not going to allow us to show pornography to children, if you're going to require us to have some kind of age verification, then we're just going to cancel this service in the state of Texas. We're not going to let anybody in Texas have it, and that's how we're going to try to stick it to you. We're going to show you and this is so great because like it's like 

Rick Green

throw us in that briar patch.

Come on, throw us in that briar. You go for it.

Tim Barton

The greatest irony of all is in Texas. It would be very hard pressed to eliminate all pornography. Now if we went back to the founding era and the original intent and the moral values of the nation, that certainly is what the founders would have intended. They didn't think the freedom of speech included being able to be sexually graphic and make that readily available to everybody, every citizen in the city, county, state, whatever it was right. That's not what they would have thought, approved or supported. But where we've come today, it's come so far that it's the idea of restricting adults from some of these things becomes very difficult, even though there've been a lot of studies that connect. There's a lot of sex trafficking and sexual crimes related in the pornographic industry, so there's a lot of really negative things associated with the pornographic industry. It's not just two consenting adults doing things they want to do.

But the great irony is in Texas it would have been very difficult for us to pass a law removing pornographic material in general and now, just through a simple age verification law, the largest pornographic site online has by themselves chosen to remove content from the state of Texas, which this is just incredible news that this House Bill 1181 has been even far more effective at removing some of this indecency from our state here in Texas than was originally even intended by restricting children.

So really good news that pornographic material has been restricted and there are seven other states that have done this Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, north Carolina, Utah and Virginia. This is something that is just. It should be basic, common, practical. Every state should say we want to restrict some of this content from children. We should always want to protect children. This should be an easy win in most states. Unfortunately, we know in many of the liberal leftist states it would not be that easy, but it is at least good news that in Texas one of the effects has been the largest online pornographic site has voluntarily chosen to remove their content from Texas. That's really good news.

Rick Green

I noticed, Tim, that you did not list California there and since I started today by saying David was going to take us to California with good news and we never got to California with good news and I guess the eclipse kind of covered you know everywhere. But but just compare what you just shared, Tim, from Texas, and that good news to California Democrats rejecting a bill to make it a felony to sell 16 and 17 year olds. I mean, think about that. The Democrats voted against making it a felony to sell a 16 or 17 year old. Shannon Grove, a state senator there trying to get that done.

Mike Huckabee shared that yesterday and I just thought, wow, he actually said California's done, lost. Uh, I'm not going to go there because I think we still got a lot of great people in California. But that should be a line in the sand for the folks in California. They ought to say enough is enough. Our legislature's crazy. I know that wasn't a typical good news Friday story to share, but the comparison of what you just shared in Texas to what California is doing is like not a day.

Tim Barton

I think the good news, even in this comparison. I think in Florida if you try to do that, you can get the death penalty in Florida. So it's a bit of a contrast. But the good news is there's at least some states that recognize. Hey, if you try to take children and sex traffic them, you should die for that.

Rick Green

And I guess if you're, yeah, if you're looking at the map and you're going from West California all the way to Florida, that's not just going east, that's going right. So the further right you go, the better the laws get. All right, folks, we're out of time for today. You've been listening to Good News Friday on the WallBuilders Show.