Rick Green [00:00:12] This is the intersection of faith and the culture. It's WallBuilders Live, where we talk about the hottest topics of the day. Faith, culture, elections, all of those things from a Biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. My name is Rick Green. I'm a former Texas legislator and America's constitution and coach. And I have the honor of being here with David Barton. He's America's premier historian, our founder at Wallbuilders, a great mentor, and someone that's really educated the American people on the truth about our history. Where we came from and what the secret sauce is that produces a great nation. Tim Barton is with us, national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders, someone that has just some powerful, powerful presentations right now that are so needed in our culture. The research that these guys have done in their library that has, frankly, it's the largest private collection of Founding Fathers documents that anybody has. It's an incredible working collection where they don't just have stuff you go in there and look at, they actually study it and then put it out there for us so that we can get good answers to what we need to do to restore our nation. So it really is an honor and a privilege to be able to be here with these guys and, and work with them on a daily basis here on Wallbuilders live. Speaking of daily, if you'd like to grab some of our programs in the past few days or weeks that you might've missed, you can do that at our website, wallbuilderslive.com. And that's also the place to make a contribution takes money to make a radio program work. And we are a listener supported radio program. So to all of you across the nation that support us and help us amplify this voice of truth out there. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. We appreciate you. If you've never done that before and you'd be willing to help us out, please go to wallbuilderslive.com click on the donate button and make that one time or monthly contribution. We greatly appreciate that. We are going to dive into a presentation by David Barton and this is just timely. I mean, we need this message. Where everybody's kind of looking for answers right now and asking questions about what do we do and how do we, how do we bring our nation back to a, a revival place where we could restore these founding principles and restore our constitutional republic and restore biblical values. So let's jump in. Here's David Barton. 

David Barton [00:02:12] God's word, the Bible contains timeless principles. They apply for all people, all geographic locations, all times, all generations, all ages. It doesn't matter. They apply to everything. Now in America where we are now, we have a lot of drama that's gone on a recent years and a lot more drama that will happen because we're just humans. That's the way it is. And despite the drama that we have, that's been there for all generations to some degree. That's why Jesus told his disciples, let not your heart be troubled, don't let it be afraid. We don't get caught up with what the circumstances around us may be. Having said that, let's take some Bible principles and apply them perhaps to where we are today, where America is today. And doing that and looking at some Bible principles, let me start with an animal that's mentioned often in the Bible, a lion. There's a lot we can learn from the lion. The lion is one of the creatures that's repeatedly talked about lessons from the lion. And so as you look at the lion and look at the lessons that we can learn from a lion, one of the things we know about the lion and where his rank is and his culture is he is called the king of beast. He is kind of like the top of the food chain. He is the big thing in the jungle or in the wild. And as you look at those animals, those lions, when a lion roars, everything else runs. It's like everything's scared of the lion the lion's kind of scared of nothing. So consider that and how that works, because when you look at a lion, they live on the savanna in Africa. And as should look at that savanna, interesting thing. When a male lion roars. And you can hear that across the savanna. We're told that that roar goes out to five miles. Now, if you're a parent, maybe you've yelled at your kids before. Maybe you've yell to the neighbor. Guaranteed, they didn't hear you five miles away. So the lion lives on the savannah and as such, they have to live and they eat off the savana. And one of the hunting plans they use is fairly interesting. And what will happen is that male lion, that big fearsome creature, will get at one end of the savanna. And at the other end, all the female lions will group together at the end. Now, when they're in place and they're far apart and maybe miles apart on the different ends of the savanna, that male lion will roar and he will open up and just let it rip. And he scares everything and they all start running away from it. Hearing that roar, they don't want to be caught. They run away. And the problem is they run right into the waiting teeth of the females. You see, as it turns out. In the lion culture, the male lion, while he's big and fearsome, he is the worst hunter. He's the slowest. Now he's powerful. He's dangerous, but it's the females that are the real killers in the group. They're the ones that can do the real damage. They don't make the noise, but they do the damage. And so when he makes the noise and everybody runs away from the noise. You run right into the mouth of the waiting lion and you become the food. So what you learn is that if you want a safe place with a lion, a big roaring lion. What you have to do is you have to run to the roar. You run right at him because he's the slowest of the animals. Everything that's counterintuitive. We've got to run away from it. No, you run to it. And so there was a lesson in nature about running to the roar. And that's significant because the Bible tells us that our enemy Satan is like a roaring lion. We're told that in first Peter. So when that lion roars, our first instinct should not be fear. Our first instinct should not be flight. We need to think about it and say. Wait a minute, he's as a roaring lion. Is this something where I need to be offensive minded? I need the turn and go in the other direction. He wants me to flee. That's part of his plan. I shouldn't be doing that. And so what we want to do is say, all right, we need to learn this concept of running to the roar. Now, let me give you another biblical example that makes the same point a different way. Let's take, for example, the lion again running to roar. Why is that a good idea? Well, among other things, remember that the Bible also tells us in Proverbs 28. That the righteous are bold as a lion. We need to start thinking like the lion. We need to be offensive minded ourselves. See, the problem we have oftentimes is that the Bible uses a lot of analogy for we, God's people. And one of the analogies it uses is Jesus is shepherd and we are the sheep. And that's not bad because that's a good analogy. But the problem is if you think like a sheep, you'll start acting like a sheep. We're told in Proverbs 23:7 that as a man, thanks in his heart, so is he. So if we're thinking like sheep, we're not going to be offensive minded. Sheep are the prey. They're not the ones that have the strength. They're the ones to get devoured. And so you want to think like a lion. And that means be offensive minded because that's what the Bible says we are. And that's why we should not be the ones running away. I mean, that's just not who God made us to be. So that's one concept. Let me take you to a different Bible verse that makes the same point. Let's go, for example, to what the Bible tells us about a place called heaven and a place called hell. Now, we know the Bible says much about both of those places, how to get to both of these places. But let's just focus on the concept of hell for a minute. We know that's a very real place because the Bible tells us it's a real place. If I can, for example, take you into this passage in Revelation 21, it talks about this real place, it says it's a lake that burns with fire and sulfur. This is a second death. It's a place that we're told about in the Bible. Who is it that goes to this place? Who is that that goes literally into hell? Well, the Bible tells us the answer to that in the first part of that verse. It tells us that the faithless and the detestable and the murderers and the sexually immoral and the sorcerers and they have dollars and all lies. Really bad folks doing really bad stuff. This is this is who ends up in hell. Except you may notice that there's a blank there. Now, what is missing in that blank spot? It's interesting that the list of all these bad, abominable things, all these really murderers, liars, the list starts with two interesting words, starts with. The Cowards and the Fearful. 

Rick Green [00:08:00] Alright friends start to interrupt David's presentation, but we've got to take a quick break. Stay with us. You're listening to WallBuilders Live. . We're back on Wallbuilder's Live. We are in the middle of a presentation from David Barton called Running to the Roard and we wanted to share it with you, our Wobblers Live listeners. Let's jump right back in. 

David Barton [00:09:26] Nearly everything on this list is for what they did do. They killed someone or they were liars. It's interesting that when you get to cowards and the fearful, that's something they didn't do. They didn't have backbone. They didn't stand up. They weren't offensive minded. So it's interesting that the list starts off with people who didn't do anything. They were fearful. They didn't get involved. They didn's challenge what was going on. So that's a Bible verse and that again, you get the mentality of running to the roar. Don't be cowardly. Don't beat. There's other things we can point to as well. And this all deals with getting a different mindset and another Bible verse that gives us that that example of how to think. If you look in the Bible, the book of Job is very interesting. It starts at Job got a good relationship with God. He's very honorable man, has a lot of integrity, good family. God's really blessed him. Satan shows up and says, yeah, he only serves you because he gets all the benefits. And God says, that's not true. He'll serve me regardless of what happens. And so they get this thing where Job is really kind of put on trial. In the sense of it's a character test for him. He's still going to do the right thing no matter what happens. So after these 37 chapters of Job and his friends, if you can call them friends, I mean, it's kind of debatable the way they acted and debated and talked about him and accused him of things. Nonetheless, for 37 chapters that goes on. And then God shows up. And when God shows up, the whole conversation changes. And God says, essentially, you guys think you know so much. So let me ask you some questions and you answer them for me. And he goes into a series of lessons from nature. He says, did you make the this animal this way or this animal this way? Or have you never seen the way this animal responds? And one of the animals that God talks about is the horse. And specifically in talking about the horse, this is the way God describes the word. Did you make the horse this way because I did. And look at the way God made the horse he said, do you give the horse its strength or clothe this neck with a flowing mane? Do you make it leap like a locust striking terror with its proud snorting? It pause fiercely, rejoicing in his strength and charges into the fray. It laughs at fear, afraid of nothing. It does not shy away from the sword. The quiver rattles against the side, along with the flashing spear in the lance and frenzied excitement. It eats up the ground. It cannot stand still when the trumpet sounds at the blast of the trumpet is snorts. Aha, it catches a scent of battle from afar. The shout of commanders and the battle cry. Now, what we're talking about here is a battle horse that God makes these battle horses and we've seen them throughout history. You go back to the Egyptians, the Assyrians and the early Jews. I mean, the war horse, that was a big deal. That was a powerful instrument to have on your side in battle. But it goes across history. You have the Romans and the Greeks and the Babylonians and their use of war horses. You have that also with the Celts. You come all the way into American history. War horses were a big part of American history as well. Now. Because of our culture today, we don't think of horses in that sense, but this was a very tangible example that God gave them because they saw it all the time. They thought about it. It was part of their culture. And so he says, don't you realize that I'm the one who made the horse that way? Notice some of the ways he made the horse. It laughs at fear, afraid of nothing. It does not shy away from the sword. Again, its offensive mind is not fearful and cowering. Says in frenzied excitement, it catches a scent of battle. Well, I love a good fight, essentially. I mean, we don't think like that, but this is the way God made the horses. It cannot stand still when the trumpet sounds. Oh, I hear another battle coming. I've got to be there. Again, it's being offensive minded. It's another Bible verse telling us the same thing that you run to the roar. You don't run away from it. You engage. Another example of this is what we see with social media. You know, it happened in social media, it's really grown over recent years. And now it's starting to narrow it down because it's started to really kind of control the message. And in recent years, we've seen literally hundreds. And hundreds and hundreds of groups and organizations pulled down or shut down or deplatformed. But it's interesting. There's been literally just prayer groups that have been taken off. They've been taken off because we don't like the stuff you're praying for. Praying for the nation or praying for family or morality or whatever. So we'll deplatform you. We've seen the same thing go with groups that are traditional family groups. Believe that God made a nuclear family and nuclear family means a mother and a father and children. Believe that that's the structure of God. Well, we can't have you having that message on our platforms. We see the same thing with pro-life groups. Some 70 different pro- life groups have been deplatformed simply because they believe that life begins at least at conception and they want to protect that life from the moment of conception. And because you have that view, you can't use our platforms anymore. We've seen the same thing with what would be called conservative groups that talking about the constitution, talking about the right of free speech or something else, that's going to get you deplatformed. And so you see all this deplatform going of biblical values or traditional values or moral values or constitutional values. And yet you find without any difficulty across the same platforms, groups with an opposite message, whether it be communist groups or anarchist groups or whether it be antifa, anti-fascist groups. And they can be very violent and advocate violence and have participated in violence. And they're still up on the platform. And so as you look at this, you kind of scratch your head and say, what's the message here? And the message here is, if you believe these things, you need to shut up, because if you don't, we're going to deplatform you and take you off. You just need to be quiet about those things. You don't need to be talking about the constitution or about prayer or about life or about family, because if we do, you won't be able to reach any of your friends anymore. We'll cut you off from your friends and we'll just deplatforming. So that's an intimidating kind of message. So the Bible tells us at this point in Hebrews 10:38, it says, God says, I take no pleasure in the one that shrinks back. In other words, if you're going to get intimidated and back up, God says, I'm not in favor of people just backing up out of intimidation. Again, this is the concept of being offensive minded. And so what happens is with all these platforms, whenever this happens, if you get wind of a battle, you need to be bold and run into it, not away from it. Don't get intimidated, say, OK. I'm going to double down because this is what's right. This is what true and I'm gonna keep speaking the truth. In that sense, we don't win by not engaging. You got to be on the battlefield to win the battle. Now, none of us really like battles, but that's not a question for us to decide. God put us here. We're supposed to take care of things until he comes back. And that means we have to engage in telling the truth and engaging in battles that preserve truth and preserve biblical values. So that's another Bible verse that tells us, all right, we need to be running to the roar. There's another example of this. I want to go to something that's happening kind of in the culture right now. WallBuilders, we work with state legislators all over the nation. We work with federal legislators. We work with county officials, etc. And we were contacted by state representatives and in their state, they look at their history and social studies standards periodically. I mean, maybe 10 years in some states or 12 years or whatever it is. So when it came up for time to review, the American history and social studies standards, the official proposals that came back from the educators in their state to the legislature said, OK, here's our new standards. Legislature, we need you to approve this. And the proposals were amazing. What the proposals did was those history standards they proposed removing out of American history. We should no longer study the American Revolution. We should no longer study the Civil War. We should no longer study World War One or World War Two or the Holocaust. We want all of this gone. That's amazing. I mean, there's not much left about American history at that point. Yes, there actually is. Because see, if you can get rid of this stuff right here, what you have done by taking these aspects out, what you've done is you've gotten rid of things that have documentable facts. Every one of these things, you can establish what the truth is because you have history to show it is. But if you can get rid of the history, well, then you can move more into philosophically or politically based indoctrination. If we're not telling kids what actually happened, we can tell them what we want it to be or what we perceive it to be. And so this is a way of shifting the whole culture. Well, we can't stand by and say, there's just nothing I can do about it. Or we can say, no, no. You're not going to do this in my school district. I'm going to engage because the Bible so many times says, recall the former days, remember the former times. We learn lessons from what's happened in previous generations. That's why we study previous generations so that we won't make the mistakes and we can learn from the inspiration of the good things that happen. So you've got this attempt to even back us off of our own history. And a good thing to remember here is castles. And you go back to the old medieval days. Castles, a biblical word for that is a stronghold. And as you look at a strong hold like that, that's pretty formidable. I mean, that would seem to be tough to attack. But the Bible tells us in Proverbs 21, 22 that a wise man attacks the city of the mighty and tears down their strongholds. 

Rick Green [00:18:14] All right, we got to take another break here, folks. Stay with us. That's David Barton you've been listening to. Run into the roar. We'll pick up where we left off when we come back on WallBuilders Live. 

Rick Green [00:20:33] We're back here in WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us. We got more of David Barton coming up. I wanna encourage you once again to visit our website at Wallbuilderslive.com. This presentation running to the roar. Man, we need this right now. Here's David Bartan running to The Roar. 

David Barton [00:20:49] According to the Bible, if you're a wise person, you attack strongholds. You go after those things and say, that's just too big. See, we talk ourself into being intimidated and we get fearful and cowardly when we need to be saying, oh, is that a stronghold? Great. I love attacking stronghold. That's what we see in the Bible with Caleb and Joshua. The reason they weren't wiped out was the older generation and the children of Israel in the wilderness is because they had a different viewpoint that said God can defeat this enemy. And so when they finally get to the promised land, they're the only two old guys that get to go in. A whole new generation's come along. Caleb says, give me the mountains because that's where the giants are. I wanna go where the Giants are. And that mentality of attacking the stronghold is what you see so many times repeated throughout the scriptures. So attacking the Stronghold is the right thing to do. Storming the castle is another way of saying that. But it's all being offensive minded. And so that's just another way of saying run to the roar. Be offensive minded now. These are a number of biblical examples of the same principles. So they're all making the same point, different verses, but it's being offensive minded. Now, as we look at where the country is today, you can look at all sorts of polling, you can at studies that are done on where the culture is and where we're headed. You can look legislation, what the trends were. If you look at what's happening today versus 15, 20 years ago, there's a lot of things that concern us because we don't think it's moving in the right direction. We don't thing it's moving in a healthy direction. And we're kind of overwhelmed with that. What happens as a result as we see the condition of the country and say, boy, we really need a revival. And I will say that we're taking this seriously because we're really praying for revival. I mean, I have literally been in stadiums with 80 to 100,000 people who spent the whole day in a stadium praying and fasting. People are praying for revivals. There was a particular year documented that over 50,000 groups met at civic locations on a specific day praying for revival across the nation. So people are praying for revival and that's a really good thing to pray for. It's something that a nation needs or something that America needs. But here's the question I've got. We're praying for that. So all this prayer that we have going, how do we know when our prayers have been heard and answered? Living in the country in Texas, as we do, we went through a recent drought. It was a really bad drought. Lasted about seven years. It was really tough in our lakes and agriculture and so much industry. And so we were praying for rain. We were praying and fasting for rain here in the state. And you know what? We saw the answer to that prayer. We saw as the storms come and the rain clouds and dump the rain and the lakes got full again and our stock tanks got full. And so, we saw the answers to those prayers. When you're praying for revival, what do you look for? Because we knew when the rain came, great, our prayers have been answered. How do you know when your prayers have been entered with a revival? This is a little more difficult, but we have a lot of places we can go to get the answer for this. One is the Bible. There are a lot revivals that happen in the Bible, and so we can study the example of revivals, what happens in a revival. How do we know when one comes? How long does one last? What happens to the culture during the revival? And so you have biblical revivals in both the Old and the New Testament. For example, just in the Old Testament alone, you have the revivals that occurred under Asa, Jehoshaphat, and Josiah. So we can study those passages and see about revivals. But as Americans, we also have the benefit of having had a number of revivals in our own history. We got the first grade awakening, the second grade awakening and third grade awakening. And some scholars say, well, the third and the second are the same thing. We've got the turn of the century of all this. However you break it up, we've had a lot of revvals in American history. So there's a lot history we can studied to see what a revival looks like and what it does. And so, when you take all that we have from Bible and from American history. Turns out that there's six common factors that go with a revival. You find it in the Bible, you find it history. So if we're praying for revival, let's look at the six things that probably will happen with the revival to help us recognize when revival actually occurs. So to do that, look at those six things. Need to first kind of give a mindset on this. We need to approach this with the right perspective. And living in America as we do, we have difficulty with perspective in two areas because of the culture in which we now live. Let me explain it this way. If you look at what we have now, these two harmful areas of thinking that we have, particularly as a church, number one deals with our obsession on a national focus. Now, a lot of this is really driven by our news sources. And I don't care what side of the spectrum you're on politically, you have a news source from which you get information. And those news sources all tend to be national news. You turn on cable somewhere, whether you're looking at the right, left or center, you're gonna get national news. You probably didn't hear any story about Watertown, Iowa. Probably didn't here anything about Jacksboro, Texas. Probably nothing about Yukon, Oklahoma. Very little about Scottsbluff, Nebraska. And yet these are places where people live. So what happens, we get so much national news that our focus is looking at a national level. So we look at things that happen, for example, in Washington, D.C. At the federal level. We look at what's going on with the Capitol, the laws are being passed, the decisions of the Supreme Court, or we look what the president's doing. And it's very easy to get paralyzed because nearly none of us can do anything to make that different. I know lots of members of Congress. I know hundreds of state legislators. And as well as I know them, as good a relationship as we have, I can't call Congress and say, that's a silly law, pass a different one. That's not gonna happen. 

Rick Green [00:26:18] All right, friends, we are out of time for today. We will catch you tomorrow right here on WallBuilders Live and we will pick up right where we left off with David Barton's presentation running to the roar. Get more information at our website, wallbuilderslive.com. As always, we thank you for listening to WallBuilder's Live.