Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the intersection of faith and culture is the WallBuilders Show. Its Foundations of Freedom Thursday. You can get our thursday programs on our website at WallBuilders.show. That's WallBuilders.show for all the archives of the radio program over the last few weeks. And each Thursday we call the Foundations of Freedom Thursday. Full of questions from you in the audience. You can send those into radio@wallbuilders.com radio@wallbuilders.com. I'm Rick Green here with David and Tim Barton and they're ready for questions. So guys this first question comes from a really random crazy listener virus named Rick Green. And and my question is this So we're, what, five days away from the biggest election of our lifetime? And a lot of Christians say they're not going to vote. And this weekend will be the last chance to talk to our fellow believers at church or maybe even talk to your pastor and get them to say something on Sunday morning. What's the close what's the sales pitch that you recommend for people to share with their friends and family that are believers to get them out of that category? Barna said. Was what he say 49%. It's like 40 million or so. That said, they're not going to vote for all kinds of reasons and move them into the column for, yes, I'm going to go vote and I'm just going to vote my values. 

David Barton [00:01:15] Yeah, there's actually two groups, Rick. We had Barnard with two polls and one was on people of faith and with the people of faith. It was 49% said they don't plan to vote. 51% said they did. And that's somewhere up around it's over 100 million, but 110 million thereabouts. And so you're talking roughly in the vicinity, about 53, 55 million of the say, I'm not going to vote. And they call themselves people of faith. Then we did a second dive into those that would be serious about their faith. You might call them evangelicals, whether they're Catholic or anything else, but they're serious about their faith. They attend church, they're regular church attenders, and they're serious about Bible and other things. And among that group, it was a higher number plan the vote. It was not 51%. It was 39%. And 41% said they're not going to vote. Now, among that group, that's that's 80 million in that group, what we would call evangelical Christians, serious Christians. And that means that 32 million planned not to vote. And they're the ones that have the right values that you definitely need. You need those values showing up because there are such a clear value difference in this election. That is the values people set out. It could be close and quite frankly, just, you know, be real blunt about this. The last two cycles have been very close on elections, and we've had about that many set out each time. And so if our guys just showed up that had the faith values and voted accordingly, voted for policies, not personalities, we would not have had close elections and we would have had more of a mandate, landslide kind of election that would have affected us. Senate seats, U.S. House seats, governors seats all up, down. We would not be anywhere close to the culture war that we're playing around on the fringes with right now. We're right on the tipping point. And so we need those people to show. Now, here's here's my message for them. We found in the polling that there were three things were that that 32 million said if these things were to happen, I would likely go vote. And so there were actually several of them, 7 or 8 of them, and I'm going to take three of the toplines. So, number one. People said, Well, if my pastor told me it was really important for me to vote and I need to go out and vote, I need to weigh in, then I would go vote. So 17%. So at that point in time, you're you're now getting up close to about 5 million people being added. Then there was 14% that said, well, if somebody I trusted, one of my friends were to contact me and say, you really need to go vote, this is an important election, I would go vote. So that's 4,014%. And that just means get your phone out and go down. Go down those. Then your your phone register on all your friends. Text those that tell me you need to go vote, etc.. And the third one was 14% said, I really don't know who to trust to address out there. And I hear ads, both sides both say they're good and both say the other is bad. I just don't know if I had a voter's guide that I trusted, I would I would go do something. And so what we have Christian beauregard.com we have those brigades out from all the national groups and state groups as well. And they're based on voting records and positions of the candidates on things they've done. So that that's what's dependable, not the ads, but you can actually see what they've done. And so those three things together would create about 45% more of those evangelical Christians turning out to vote, which is roughly 15 million more. And that would not be a close election in this cycle and I mean up and down the ballot. And when you look at excuses why people don't vote. One of the excuses that was given by more than half of them is my vote did make a difference. And I found an article just last week that really surprised me. It may surprise you guys if you saw it, you may have seen it. But it says that since 2022, there have been over 800 elections in America, decided either by one vote or they were a tie. Were one vote have made the difference. So over 800 of those elections in the last two years. And so who are you to determine whether your vote will or won't make a difference? And I will go past that and say it really doesn't matter where you vote makes a difference is just the right thing to do to vote. You answer to God for all the stewardship he gave you and all that you'll answer for all the possessions he gave you, the family he gave you for everything you got. And he's going to say, I gave you a vote. What you do with that, and it's just not going to be acceptable to say I didn't do anything with it. I decided I couldn't make any difference. That's not the option. You have to do the right thing. So that would be kind of my summary of where we are. That is really two polls, Rick, and they're a little different. But those three messages, if we can get pastors and folks, if you're hearing this, ask your pastor this weekend to ask people you need to go vote. You need to be salt and light, you need to let your voice be heard, even if it's just your voice. You need to do it. Yes. If folks just call their friends and get on email or whatever and go down their list and if you send people to Christianvoterguide.com Then that will help us get about 45% more, which is 15 million more votes. And these are folks that have the right values and need to be voting. 

Rick Green [00:06:27] Tim, there's a lot of a lot of folks that might even feel like they're on two different extremes right there, either on the extreme of my vote, not going to matter, can't make a difference, or they're on the extreme of, I saw in the polls Trump's going to win. So all the work's already done, you know, So what's the what's the message to both of those extremes that this is worth your effort on Election Day to go stand in line and get the job done? 

Tim Barton [00:06:48] Yeah, I think there's there's a lot of confusion when it comes as Christians, people of faith, we're always both a base, our belief and therefore our actions on what the Bible tells us. And I think there's been a lot of disconnect with some of what the Bible says. We live in a world that's very emotive, driven. Well, this is what I feel. This is what I think. And I often try to challenge people and ask, Well, what verse are you basing that on? Because oftentimes we base our our decisions on some emotion and some feeling, and it's not always based on what the Bible says. In fact, the Bible gives more advice and encouragement that we're supposed to crucify our flesh and it's sinful desires where we're not supposed to live through our feelings. But but we're supposed to make the right decision in spite of our feelings, which is often where we find ourselves as Christians, right? That I'm supposed to be loving and forgiving, Not because I feel like it in the moment, because it's the right thing to do. And so I think looking big picture at how people are thinking or feeling, I would say, But what does the Bible tell us? Because, foundationally, we always want to go back and say, what does the Bible say? And I think there's a lot of examples we can go to. But if we start even in Genesis with why are we here? And we've talked about it in the program many times, but but why did God make man? The Bible says, first of all, like in Genesis and to that that God sent no rain because there was no man to till the ground and then go. I think that's Genesis two five and you get to 15 and God put Adam in the garden and said, You are in charge, you take care of this. And so God literally was holding things back until there were somebody there to take care of it. And then God put Adam there and said, okay, you're in charge. You take care of it. And I think there's been some fundamental misunderstanding of even of of the role of humanity in this life. And it's to take care of what God's made. It's to be good stewards of it. And you see many examples of this, even if you go to the New Testament in Matthew 25 and Luke 19 and Matthew 25, you the parable, of the tallents and Luke 19 year of the parable the minus in both of those it talks about a master is going to go on a journey but he calls all the servants to him and he gives them something and Matthew 25 he gives them all the talents. It's a one he gave 5 to 1 to 2 to 1. He gave one to each according to their ability. And Luke 19. He gave all the servants a minna and there were ten of me in all the minor and said do business. And so I return. In both scenarios, the master said, You are in charge until I return. And then he leaves, goes on a journey. When he comes back, he calls them all to account because they were stewards. They were in charge of his kingdom, of his dominion, of all of his possessions, his stuff, until he returned. And probably most of us remember the account that when he came back that the first one who was really productive and anybody who had now had ten, he said, well done, good and faithful, you were faithful and a little I'll make you ruler over much to the second one who was also productive. Well done, good and faithful. But then the third one came. The third one was not productive and he buried what God had given him. And. And he told the master, Well, I knew you were a hard man. You. You gather where you haven't scattered. You reap what you haven't sown. I was scared. But here I brought back to you what is yours? And the master said, You wicked lazy servant. If you knew that I was going to require something from you, you should have at least invest in the bank. And although in this scenario, obviously there's a monetary association with this talent, with what it means, the responsibility idea doesn't change that God or in this case the Master gave the servant some things that I've given you, something I've entrusted you with a responsibility to use what I've given you, and you're going to be held accountable for what you did with it. And I think even looking at America, we've misunderstood the reality of who's in charge in America. The Constitution says we, the people of the United States, we're the ones in charge. It's not our politicians that are in charge. So we're in charge because we choose our politicians. And so we have the opportunity to choose people that are going to represent us and lead us. And the idea that that and I literally was just last weekend, I was speaking at church and I had people come up to me afterwards and say, well, but it doesn't really matter if we vote because both candidates are so flawed that if we vote for either one, we'd be voting for evil. And so, Rick, not only do we have people that say we shouldn't vote because, you know, Trump so far had it, I do not even matter. We don't need to worry about that. Some say that my vote doesn't matter. Well, then some say, well, I couldn't vote for some someone who is you so flawed, someone who's evil. And again, this is just a fundamental misunderstanding because scripture tells us that all of sending come short of glory of God. All of us are sinners in need of a savior. And so the idea that you couldn't vote for someone because they're a sinner, well, that I mean, that's so silly. Like, do you ever go out to eat and you give your money to a business? Yes. Do you understand? You are funding sinners in flawed, imperfect. You know, you're giving them your money. Do you have friends? Because every time you choose a friend, you are choosing a flawed sinner who is imperfect. Are you married? Because if you chose a spouse, you chose a flawed sinner who's not perfect. The idea that we could function in every other area of life, but that we couldn't vote for a candidate because they were flawed. It's very intellectually inconsistent. And I think it really is more of a spiritual deception of the devil to try to keep Christians from voting, because we've been given a stewardship and a responsibility not to not to choose the person we like the best, but to choose the person that has the policies that are going to restrain evil, the best, that are going to promote and allow righteousness the best. And if you look at the two candidates, whether it be President Trump or Kamala Harris, their policies are very different when it comes to restraining evil or promoting evil, when it comes to promoting righteousness or hindering righteousness. Their policies are incredibly different. And I know I'm kind of like on this soapbox diatribe, but let me give one more thought, because in Jeremiah 29, Jeremiah is writing The people carried in exile, and most Christians are familiar. I would I would speculate most most are familiar with Jeremiah 2911 four. I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you open a future. But if you back up when when Jeremiah starts Chapter 29, he says, I'm writing to all who are being carried away captive and exile. So that's slaves. I'm writing the people who are being taken to a place they don't even want to be. And then he gives them guidance. It's really an encouragement to not despair. Don't give up, he says. Don't stop getting married. Don't stop having kids and raising families. Don't stop planting crops in vineyards. And then he gets to verse seven and he says, Seek the peace and the prosperity of the land to which you've been carried into exile. Pray to the Lord fought for when it goes well with that land, it will go well with you. Now he's talking to people who don't even want to be there. Like this is not ultimately their home. Now, I think also it's interesting because for Christians, this world is not our home. We are in exile here on Earth. We are eagerly awaiting and longing for the day we go to heaven. But as long as we are here, we should seek the best for the place where God has planted us. Now in America, how do you seek the best for this land? Well, one of the ways is to vote. And so this is where, again, I would say there's a disconnect for people, even understanding some basic biblical thoughts if they think, well, I don't need to vote for whatever reason, because because you're not being a good steward, you're not seeking the peace and prosperity, the land in which God has you right now, and you've misunderstood even why God put man here. God put us here to take care of his stuff. And in this case, it can be a nation. But also that includes our schools, because the school board races, it includes our communities in our cities, because that's city council, it's mayors, it's judges. They literally this is Christians being salt in the light. And we have misunderstood that calling. And so I would say as Christians, we need to understand what our calling is and then we can encourage and challenge our friends in this. And big picture, you're not voting for the person you like the best. That should never be our guiding factor. You should vote for the person that has the most godly policies, that will encourage the most righteousness, that will restrain the most evil, that will bring salt in light to the world around us. Because ultimately that's what brings peace and prosperity to the land of which we are now in exile. And we should pray to the Lord for it. So I know it's a very long answer, but that's part of the encouragement I would give people. Going back to understanding what is the Bible say, How do we apply what the Bible says? And I think according to the Bible, there's no way biblically you should be sitting out this election. I understand some people say, well, I'm just convicted. I couldn't vote for the person because they're so flawed. Okay. So explain to me like what versus we basing it on. I understand it, but the reality is every single person is flawed. And you still choose friends, right? You you still want a spouse. You still support businesses by eating out, by buying groceries. And those are very flawed. In fact, some of the businesses where we eat out, some of the owners of those businesses, they're downright heathen who don't even like God. And you still give that business. So it's again, it's very inconsistent to say that I can partner with ungodly people in so many other areas, but I can't choose a presidential candidate if I don't think they're godly enough, even though there's a very clear policy distinction between President Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, I think it's it's a very inconsistent position intellectually. And I do think it's a deceptive strategy of the devil to try to keep Christians from having a voice and being a part of this process. 

David Barton [00:16:22] Hey, if I can jump in on that, Tim, you said something that kind of triggered me. I enjoy watching football where in middle of football season, etc. and I don't I don't really fall down for any one team. But there are several teams I like and there are several teams that I like where I really don't like the quarterback on their team, but I like the team and that's kind of where politics is. If you're only voting on president, you're missing the point. You got a whole team going here and whichever president goes and whichever quarterback goes in is going to have an influence. But it's the rest of the team around it. And in this case, any person that goes in has 9000 schedule C appointments. That means they're going to choose the head of 9000 agencies. You may not like the quarterback, but think about who they would choose and see which which is better for Constitution, which is better for liberty, which is better for values, which is better for all the things we believe it. You don't have to like the quarterback, but you can still support the team. And so that's part of something I would throw on for considerations is do not get caught over personalities, you know? And there's times I like a team and I like the coach or great, but that doesn't make me stop supporting or stop watching or start stop participating with that team. And that's really what we got to do here. We don't do this in any other area where we don't like who's at top, so we throw everything out. We're not going to do any of it. That's just inconsistent with where real life happens for most people. 

Rick Green [00:17:47] I'm going to take a quick break. As we go to break. I don't know if any of our listeners caught it or not, but for the first time in nearly two decades of doing, WallBuilders, David Barton was triggered. Did y'all hear that? He said he was Triggered. She thought that only happened to the snowflakes that on the left feel like Tim. You triggered him. 

Tim Barton [00:18:02] I feel like I've triggered him before. I feel like it's not the first time I've talked to him. Yeah. Yeah, he did acknowledge it on the radio. That's all right. So David's been triggered. I'm going to try to minister to him over break. We're going to reach in Bypasses the other. We're going to Matthew 18 and we're going to work on it. 

Rick Green [00:18:20] We're going to work to work through this. Okay. As we go to break. By the way, Tim, you said, you know, it was long, but man, that was like a treatise on why people should be voting and that that we're going to keep that recording because everything you said applies to every election, not just this one. And all this is take now, but all of the duty, every bit of it. So good. So good. All right. Quick break, guys. We'll be right back. You're listening to The WallBuilders Show on Foundations of Freedom Thursday. 

Break [00:18:41]  

Rick Green [00:19:49] We're back here on The WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us on this Foundations of Freedom Thursday. We're talking about the last weekend before the election. Some things you can talk to folks about in your family or a church to make sure they are going to turn out and vote next week. We've been talking about some of the excuses that people give for not voting. As we're going to break, we're talking about the teams and the fact that whoever wins is going to bring in an entire team. And I love the fact that I'm hearing about some some players on the team, like an Elon Musk that cut Twitter by 80% and it became even more efficient and more effective, kind of like the idea of him being on the team and maybe doing that to the federal government or in RFK going over and taking care of the FDA and a couple of these other agencies that are out of control. So the team on one side is sounding really, really good right now, guys. But but that team is going to implement policy. As you were saying earlier, Tim, it's not the personality, it's the policy. 

Tim Barton [00:20:37] Yeah. One of the things that is so confused for a lot of people is they don't look down stream far enough. Thomas Sowell you just call it stage one thinking that they look at how does this benefit me right now? What do I like? What do I want right now? But stage two thinking is thinking what are the consequences of this decision going to be? How is this going to impact us? And the fact that Kamala Harris really didn't put out hardly any policies at all for a long time and now she's starting to talk about policies. But the policies that she's talking about are repeating a lot of Trump policy is like we should have a wall and we should secure the border and and no tax on tips. And so she's she's repeating things that President Trump has said however things that she's not repeating that President Trump has not said. And Kamala Harris proposed that there should be no religious exemptions on the abortion issue for any Christians, for any faith based companies. That if if she gets in, she is going to encourage that Abortion should be a woman's right. It should be supported in all 50 states. She would support a movement, congressional movement, constitution, moment, whatever it might be. She supports making this a law of the land that everybody everywhere has to support. Abortion, no exemptions. Now, imagine, right, If if you're a person of faith looking, going, well, you know what? Trump is really not great on the abortion issue right now. Kamala's really bad on the abortion issue, but neither one is good. Therefore, I'm not going to vote for one. Now, wait a second. I understand that that President Trump is not as strong on the abortion issue. He's he's not as pro-life as as I am. He's not as pro-life as I think he should be. I think when he suggested that the the life issue is a states rights issue, I think that's a fundamental that's a flawed argument. Right. You fundamentally misunderstood when the founding fathers said we all these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, or that if life isn't an inalienable right, then the role of the federal government is to protect that God given right and it should be protected in all 50 states. And so the idea of states rights, well, it's I think abortion is no more states rights issue than slavery was a states rights issue. Of course, that should not be a states rights issue. And so I would say President Trump is very wrong in that. Now, on the flipside, President Trump also gave us three Supreme Court justices who overturn Roe versus Wade. One of the most significant pro-life victories in any of our lifetimes. So it's not that President Trump is incredibly pro-abortion. He's just not as pro-life as maybe we would like him to be. However, the contrast is Kamala Harris has said that she is so pro-abortion, she thinks every single American ought to have taxpaying dollars to fund it. Now, it's one thing to think President Trump is not pro-life enough. It's something totally different when the other candidate says, I'm going to take money from your pocket and we are going to use your money to fund the taking of innocent life, the annihilation of unborn children in the womb, That is a very clear distinction. And so when you look at policy and which is what we're encouraging to do, which is why you don't just vote for a personality, what is their policy? Which one is going to restrain the most evil? Which one's going to encourage the most godliness and righteousness? And so even though we're saying it's abortion, two states rights issue, it doesn't necessarily restrain evil, but it does allow the opportunity for states to promote godliness and righteousness, to defend life in the states. And and I'm only on one issue right now, but I want to highlight the contrast because I think some people look at issues like this and go, well, neither one's pro-life, therefore I'm not going to support either one. Well, President Trump has very clearly said he thinks abortion in a third trimester is crazy. And it is crazy when you have a baby that is is absolutely capable of surviving outside of the womb. And we're still going to suggest that we should kill this child, this unborn child. But, I mean, this is like the the perspective of like a Sodom and Gomorrah that God rained down death on them because of how perverted their thinking was. This is along those lines. This is so crazy. It is so ungodly. There is a contrast between them in their policies. If we would look a little deeper. 

David Barton [00:24:56] Now, I want to pick up on what you said. You didn't trigger me this time, but I want to pick up on what you said. And as you talked about judges and Isiah. 1:26 says that the righteousness of the land is determined by the judges in the land. Is there a chance that Kamala Harris would give us a judge who actually reads the Constitution? I would say thus far, no. There's no indication of that because she herself is calling for fundamental reform. But the Supreme Court redoing the Constitution, reshaping the judiciary because she doesn't like the decision the court reached. Look, that is an independent branch. That is a separate branch. That branch has the right to read the Constitution without having to agree with what she says. And if you take the judiciary out of that and make. Nothing but a rubber stamp for whatever Congress is doing. Then you're going to get the Dred Scott decisions into law all the time, rather than having something like the Dobbs decision says, No, no, no, there is an available right to life and states can determine that. So judges are huge. The Bible makes really clear judges are huge. And Kamala has on several occasions said that she will work to redo the Constitution and judiciary because she doesn't like the way the Constitution set it up. And that's just a bridge too far. We don't want to lose the documents we've got, and we have one that will protect us, give us good judges. We have one that will fundamentally work to tear down and change that constitution. That's not a good idea. 

Rick Green [00:26:16] A lot at stake. Folks, this is a great opportunity for you to have a voice in the outcome by influencing the people in your circle. Use your voices, weaken your voice, your vote, your dollars. Those are the weapons of our warfare today. And you can help to save our country by sharing with your friends and family. So don't be afraid to speak. Go talk to your pastor before Sunday and ask your pastor to speak to this issue on Sunday and encourage people in the church to vote next Tuesday. Thanks so much for listening. You've been listening to the WallBuilders Show.