Rick Green [00:00:07] You found your way to the intersection of faith and culture and you found us on so it's a lot of good news that's about to come your way. So also, you know, don't just listen today, make sure that you listen to all this good news and then you share the program with your friends and family. Easy to do go to wallbuilders.show click on those links there, send it out on your social media or just text it to some friends and family and help spread the good news. Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. You can learn more about us at wallbuilds.com. That's our main site. So I said wallbuilder.show a second ago. That's the radio show. And then wallbuilders.com. That's where you can get your materials and learn more about us. Learn more about some of the events that are coming up throughout 2025, and definitely get on the email list. Make sure you go there and get on the email lists so we can keep you updated about some things that are gonna happen between now and July 4th, 2026, the 250th birthday of the country. So a lot of fun opportunities over the next year or so. All right, David, Tim, we got a lot of great news to catch up on. We kind of had a good news Monday this week. So I hope that didn't, you know, knock out your stack. I'm kidding. I'm getting, I know y'all have more than we can get to go ahead. 

David Barton [00:01:06] Okay guys I want to start with and here we are we're on the Friday after Easter and we talked a little bit about Easter on Monday's good news good news Monday that's I could use that still we talked about that on Monday but I want to go back and look at some of the things that happen on Sunday I've got some some great Easter reports here and this this headline says churches with record Easter attendance report the US is on the cusp of spiritual awakening. I'm just going to read the first couple paragraphs. It says, from small congregations to mega churches, churches across the United States saw a record Easter attendance Sunday, the latest sign of what some see as a growing spiritual awakening. The reports coincide with a new Barna survey showing that belief in Jesus is on the rise in the United states, with 66% of adults saying they have made a personal commitment to Jesus that is still important in their life today. A 12 point increase since three years ago. And the highest recorded level in the polls since 2012. Here's one of the headlines. Record-breaking attendance at our Easter service today, reported Roseville United Pentecostal Church of Bronson, Texas. Another one. We were blessed with record attendance today, shared Church of Christ at Freewill in Gainesboro, Tennessee. Another one, the Apostolic Lighthouse Church in Live Oak, Florida reported record attendance, as did First Baptist Church in Newcastle, Oklahoma, and Bridge Church in Nashville, Ohio. And it keeps going through all those reports. And then here we have from Josh Howerton, he's senior pastor at Lake Point Church in Dallas, said that they baptized over 3,000 people, first time decisions Easter Sunday. He talked about the fact that his friends all over the country are saying that they had record attendance. He said, we're experiencing something I've never seen before. This is a tidal wave. It's just good news. We're seeing all these anecdotal numbers and that doesn't prove that there's a massive great awakening going, but it's certainly suggestive. And we haven't seen this kind of quantity of reports coming at the same time in a really long time. So Easter Sunday, that was great. We even talked to Father Frank about 14,000 people being baptized into the Catholic Church in France, of all places. And maybe there's some stuff going globally. And another thing I thought was really interesting was, and we talked on Monday about this, the Easter service they had at the White House, and Trump, how strong his words were. But there was a part of the story I had not seen until till later this week. But Pastor Greg Laurie, I think we know Greg Laurie. We talked about him. He's out and he's got great church going in Hawaii when all the fire went through and all the tragedy and rebuilding out there. And he's out of California and the movie Jesus Revolution involved a lot of his story. So he was he was one of the pastors that was supposed to speak at the Easter service at the White House on Sunday. The other was Franklin Graham. And so Pastor Laurie, Greg gets there to check in at the White House, and his name is not on the list as part of the service. And so he's not even admitted to the White House, even though he's spoke, chosen speaker. And he had a great spiritual point of this. He said, this is what it's going to be like for a lot of people in heaven. They think they're going to get in and they're going to go there and their name is not going to beyond the list. And he used that as a great teaching tool to say, hey, you better make sure that you're on the list. Your, your name is written in the lamb's book of life. Jesus is going to say to many, I never knew you. And I thought it was really great the way he turned that. And of course he got in and he had a great sermon in the, at there in the white house and they were at the EEOB, the Eisenhower executive officer's building, but I thought he was really fun the way he turned that and he turned it in a very positive direction. So a lot of fun Easter news from, from earlier in the week, but I hope we do see a great spiritual awakening, which maybe is indicated by some of the things we're seeing here. 

Rick Green [00:04:59] Yeah, and of course we talked to about our you know the International when we had Father Frank on talking about what's going on in France we've talked about the the colleges I mean it's just it there is definitely an awakening happening for sure Tim where's your piece of good news your first piece of Good News I should say 

Tim Barton [00:05:14] All right. Well, I want to follow up, uh, I actually have several articles in my stack toward the top, also from Easter pertaining to things from the white house, this one, the headline says white house staffers rise for amazing grace after Franklin Graham warned against rejecting gospel. And I, I love the way they frame the headline.  I don't think all the staffers rose for amazing grace. Cause Franklin Graham warned them. Like if you don't, you might go to hell. I, but the way it's framed, it just kind of seems that nonetheless, It highlights, dad, you mentioned Greg Laurie, and after Greg Laurie spoke, then Franklin Graham spoke. And it just goes through and highlights some of Franklin Graham's message. Also, I was looking over in the stack one from Greg Laura as well that highlighted his message from Esther, the challenge. And it's just, it strikes me. And I'm not going to take time to read the whole thing on air. Although, as it goes to a sermon, it really is great. What he highlights as just very quickly, he even identifies that hell is real. And we know just based on polling, there's a lot of even Christians that question this loving God and this hell notion. And so you have Franklin Graham with the White House staff just walking them through the gospel. And this was part of the Easter service. One of the other articles I have pertaining to Easter service is a contrast between the last two years of Easter. One from the Biden White House and one from the Trump White House. And, you know, guys, as, as we have seen more and more of Trump, as we've seen more, more of the faith office, it's become so evident that, that God is using Trump, that God has using people in the White House, that the things are happening in the faith Office. This has been one of the most pro-faith presidents we've seen in our lifetime, just remarkable stuff. But then when you see even the contrast, Reminding what things like Joe Biden did when he made history for declaring Easter to be transgender day of visibility, and only after he put out the transgender day visibility, then was there some later acknowledgement of Easter itself after there was, of course, a lot of blow back on social media and all kinds of stuff happen. But, but seeing the contrast, when you have Franklin Graham, when you have Greg Laurie, when, when even president Trump is putting out these very strong Jesus messages, and then this article comparing and contrasting it too, that the headline says, when presidents preach two Easter's, two very different messages, it's from the Christian post. And it just goes through and highlights how in the Trump White House, they're very clear it's Jesus alone is savior and Lord, and contrasting it with the transgender day of visibility. So... As flawed as president Trump is, and, and we're not saying that he doesn't have flaws, just like all of us have flaws. All of us need a savior. It's at least pleasant that you have a president acknowledging he does know a savior and Jesus is the savior. 

David Barton [00:08:23] With that, Tim, I had another article here and I couldn't figure out how to work it in. And it's not necessarily good news per se, but I think it's really important news. And you just gave, you just set it up. You and I hadn't talked about this. Good job. 

Tim Barton [00:08:36] You're welcome. 

David Barton [00:08:36] Thank you. I appreciate that. And what I've got here, I'm going to introduce this as the Joe Biden of Christianity. And it was on Christmas, the magazine, you, you just talked about the Christian post and Christian post, I think does phenomenal work. What they do and really sticking to biblical values, but also doing a great job on presenting the news, including from faith perspective. And I'm going to contrast that with Christianity today and Christianity today when I was growing up, that was a magazine I enjoyed reading because they had a lot of Christian history in it. It had a lot of really solid biblical thinking and teaching in it and for Easter this this time they came out and said, well, the Bible really doesn't say that Jesus was held to a cross. Oh, really? The Bible doesn't say that. Do I should I read from John 20 where the scripture says John 20? So the other disciples told him, we have seen the Lord. But he said to them, unless I see in his hands the marks of the nails and place my finger into the mark of the nails and place my hand into his side, I will never believe. Now, that's in the scriptures. It clearly says Jesus had nails as part of the crucifixion. And so what we've got now is Christianity. They say, no, no no, it really wasn't that. And they point to a Bible scholar at Gordon College who talks about the fact, well, it may not have been nails, maybe it was ropes and all the maybes. And so at a time when maybe we have the indications of some kind of awakening going on when even the White House is coming back to orthodox teachings of Christianity. And by the way, if you think this is a big deal, it is because we're told in Romans, that if you deny the resurrection, you've denied the power of Christ, because that is the power. If he had not been raised from the dead, then all the stuff he does with redemption and everything else, none of it is there for us. It all is based on the fact that he was raised from dead, that he is crucified, that was in the grave three days, that is was raised in the dead. And if you denied the resurrection which is what you're doing when you say, well he really wasn't, you know, he wasn't crucified that way and no, you can't question that part. That is, I think, the number one essential teaching. So going back to what you said, Tim, good news out of the White House and the clarity of the gospel there. And I couldn't figure out how to bring this negative part into it and still be Good News Friday, but you just gave me an out. So hopefully, people will stick on the straight and narrow path and not get into this crazy path that Christianity today appears to be going down, which is just not biblical at all. 

Tim Barton [00:11:08] Well, when you see a lot of people trying to be relevant, trying to make headlines, and part of their making headlines is stirring up controversy, or saying that, well, the Bible, the Bible doesn't really say this. It's not to derail on a Good News Friday, but in my mind, it's this annoying when someone says, you know, but the Bible really says, we're not supposed to judge anybody. And I'm like, that's not exactly the entirety of what the Bible says. 

Rick Green [00:11:36] All right 

Tim Barton [00:11:36] And you walk through like do not be deceived bad company corrupts good morals well, how do you know who's bad company you pass a judgment, right? I mean like literally all over the Bible what Jesus says beware of false prophets that come to you as as sheep, but in really they're ravenous wolves. Well, How do you knows a false prophet? You pass it judgment and we can go through the list of all the things that at times we hear promoted somewhere in Christianity and we recognize that's not the entirety of what the Bible teaches But when you take something as simple as this, and you try to create controversy on Easter, and it might not just be whoever they were interviewing, whatever professor this was, although it certainly could be, but it certainly has been the position of this news outlet to downplay what the Bible actually says and promote somebody's opinion over the Bible. And that certainly is not the place we want to be. We always want to go back and say, well, what did the Bible actually say? When we saw this headline, we're like, wait a second, that doesn't seem right. So what do we do? We went to the Bible, we went to gospels and you find the evidence, right? I mean, even Thomas known as quote unquote, doubting Thomas, when he says, unless I see his hands and his feet, unless I the scars in his hands in his feet. Well, why would he have scars in his hands, in his feet, if there were only ropes tied around his arms, right. Like this, this should not even be controversial if we're going to the original source. At walbuilders we always promote. Go to the original source, and the best original source there is, is the Bible. Don't just take some dumb news article. That's going to tell you what the Bible says. Go read the Bible and pursue that truth. And in this case, they totally blew it. 

Rick Green [00:13:16] Yeah, see, so David, that wasn't bad news. It turned into good news because we learned how to always go to a good source. So we, we've got so much good news. We need some bad news just to balance this out. We're going to stop appreciating the good news anyway. All right, guys, we're going take an early break today. We'll come right back. We'll get some more good news, stay with us. You're listening to the WallBuilder Show. 

Rick Green [00:14:40] Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show. It's Good News Friday today. Let's jump right back in. I think, let's see, did David steal that one from Tim? Like Tim was doing a good news and David took it. Should we consider that a turn or is that just like a handoff? No, he said- 

Tim Barton [00:14:54] He said he said it's good news, but it was a spin of bad news I don't think he gets full credit for that. Let's be honest 

Rick Green [00:15:02] Alright, then it's back to David. 

Tim Barton [00:15:03] Yeah, he gave the last article, but I'm not giving full credit for good news. 

Rick Green [00:15:07] Okay, so we should, should we make him do another one then? Is that the deal? We put the burden on him for throwing bad news at us? We gotta... 

Tim Barton [00:15:14] I have plenty to cover, but I do feel like he owes us an actual good news. 

Rick Green [00:15:20] All right, David, there you go, man. Well, it'll be a good one. 

David Barton [00:15:23] This is, this is shifting from Easter to Trump administration. And specifically,  one of the latest things that he's done is he said, you know, I'm just going to start moving federal offices outside of Washington, DC, and part of the problem he's facing with this, and we, we talked about this yesterday on foundations of freedom Thursday, that what he does is he looks for laws, he's trying to follow laws that have already been passed, not trying to do all these brand new things, and you actually go to Jimmy Carter in August of 1978, who did an executive order and Bill Clinton in May of 1996, did an Executive Order and said, Hey, we want federal offices to be in major urban areas, downtown centers, Washington, DC. We don't want to move down among the people and we don't want it moved out where real estate is cheaper. We want to make it in the most expensive parts of the city. And so what you're looking at now, as far as How much real estate does the federal government have? And I don't know that we want to necessarily look at that, but I'll just tell you, the federal Government now is renting 363 million square feet across the United States. And they're doing it in some of the highest rent districts anywhere in the country. And so Trump said, okay, that's previous executive orders and we're just not going to do that anymore. We're going to go where it's more economical, where it is more efficient. And you know I have joked for 15 years, maybe 20 years, maybe longer that if we were to go to Washington, DC someday on Friday and shut it down. And if we, we're to say Monday morning, we're opening the federal government in Fargo, North Dakota, we would have a whole different nation because all that institutional structure, all the lobbyist, all the other stuff that you have centered in Washington, DC is a power center, a hub of wickedness. Sometimes is what it has become. It's where the principalities power seemed to linger because that's where power is. If you moved it out to, you know, to Little Rock, Arkansas, if you moved out to Las Cruces, New Mexico, you'd have a whole different federal government. And Trump is now starting to do that. He's starting to move these governments and agencies out, the number of employees, the 400 and some odd different agencies. Man, put that out where that's out of that center of control Washington DC, where the lobbyists actually are gonna have to work and it's gonna cost them more money. And to do the it's going to take it much longer to corrupt the system than what they've been able to do in DC. So I think this is wonderful news. I love the fact that he's moving this out among the people and he's getting those agencies away from that centralized hub of power and also spiritual wickedness in high places as Ephesians 6 says. I think that's great news. 

Rick Green [00:18:11] Yeah, exciting is that David is that kind of thing that that he can do with an executive order and they I mean, I'm assuming it takes time right for them to move, get everybody moved out and are they projected at all how much they can do. 

David Barton [00:18:23] They, this, it was done by executive order previously. So he can reverse executive orders. 

Rick Green [00:18:29] That's right 

David Barton [00:18:30] This is not something that's been passed by Congress and so and just looking at it they were looking at places Here's a 1.8 million annual lease. They have on one building. They've just terminated that said we're not doing that This was in Boise, Idaho, which is the most expensive real estate in Idaho. So why not go to Lapway, Idaho? Why not go the Clarkson or some other place and here they're just pointing to all these these places in the states where they are Hadley, Massachusetts, they're they're paying 1.6 million annually on the lease there. And they're just going through city after city Los Angeles, California. There is a building that's not very big. It's about 58,000 square feet, which is not big for an office building. But they're paying in Los Angeles are paying right at two and a half million a year on that footage. And so they've already pointed out that the places they're terminating the contracts right now, they're terminating these government contracts in all these places and finding better real estate, much cheaper out of these power centers and more among the people. So it can be done, answer your question, Rick, with an executive order, because that's how this was created, was two executive orders, one by Clinton and the previous one by Jimmy Carter. And so all he has to do is issue an executive order, which he has now done. And it's gonna start moving the location of these government offices, which is great. 

Rick Green [00:19:59] Love it. All right, good stuff. Tim, back to you. 

Tim Barton [00:20:02] All right, well this one, it's hard for me not to just read the entire article. So well done. The title is The Man in the Arena Wears Red, White, Blue and Wins. It's an article from Blaze and it starts off reminding us of President Teddy Roosevelt's famous The Man In The Arena speech. Part of it where he says, it is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or... Where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena. On March 22nd, Wyatt Hendrickson was that man. Now, some people might see this, they might remember it, you can find this on social media, not hard to find. It's when President Trump was in Oklahoma, and he went to the wrestling championship. And President Trump has gone several places at times that have kind of made you wonder, why is he at these places? You know, what is he doing? But I love it when he showed up at some of these UFC events in different places. Well, this one, he's at the wrestling championship, but Wyatt Hendrickson ends up winning the championship. Part of why this is even more impressive is in the championship, he had to go up against Olympic gold medalist Gable Stevenson for an NCAA heavyweight championship. Now, of all the people you have to compete against, if someone says, hey, you're going up against the Olympic gold medalist, like the last guy that won, that's who you're competing against. Already, I would just be going, okay, I don't even know, I doesn't care what you pick. I'm going to lose in this situation, but not only does he win, his whole story is just so remarkable that the trendy mantra of work smarter, not harder, this article says doesn't apply to him. And this is him in an interview. He says, I get my work ethic from my dad. He always said to work harder, not smarter. There's no substitute for hard work. If you're looking for shortcuts, you've already messed up. It just the spin on this. I love everything about it. Like, no, don't work smarter. Just work harder. Just be a hard worker. Work really hard. He says, I grew up in a Christian household, but in high school, I made the decision to make Jesus my Lord and savior, skipping down. He's a second lieutenant in the U S air force. His nickname is captain America. 

Rick Green [00:22:23] That's great. 

Tim Barton [00:22:23] I mean, so many great things. When he came out for this championship match, it says he bolted out of the tunnel for his title match he carried America on his back and Jesus on his heart. Literally, he was draped in the American flag wearing his signature shirt with Jesus printed in bold capital letters across his chest Hendrickson made his values unmistakably clear toward the end of the article. It points out that after the match Hendricksen wrapped President Trump in a bear hug and this is what you can see on social media. Speaking about that moment he called president Trump, the big boss. Hendrickson said, don't be afraid to step up and stand for what you believe, and in concluding, he said his life revolves around three priorities, wrestling, God, and America. He said he's actually working to compete in this coming Olympics. And after the Olympics, he's has 20 years of military service. He's already committed to. And he says, after wrestling, the military is going to be super easy because this is the hardest thing I've ever done. Anyway, just such a great feel-good story, so for those that have not seen that don't know would highly encourage go watch check out Wyatt Hendrickson Captain America who loves America and Jesus just super cool feel-good story 

Rick Green [00:23:42] Ma, David, you gotta beat Captain America. You gotta close us out with a good news that beats Captain America, this is gonna be tough. 

David Barton [00:23:48] Oh man, do I, do i go for iron man on this or do I go for ant man or who do I is that's tough to be captain America, maybe Hulk?

Rick Green [00:23:58] Is there a Thanos good news or would that all be bad news? That's anyway. No. All right too much too much 

Tim Barton [00:24:04] Wasn't that what Elon Musk did with the federal government agencies? 

Rick Green [00:24:08] The snap of the fingers, half, then we're gone. Snap of the finger, that's good. There we turn it into good news. 

David Barton [00:24:15] This one, it deals with another Trump policy is doing right now. And I, you know, I don't want to sound like the grinch on this thing, but I really appreciate what he's doing here, let me just jump into it. It's deals with student loans. Biden for years has said, you don't have to pay back your loans. I object to that on so many levels. You gave your word, you made a commitment. You agreed to pay the stuff. You can't do this with a car loan. You can do this for the house loan. You can, do this within any of the loan you get, but you can do this, do you know how much we have now in student loans in America? Now, you know, Biden's been saying you don't have to repay this. You're looking at $1.6 trillion, $1 .6 trillion. 

Rick Green [00:25:00] Wow. 

David Barton [00:25:00] If you just got that paid back in, you know, they were looking to be able to cut 1.5 trillion with all the DOGE stuff. Well here's another one point six trillion if you just start collecting what's owed and what was agreed to now I'm going to say I don't think most most kids got their money's worth for what they paid for college. We've talked about that you get great indoctrination very little usable information you get all twisted in the wrong direction. And right now only about 23.6%of college graduates can actually get a job in their field so you've wasted your money but that doesn't mean you don't have to keep your word. And so Trump has stepped into this and said, no, it's time for all this stuff to be repaid. So they're starting wage garnishments in the next month or so. They're going to get the money back because you promised to do this. This is a loan you agreed to. And the fact that Biden for four years and said you don't have to pay it back is not right. And so I don't, I don'tmean to sound like a heavy hearted thing, but I'm glad that we're getting back to keeping our word and holding people accountable for what they said they were going to do. And I appreciate Trump for having done that. So that would be my closing piece of good news. And it may result in 1.6 trillion back into American coffers, which would be good. 

Rick Green [00:26:13] And also reiterating responsibility, right? And not just being able to not, you know, pay your debts and that sort of thing. And, yeah, that's such a good, good policy. Everybody was always shocked that when Biden would announce these, total blatant buying of votes, I'm going to, for, you know, I'm gonna have somebody else pay your school loans. Please vote for me. That's essentially what he was doing every time he did it. Well, thanks for all the good news, guys. We'll have more good news next Friday and frankly, some sprinkled throughout the week as well. Be sure to visit our websites, wallbuilders.com and wallbuilder.show. You have been listening to the WallBuilder show.