Rick Green [00:00:07] You found your way to the intersection of faith and culture. Thanks for joining us today on The WallBuilders Show. I'm Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. It's Thursday, so we do Foundations of Freedom Thursday around here. That's your chance to ask questions. Be sure and email email those in. I don't know how you imo something so you can't emo it, but you can email it unless you have the know that was was rhema. What was the little you know character that you could push the hand and have all the silly stuff that he would say and my kids would repeat it? Was that IMO am I just imagining things guys? 

Tim Barton [00:00:36] I think emo was like that. The appearance that goth kind of style. 

Rick Green [00:00:40] But so was it IMO. 

Tim Barton [00:00:42] No, I mean there is imo was an dogs but I don't know. 

Rick Green [00:00:45] I don't know. Okay. All right. I'm just being weird. All right. Anyway, you're not going to emo us, you're going to email us and it's it's just radio@wallbuilders.com. We love hearing from you. So send those questions in. David and Tim anxiously on the edge of their seat ready to answer the first question. Here we go guys from Wendy she said How do you defend the importance of having a secure border when liberal Christian friends are using this scripture in Leviticus 19:33 to 34? I'm not sure how to adequately defend this in context, and I did not prepare for you guys. I did not look up Leviticus 19:33 to 34. So we got we got to read that, that what is Leviticus 19:33 through 34? Either of y'all have that handy I'm guessing it's treat the Sojourner the same. Do y'all remember that verse People are always. 

David Barton [00:01:31] As a stranger Treat the other one. Yeah. 

Rick Green [00:01:34] There you go. Yep. I should've known DB would have the entire Bible memorized. And I know. Okay, so when a stranger this is ESV guys, I don't know which one you are pulling up, but when a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. Okay, guys. So what do you say to that stranger? Not do him wrong. So I guess what what Wendy is saying is people are probably throwing that back on her, saying somehow we're doing people wrong. If we, you know, still, you know, seal the border and stop allowing for all the rape and child sex trafficking. I think that's doing people right to stop that. But anyway, what say you guys? 

David Barton [00:02:20] Well, this is a Bible verse is very popular with the left and maybe the only Bible verse I know, but they have it interpreted in such a way that is open borders. If you really obey the Bible, you will welcome all people in and treat. Because the Jews went into Egypt and there wasn't immigration stuff in Egypt and they were welcoming them. They live there four hundred years and you just don't say no to anybody who wants to come in any land. This is where go back to one of our very good friends, Rabbi Daniel Lapin, when this came up several years ago, because this was going on under Obama at that point in time, we called Rabbi Lapin and said, all right, what's the correct answer to this? And he has a brilliant answer. It makes perfect sense. It is completely biblical. And this is where we, as he often says, every Christian needs a rabbi. And we he's our rabbi. So when we get into Bible verses like this and to set the stage for what what he told us, I've got to point out that he points out and I agree the English is one of the worst languages in the world for making descriptions of anything because we have much fewer words. Most other languages have a lot more words than the language. He points out, for example, that Eskimos have 22 different words for snow because there are different words to describe different types of snow. We say snow, and it could be a wet snow or a heavy snow or blowing snow or dry snow or a thick snow or we have to stick adjectives with our words to make them stand up and do tricks. So most other languages have different words for for the same they have different words for what we have the same word over and over and example. This is and the the Greek language in the Bible when you read the New Testament. In Greek there are four words for love, but the word and New Testament appears love every time. But those four different words in Greek have very different meanings, and it doesn't mean the same every time in English. 

Tim Barton [00:04:15] Yeah, it's easy to say I love my wife and I love my mother very differently. Right? I love my puppy and I love my children very differently. 

Rick Green [00:04:25] I love chocolate. 

Tim Barton [00:04:26] Right? Yes. Yeah. But there are different kinds of love. Right. That's the point. It's easy. It's easy for a word to be overused in a sense that the implications aren't always what we think. It's where we see the left do such a good job of this, where they say that, you know, love is love. And if two people love each other, right, who are we to say who can and can't love? And traditionally we've said marriage, the man and woman. But if two people love each other, but somewhat love means. But when? When we don't have clear definitions or when there's more than one definition for a word, it's easy to misrepresent and misapply. But that, as Rabbi Lapin points out, if you go back to the Hebrew, these words are not that confusing in Hebrew and in it, and you mention even in Greek, when we study the Bible, one of the things we encourage everybody to do first of all, read the Bible, get to know what it says. One of the things that I heard a lot when I was a youth pastor, I would have kids ask me a lot is how how do you hear from God or how do you know what God wants you to do? And the thing that I would point out, Jesus said that the good shepherd, right, is is the father and that the sheep know his voice and they won't turn aside to another. Well, if if we're supposed to, as Christians know, the father's voice, the good shepherds voice, so that we follow him and don't turn aside him another. How do we do that? Well, you you learn what God's voice sounds like by setting the words of God. You said He God's word so that you recognize God's voice in kind of getting some of that direction and boundaries and where God leads you, what God wants you to do. And I'm saying all of that to give the thought and context that the question I would hear so often from from kids is, hey, how do I how do I know what God wants me to do? How do I I know what I should do? And I would tell him, number one, you need to read the Bible. So when you begin to recognize the words of God, you help you hear the voice of God. But drawing all this back, why it matters is as as we're saying, you should know the Bible. As you go deeper and your knowledge of the Bible. One of the things you should do is you should start going back to the Greek and Hebrew and saying, okay, so what does this actually mean? Not just right. When the Apostle Paul is writing one of these epistles, know who he's writing to? You know what they were dealing with, though, some of the context surrounding it so that we're not taking the Bible and making something that Paul was writing to the Ephesians or the Galatians or someone else is saying, well, that's that's what this means in my life today. Well, there can be application for us today, but recognize who was written to why it was written, what Paul was dealing with. And this happens with all of the Bible. In order to do that, you really need to go back and see what did the Greek and Hebrew mean? And if you want to have a proper understanding and this is where Rabbi Lapin sells it, it's why every Christian needs a rabbi so that we can go back and say, okay, what was actually being dealt with when the Bible says this in Leviticus in numbers in Exodus? What was God actually saying? What was God trying to accomplish in learning that Hebrew can give us so much more depth than what we know? Whereas today a lot of people take the words and they misapply the words and misrepresent them in general. But if you go back to the Hebrew, this is not confusing what the command actually was. 

David Barton [00:07:38] Yeah, it's really clear. And I want to give one example of what you mentioned earlier, the word love having different things, because C.S. Lewis must be now 80 years ago did a book on love and it was the Four Loves in the Bible and those four loves in the Bible. They all in English say a four letter word love, but they all had four different Greek words and meanings that were translated to love. One of them meant Eros, or one that was called Eros, and that was sexual love. One was fellatio. Like Philadelphia Brotherly Love. One was a cappella, which is God's love and one is store gay, which is a family. Love is like your brother and your sister, your mom and your dad, family, love. So there were four different words for love, but in English, they all they all look and sound exactly the same. There's no distinction. So when the Bible says love your neighbor as you love yourself, that doesn't mean have sex with your neighbor or yourself. That's not what to say and that's what you are talking about. So moving into Hebrew, it's the same thing. When I asked Rabbi Olaf about this, he said, Well, you said that word stranger. There are three words in Hebrew that say the word stranger, and they all have different meanings. And he said, now this, this meaning and Leviticus 19:33 34, it means something very specific. And I said, well, what are the three meanings? They said, Well, he said, you have to understand that this verse was going on at a time when Solomon there was a lot of wealth. And in Israel, like Solomon, we had all that wealth and people wanted to move in and they wanted to come there and be part of Israel because there are so much wealth and abundance and peace and all the good things there. And so what happened is there are three different levels of stranger. And you said the first one is pretty much like what I call a green card. Those are people who don't want to be Jews that don't want to live like Jews. They just want to live in Israel to have a good job somewhere. And so he said, under under King David, under King Solomon, people would move in just to get a job, just to have income. And so that's one level, and that is the word stranger in English. But that's not what it means in Hebrew. He said the second level is more like someone who wants to to live here for a while and accept part of the nation, be part of it. They're not loyal to the nation back home, but they're not a citizen yet. And he said the third one is the one that is the word used in Leviticus, which says, Welcome the stranger, because you were you were strangers yourself in Egypt he said the word stranger there. He said the best word for it in English is proselyte. He said, the word stranger means someone who comes among you and wants to be exactly like you are. And he said the example that is with Ruth and Naomi, if you remember the story of Ruth and Naomi, which this is part of the lineage of Jesus, but you had Naomi and her sons died and one of her daughters in law, she had two daughters in law and one of them stayed there. And Naomi said, I'm going back to Israel. And Ruth, who was a daughter in law, was from Moab and said, well, I'll leave Moab and go be with you. And she said to Naomi, she said, Your God would be my God, your people, be my people, your land with my land, I'm leaving behind my land of Moab and I'm moving with you to Israel and I want to be exactly like you are in Israel. And so he said, The word proselyte means someone who moves in and wants to be exactly like you are. They want to learn the language. They want to learn the customs. They want to learn the laws. They want to be they want to be a full fledged Jew or in this case, a full fledged American. So they're not here to get a job and send the money out of the country. They're here to contribute to the country. And so that's what it means when that verse talks about, hey, you were strangers in Egypt. Yes, you were. And as such, you were part of the leadership. You stayed there for hundred years. You didn't move in and move out. You are part of it. And so the word stranger in English and this is something I saw lots in Congress back under Obama. We were there several times for hearings on immigration. And the liberal Christians would quote this verse and they would give it an English meaning instead of the original meaning. But the word proselyte is what it means. If you want to be a proselyte to America, come among America and make this your nation and renounce all your former allegiance says, then that's a whole different thing than just coming across the border to get a job. 

Tim Barton [00:11:52] Well, this is also why you have other verses that we would point people to. You don't just take one verse and and then extrapolate from that. And without examining context of other verses, you interpret the Bible with the Bible. And so if you're finding contradictions and you need to dig a little deeper and find out what's really being said, what does it mean? Because if you look at Exodus 12:49 or Leviticus 24:22 or numbers 914 or numbers 15, 15 and 16, all of these talk about how there's one law for the stranger and for the native born individual, for those who are Jews, for those are Israelites. There's one law. We all follow that one law. And so this idea that that we're supposed to just blindly turn in this, you know, open border scenario and say, no, just we we shouldn't tell people no, we shouldn't have standards. We shouldn't have boundaries. How ridiculous and inconsistent that the nation of Israel. The Bible says that God clearly establishes borders and boundaries. Go to act 17:26, when God even supported that. There's a whole book of the Bible, Nehemiah, where the name WallBuilders comes from God supporting building walls to protect people inside that boundary. The idea that God supports boundaries and nations and go down this long list of laws and standards, and yet people would say, no, it's unloving. You're not being a good Christian if you don't support open borders. It's incredibly dishonest and inconsistent. And when people use that kind of verse, it shows, number one, they don't know what the Bible really says Or and maybe also, number two, they're being intellectually dishonest when they make that argument. 

Rick Green [00:13:35] Well, it's one that gets made a lot, and I think we're going to hear it a ton come January 20th, guys. We're going to hear them wailing and gnashing of teeth on on this whole immigration issue. And man, they are going to try to make Christians confused about what the biblical issue is on this one. So I bet we have more questions on this one and we'll be hitting that a lot in 2025. Hey, let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. We've got more questions from the audience. When we return. You're listening to The WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:15:09] Welcome back to the Bible to show its foundations of Freedom Thursday. And our next question is from. Let's see, Sergio's up next. He said, Hey there. With the world seemingly leaning more towards extreme left wing policies, I'm curious, how do you actually differentiate between socialism, communism and fascism? From what I've read, they all seem to be cut from the same cloth. But when? But then Google goes and labels fascism as right wing, which totally throws me off. Can you clear this up for me with some solid definitions? Thanks a ton. You're the best. And Sergio, I'm not sure when you sent your question in. Sometimes they stay in our stack for a little while. I totally agree with you, Ben. Moving towards extreme left wing policies. But maybe, maybe, maybe we're headed back down the middle a little bit and then maybe we can head back towards some conservative policies. Anyway, guys, very good question. And, you know, words mean things, but, boy, these words get thrown around a lot, meaning a lot of different things. Sometimes, you know, people use them interchangeably. So this would be great. Let's let's see if we can define them better. Socialism, communism and fascism. 

David Barton [00:16:08] Yeah, Most people that use these terms, if you ask them, what does that term mean? Wouldn't know it. It means a right wing Christian nationalist or whatever. I mean, it's a pejorative term that they throw around because they think it's an insult and they don't know what the term means. So kind of putting it in context, there's about seven major different forms of government that you can see illustrated in the Bible that's covered in the Founders Bible. By the way, it's one of the articles, the forms of government. But as you go through and look at the different forms of government that are out there, these three, the three we got here, socialism, communist fascism, one of the things that's that's characteristic of all three is that government is the biggest thing there. The government itself is the God. The government itself runs everything. They have the final word. They are the final authority and the government owns and controls the means of production. It controls capital, etc.. So when you look at them socialism, I think more people kind of understand that. Now in recent years, because that has been a big deal since Obama the socialism is the government controlling the means of production and the capital. So you you work for the government. The government will give you back what they think you need. You don't have the profit margins, you don't have profit. You don't accumulate things for yourself. The government does that. This is where that they've told us with the climate agenda stuff that you're going to own nothing and love it. Well, that's that's socialism. That's where the government owns it. That gives back to you what they think you should have. Now when you move over to communism is socialism, but communism tends to be anti-God. There are socialists who would acknowledge God, and Jamestown Colony is a great example of them. The people who founded Jamestown 1606-1607 were socialist, but they belonged to church and they attended the Anglican Church and and they would acknowledge God. But the government still owned and controlled everything. So with communism, that's generally where you say there is no God. This is what Russia and the Soviet Union, China and all these other more communist nations tend to be. So a socialism with an anti God tint

Tim Barton [00:18:17] And dad, lets point out this is this is why there is a very small step between socialism and communism, because it's the government controlling that goods, property, means of production, etc.. But to your point and socialism, there can be people that say, hey, we know there's a God, but we think equal distribution regardless of who does what, who has what, We should divide all the property. We should divide all of the goods, the assets, whatever it is. But ultimately, when you start saying the government gets to make determinations and decisions, you're removing the reality of God. Because if there is a God, then it stands to reason. With the Founding Fathers concluded that if there is a God, there's God given rights and if there are God given rights, again, just logical conclusions and logical, especially when you understand what the Bible teaches. Government exists. God, God created the institution of government for the primary purpose of the preservation of inailienable rights. But if if we're already in socialism saying, well, no, the government really is the one that should control all this and do all this, it's it's not, my God should supply all my needs, it's my government should supply all of my needs according to their riches and glory. That's a very different position. But you see, it's a very easy step to go from will the government already providing all these things. And the more we get used to looking to the government, the less we get used to looking to God. The more we ask the government for help, the less we ask God for help. Then we we're atheists almost in behavior, if not, maybe in in belief. We are by our actions and who we're connected to, who were looking to, who were praying to in communism is just that next step, saying, hey, look, there is no God. We're the ones. We're the ones that meet all the needs. We're the ones that solve all the problems. We're the ones they're going to. Do all these things. It's not a very far step from socialism. The communism. And the main part of that step, I would argue, is the recognition of God. And and that's why communism is just a step further than socialism. But both of them are a very bad direction because it removes some of the basic premise of our God given rights and it diminishes who God ultimately is. And that diminishing just a step further is what leads to communism, which says there is no God. In fact, the government is God. 

David Barton [00:20:41] You take those two and they have that in common. And fascism does also the fascism is a little different in that it still relies there's not private ownership, but it really makes a patriotic state. A fascist state tends to be nationalist or patriotic like Hitler was or like Mussolini was in World War Two. They have a big military. Nobody worships the military. They worship strength, the worship power. And they also have what's called private public partnerships. And by the way, if you haven't noticed, this started coming in to America under Obama. Private public partnerships are where the government uses private businesses to do things, but the government tells it what it can and can't do. So essentially, it's letting the people have some degree of private ownership, but not control The control is by the government. So that's where the sense is kind of nationalistic. They say it's nationalistic. That's where they look at Christians and say, you guys are patriotic, you're fascist, you're right wing. Because Christians tend to be in this country considered right wing when they're conservative. So that is that's the misnomer. And again, this goes back that they really don't even know what they're talking about, but they think it's an insult. So they kind of throw it in there. But that's where these things come from. And it really just all goes back to an anti biblical perspective. And they just don't know how to define things. 

Rick Green [00:22:02] Yeah. And it is almost a wish. They been really, really done a great job. It's a distortion, right? They take a little kernel of truth like patriotism being you love your country and you love the values your country and you're willing to fight for those values and defend those things and they turn that into a bad thing as if, you know, they take a bad example, like you're saying, like take a Hitler and they say you're being like a Nazi. That's just, you know, sold out to the country completely and not thinking for yourself or sold out the bad values in a country. Whereas, well, when we say patriotism in America are we think about even being a Christian and being, you know, standing for good values and loving our nation. We mean that in a good way. The way that Webster would define patriotism back in 1828. 

David Barton [00:22:44] What we've got still at the top of our hierarchy and we don't love the nation. That's right. And we love God. And it's not the greatest love in our life is patriotism. And for Hitler and Mussolini, that was the greatest love in the life. 

Rick Green [00:22:56] There was their god, right? 

David Barton [00:22:57] It was there. Yeah. That's what they worship. That's what they live for. They wanted a great state. That's why Hitler put so much time and money into great machinery, great military, great army. And I believe in a strong army and strong military. But I still believe it has to be under God, which is why we work so hard to make sure the military does not go secular if it if it upholds the rights that God has given, if it upholds God, given the legal rights that are enumerated in the Constitution, which is what our government should do, we think the military should do what the government should do, and that's protect those rights and defend those rights, defend those inalienable rights. That that's important stuff. So for us, we think we think patriotism is really important and that's biblical, but we don't worship the nation at the top. And that's what that's they don't get that. And, you know, this Christian nationalist stuff is that the nation is our God. No, it's not our God. God's our God. He has put us in a nation. We want to seek the best for the nation. And that goes back to the Bible verse. And Jeremiah, you seek the good of the country where I send you. Everybody's patriotic for their nation. If everybody work to make their nation really good, the whole world to be good at. Those who live in France work to make France the best it could be. And those who lived in Russia worked to make Russia the best. Now they're not because Putin has control. But if they had the opportunity to make Russia the best, it could be that the nation would be better off and the same in China. But the Chinese don't have control, just so leaders do. And that's why America has been so special and so different. 

Tim Barton [00:24:19] And point out that I think there's a lot of politicians who would argue today, well, we are seeking the best for our nation and some of these other nations. But this is where it does make a difference as we determine, well, how do we measure a moral standard? Ultimately, going back to a basic fundamental question, how do we determine right and wrong? Right. Like if if there's different moral views and moral philosophies, different worldviews, and how do we know which one truly is correct? And what we can point to is that if you compare other world religions, whether it be Islam or Christianity, as an easy example, well, is there a difference in the moral positions of Islam and Christianity? Well, unquestionably there is. How do we know is one morally superior to the other in the morals they teach? And that's where I would suggest one of the easy determinations or examinations is compare the heroes of those religions inside of Christianity. Who's the hero of Christianity? It's Jesus who's the hero of Islam. It's Muhammad. Well, let's let's examine their lives and their teachings and see did one of them maybe have morally superior teachings? And there's no doubt when Jesus teaches things like love your neighbors, you love yourself, treat other people the way you want to be treated. And then Muhammad favored that. You could kill your enemies and enslave those people that don't support you and then have multiple wives, maybe even child brides. I mean, you look at it, it's it's not even a similar comparison from the moral values they were teaching. And why this matters is because there's a lot of people in other nations saying, well, I'm seeking the best for my nation, but they're not promoting the greatest moral good for that nation. And where America has been different and why we've never been a communist, fascist or socialist is because there was enough people who knew there was a God who knew we had God given rights and who recognize the moral values in the teachings of the Bible of Jesus. And it's Christianity that's made America different. And that's the reason we've never been socialist communists or fascists. 

Rick Green [00:26:18] Alright folks, we're out of time for today. Be sure to visit our Web sites, two of them, WallBuilders.show. If you want to catch up on some of the radio programs you might have missed. And then wallbuilders.com our main website. Lots of great information there for you and your family and also some great gifts. Man is getting close. You're going to have to order fast and maybe doesn't come in till after Christmas, but still give the gift of freedom. Give people in your family educated wallbuilders.com. Lots of great things to check out today. Thanks so much for listening to The WallBuilders Show.