Welcome And Good Friday Focus

SPEAKER_02 0:07

Welcome to the intersection of Faith and Culture, it's the Wall Builder Show, taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. But today, it's not just a Good News Friday, it's a Good Friday. So, David and Tim Barton here. I'm Rick Green. Guys, this is uh what a great time to have a good f uh a good news show. We got the best news in the history of mankind.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

It really is. Uh, and guys, also encouraging that we have a White House administration that actually celebrates and honors Good Friday. Yes. You know how how far we've come was it? Uh help me remember, Rick. Was it when Biden was in office? So that's at least two years ago. But I don't remember if it was the last year or next to last year when they was it like a transgender something they did instead of Easter.

SPEAKER_02 0:51

Oh, when they lit up the flags and oh, yes, yes.

Founders On Crucifixion And Resurrection

SPEAKER_01 0:55

So how far we've come, and just man, obviously, we are ultimately grateful for the work of Jesus on the cross, the forgiveness of sins, obviously also for his resurrection from the dead. It gives hope for all believers, as Paul explains, so we don't have to believe with no hope and be sad about it. But uh, dad, one of the things that certainly you have tracked for decades, I was gonna say so many years, but really it's decades, is a lot of the faith perspective of the founders. Uh, and guys, we were talking off air, it it would be fun just to take a little bit of time and maybe highlight some of their writings because they addressed the the crucifixion, the resurrection, Easter weekend. And a lot of times people don't recognize how prominent faith was in the founding fathers' lives. But when you begin to read more of their writings, you do see them talk about these kind of things, and sometimes even defending it to family members, uh if they were teaching it uh as a professor in a university or in a government capacity, telling people about it. So there's lots of great statements from the founding fathers, not just about their faith, because certainly there is that, and maybe we can highlight some of those too, but even things that pertain very specifically to Easter, there's a lot of great quotes from the founding fathers about Easter.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

Yeah, and really they tie Easter to everything else. Because of Easter, there is salvation, uh, and they really tie everything, not not only to their salvation being a result of Easter, but also the fact that they're looking forward to resurrection and spending time with Jesus because of what happened to Easter. Uh here's one, George Mason, who's known as the father of the Bill of Rights. Uh, he was the leading guy who really was the impetus in America after we did the Constitution saying, okay, now let's put limits on government. But he here's a statement he made. He said, I give and bequeath my soul to Almighty God that gave it me, hoping that through the meritorious death and passion of our Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ, to receive absolution and remission for all my sins. I mean, his he ties it directly to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And that is, if Jesus had not raised from the dead, we just don't have the salvations available. We don't have the hope in the future life that's available. Everything is on that. And these guys, there are so many quotes from them.

SPEAKER_01 3:22

Dad, hang on a second. Hang on a second. Let me jump in and give a quote because I don't want you to run through eight quotes and then take some of the quotes that I have looked up for this moment. Uh as Rick is off on the side.

SPEAKER_02 3:34

Does the elder Barton steal quotes from the younger Barton now? Have we reversed this?

SPEAKER_01 3:39

Well, I just know as as we talked about finding some quotes, and we're pulling quotes, there are definitely some noted quotes that are really fun to highlight from the founders. There's several from Charles Carroll, there's some from Benjamin Rush, Dad, you mentioned George Mason. Uh, there's several, actually, even from some very lesser-known founding fathers, but I know that he probably pulled some from Charles Carroll. And so I wanted to say this one before he ran through a list uh like he does on Good News Friday, where he's like, I have one article and I'm gonna tell five stories about. So this one, Charles Carroll actually, this was a letter to his son, and part of what he said was the approaching festival of Easter and the merits and mercies of our Redeemer, Copiesa Assidium, and all of actually uh Redemptio, the the people listening that speak Latin that are come from the classical education background, they're just uh shaking their heads like you're butchering this.

SPEAKER_02 4:34

I know I am, I apologize, but it's with the Lord there is Well, I was I was just gonna say yo no es beniol, but that I don't think that would fit either. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

We're in the same boat, right? But it's with the Lord there is plentiful redemption, have led me into this chain of mediation and reasoning, and have inspired me with the hope of finding mercy before my judge and of being happy in the life to come. A happiness I wish you to participate with me by infusing into your heart a similar hope. And he starts, not not to digress the fact that I did not do well with the Latin, but he starts off the approaching festival of Easter and the merits and mercies of our Redeemer. So the whole premise of what he's telling his son, I want you to embrace and enjoy this thing, knowing what is coming up. And so the founding fathers really did appreciate, believe, and encourage the message of Easter to those around them.

SPEAKER_00 5:26

And you know, one of the things, too, even in uh and I've got a quote here from John Harr, who's a signer of the declaration, uh, really went through some terrible times as a result of signing the declaration, all the kind of abuse that he went through. But he ties the the Easter period to the fact that because Jesus was resurrected, we also get to be resurrected. And so he he makes that correlation. He says, Thanks be given to Almighty God. He says, Knowing that it's appointed for all men once to die, and after that the judgment, which is Hebrews 9 27, he says, I give and recommend my soul to the hands of Almighty God who gave it and my body to the earth to be buried in a decent and Christian like manner, to receive the same again at the general resurrection by the mighty power of God. So they're they're resurrection oriented, and that comes from Easter and these guys at had such a good knowledge of basic Christian doctrine and understood really um so much of what it would do in their life and in their future life. So we had a saying that said, Don't be so heavenly minded that you're no earthly good. But these guys, the founding fathers, were heavenly minded and earthly minded, and the heavenly mindedness helped them to be good here on earth in the sense of knowing what they had in front of them from Jesus, knowing their life was overruled in so many ways by their faith in Jesus. And they they were useful in this life and hopefully in the life to come as well. So there's just a lot of good Easter quotes and resurrection quotes from founding fathers.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

There really are. There's another one from Benjamin Rush, and he is one of the lesser-known founding fathers for most people. Dad, you actually wrote a book on Benjamin Rush. Uh so we grew up knowing much more about Benjamin Rush than most Americans did. But Benjamin Rush not only signed the declaration, he helped ratify the Constitution. He served on three different presidential administrations. Uh very long list. He was a medical doctor, considered the most significant, maybe the most famous medical doctor in American history, came up with medical cures over 200 years ago that were still being uh applied today to some extent and capacity, the discoveries he made. But one of the things he did is also he did a lot of teaching and and writing about moral philosophy. And so one of the things he wrote in teaching about moral philosophy, he talked about Jesus specifically in forgiveness, and he said he forgave the crime of murder on his cross, and after his resurrection, he commanded his disciples to preach the gospel of forgiveness first at Jerusalem, where he well knew his murderer still resided. These striking facts are recorded for our imitation and seem intended to show that the Son of God died not only to reconcile God to man, but to reconcile men to each other. And that again, this is a very noted influential founding father. When when Benjamin Rush died, John Adams actually wrote that Benjamin Rush was possibly the most influential founding father. He said maybe even more than George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Rush was the most influential. Today a lot of people don't know him, but if people actually went back and studied and read some of his writings, this this kind of stuff, his profession of faith, the acknowledgement of the moral teachings from the Bible are all over his writings, and it keeps going with other founding fathers.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

You know, one more that I would I would pick, and it's kind of thinking through the season we're in and the focus on Jesus Christ. But there's one here from Gunning Bedford, and Gunning Bedford, unfortunately, too many people don't know him, but he was a signer of the Constitution. Uh he served with George Washington in the military. He was an aide de camp to Washington. He he's just he's a really good guy from Delaware. And he was actually asked to give the oration at Washington's death for Delaware, the official oration that Delaware did to remember Washington, and since he knew Washington so well. And he had an unusual way of closing that that speech. He said, To the triune God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, be ascribed all honor and dominion forevermore. Amen. That's an interesting way to close a speech, but that's uh again, that focus on Jesus being the center of everything in their life. And again, here we are at Easter. And I you know, I think Easter and Christmas are the two biggest Christian holidays, because without without Christmas, you don't have Easter, and without Easter, you don't have salvation. And those two things are just ridiculously important in Christian in Christian belief and theology.

Presidents Speaking About Holy Week

SPEAKER_01 10:20

And we are just scratching the tip of the iceberg of of some of the things the founding fathers said about faith, about Easter. And and, you know, guys, one of the accusations that has been out there a long time is the Founding Fathers uh didn't ever talk about Jesus, and they they mentioned Providence, but not Jesus. Well, actually, if you start studying the Founding Fathers, many of them, most of them, talked openly about Jesus, and it is cool to see that so many of them did have something to say about Easter, about the crucifixion, about the resurrection. Uh, and so again, this is just a tip of the iceberg. We do have a couple of articles on the Wall Builders website that highlight some of these quotes. And again, there are many more than just the couple we acknowledged here. Certainly, the Founding Fathers had the appreciation and acknowledgement of the importance of the life, the death, the burial, and the resurrection of Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

And by the way, Tim, pick up where you were, so does Donald Trump. And that's just refreshing to say. That's what I was gonna say, man. Yeah. That's that's refreshing to say so does the current president.

SPEAKER_02 11:24

It goes, it goes yeah, it brings us back full circle because you know, a lot of people are obviously going to attack him and say he's being too he's proselytizing or blah, blah, blah. And man, it's just good to know the history, to know where we came from and what our founders actually did. Great stuff, guests.

SPEAKER_00 11:39

Do you know how hard it is for the the tag Christian nationalist to fit on Trump? I mean, it's just to see them struggle with that. He he's putting all this stuff out there. Nobody would consider him a Christian nationalist, and yet that's what they want to scream, you know, because uh of the kind of language and rhetoric he does use.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

Well, and I think they are they're screaming that exact thing. And when you say nobody wants to say he's a Christian nationalist, actually a lot of people do, but they do it because they want to stop the promotion of the Christian message, and not that actually, I was gonna say not that Donald Trump is the best ambassador of Christianity. Actually, he's probably a pretty fair representation in many ways of what the Bible shows us of some of the people that God used in very profound ways, right? If we go to Hebrews 11, that faith hall of fame, and we see some people that had, man, some deep flaws, and yet God used them in amazing ways. That is certainly what we see with President Trump. And the fact that President Trump has had the boldness to say some of these very significant Christian truths out loud. We have not seen a president do this, guys. I did for sure, not in my lifetime. Uh Ronald Reagan was a probably smoother communicator, but I don't think Reagan, nobody since Reagan has had any kind of boldness like Donald Trump has when it comes to professing or promoting some of these Christian ideas or ideals, even this week at the White House, when he talked about Holy Week and what that means. Uh I've never seen a president in my lifetime show that kind of boldness or clarity on the Christian message.

Patriot Academy Leadership Training Message

Other Good News And A Moon Base

SPEAKER_02 13:15

Yeah, super, super exciting. Great, great time to be alive, and uh and what an amazing good Friday we get to have here on Wall Builders. We're gonna take a quick break. We'll be right back. You're listening to the Wall Builders Show. Have you noticed the vacuum of leadership in America? We're looking around for leaders of principle to step up, and too often, no one is there. God is raising up a generation of young leaders with a passion for impacting the world around them. They're crying out for the mentorship and leadership training they need. Patriot Academy was created to meet that need. Patriot Academy graduates now serve in state capitals around America, in the halls of Congress, in business, in the film industry, in the pulpit, and every area of the culture. They're leading effectively and impacting the world around them. Patriot Academy is now expanding across the nation, and now's your chance to experience this life-changing week that trains champions to change the world. Visit PatriotAcademy.com for dates and locations. Our core program is still for young leaders, 16 to 25 years old, but we also now have a Citizen Track for Adults. So visit the website today to learn more. Help us fill the void of leadership in America. Join us in training champions to change the world at Patriotacademy.com. Welcome back to the Wall Builder Show. It's Good News Friday on, of course, Good Friday. So we've uh obviously enjoyed having a president that's willing to say these things publicly. Obviously, it should encourage us to be willing to say these things publicly and speak out more boldly. And uh so I'm just uh thankful, thank it, thankful that we get to be alive at this moment in time and get to be in a position where we can encourage our listeners to do the same thing in their community. So good stuff, guys. Okay, um, what about other good news? Any any good news? I guess is all of our good news today going to be related to Good Friday or is there stuff outside of that?

SPEAKER_00 15:05

What do you guys got for us? Well, I got some stuff outside it for sure. As a matter of fact, the piece of good news I've got is uh I don't even know how in the world to connect it to Easter necessarily. This is like we have left the planet, we are orbiting Saturn or somewhere else. I don't know. Is it actually is it astronauts that are on their way to the moon? It is not Artemis. No, it is not astronauts on their way to the moon. No, it's not, but that that would be cool.

SPEAKER_02 15:32

Okay, even though I don't agree with them at all, just for all of our conspiracy folks out there, we're finally gonna go to the moon. Guys, good news. Oh, yeah. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. That was Reagan's joke. I stole it from my son Reagan, but anyway.

SPEAKER_00 15:47

Yep, and it it's gonna be fun, man. I was Glenn Beck did a really long interview with Charlie Duke. You know, we did two or three days with Charlie Duke a couple years ago who walked on the moon, and I I mean, the the conversation those two had on what's going to happen with this mission, what they're trying to do, why they're doing this, because my question was, why would you spend twenty billion dollars to build a base on the moon? What where do you go? What what do you do? What why would you do that? And Charlie and Glenn answered questions that I had they were they were giving answers to questions I hadn't even asked yet. And it was one of the best conversations on why go back to the moon of any I've heard.

SPEAKER_01 16:32

Well, guys, if it's only$20 billion to put a base there, I mean California's wasting that all the time.

SPEAKER_02 16:37

So Yeah, that's right. I mean, that's one Somali daycare, right? That's that or maybe two. I don't know. It could be several.

SPEAKER_01 16:43

Right.

SPEAKER_02 16:44

Yeah. No, I uh now, David, I'm curious because you've known Charlie uh for a while and and had caught a lot of conversations with him. Share a little bit of that. Like what what do you think is our and and correct me if I'm wrong, guys. Is this particular launch and this trip are they actually gonna uh step on the moon or are they just circling this time and then next time they're they're just circling and they're looking at places that Charlie and the other guys made a passover but never explored.

SPEAKER_00 17:10

He said they were 170 miles high, so they couldn't see. So they're scoping it out. But there are there are places um on the moon where they believe that there was water, and and so they had uh other missions that would come back with ice vapor. And if there's ice, there's water. And so if that's the case, then there's resources on the moon that we never got around to in those earlier missions. And and so those eight or ten missions, however many it was, um, and so they're going on a deeper dive. But the thing that really got me was I had not thought of it. He said, look, the the the reason for the base on the moon is China's trying to get there to put weapons on the moon. They're trying to weaponize the moon. And I thought, oh now that's a whole different, that's a whole different spin on that. Because I had not thought about that, about being a weapons base, because from the moon, you could shoot down anything that's coming at you. You would have absolute total control. And and Trump wants to make sure we get there first so that we don't let that thing turn into uh you know a blackmail kind of base where they can control everything you do. And so there are bad guys that are wanting to do things, and I had not even thought about that. I was thinking more from the science standpoint or the benefits that it might bring in in other ways.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:24

But that makes a lot of sense to keep China from from setting up a military base on the moon with all the space weapons.

SPEAKER_02 18:31

Did they talk anything about or have you talked to him about, um, even for w what am I thinking, i an an advanced launching like can we reach further into space from a base on the moon? Or does that even matter since everything's kind of rotating I I don't know enough about I'm terrible at astronomy, but it seems like it would give us also the ability to reach further out.

SPEAKER_00 18:59

Because the moon is so close to us and the other planets that are close to us, that's a relative. You're you're talking, you know, what'd it take 'em, five years to get stuff to the moon and or Jupiter and all the places they went. So it is so difficult to move out from the moon. They might do something, they might come up with new technology at some point, but at this point it's really more for self-interest.

March Madness Player Shares Gospel

SPEAKER_01 19:22

Okay, well, I'm gonna try to bring it back to Earth for a second, guys, because Oh man, come on. We were having fun. I have a good news story I do want to say. Now, Dad, it's your turn, but I just know our clock is running down, so I don't know how long your good news story is gonna take. That was perfect. Bring us back to Earth, literally. You've got a story I see to you and I'll follow. Well, I so I feel like mine was appropriate to end with because it is a young now. I'm I'm gonna go ahead and go now because you gave it to me and I'm gonna take all our time. But it is the young man who uh in March Madness, his name is Chase Johnson. He was uh I guess still is, they lost, so that they're not in the final four, but from High Point University, and he's the one hit a game winner. Uh they upset Wisconsin, super fun. He has the number 99, and that's something it used to be, you couldn't even have that number in basketball.

SPEAKER_00 20:15

Uh and now I'll I'm going back when I was referring basketball, you had to have only the number because when you when you turn to the the clock keeper, you got to show the number of the guy who made the foul, and it has to be under five and under five. Because you got two hands, you only got five fingers, so it's got to be like 54 or 13 or 20 21. It couldn't be 27 or anything that took two hands. And they've gotten away from that real clearly, Tim, as you point, but but 99, that would have been so banned in earlier years.

SPEAKER_01 20:46

Well, so so he had the Bible verse on his shoe, but he was asked, why did you choose the number 99? And this is his answer, and just incredible. He said it has everything to do with Jesus leaving the 99 to find one. I was trying to find any other way to share the gospel, and 99 came to mind. A lot of people will ask, it's a random number, it's a unique number. Not a lot of people wear it. So I chose that because there's parables in the Bible where Jesus is talking about it's his disciples, and he gives a story of a man who has 99 sheep. He leaves those 99 to find one lost sheep that ran away, and he has more joy in finding that one lost sheep that came back home than the 99. That's the gospel, right? We are all sinners, we are dead in our sin. Jesus Christ left the 99, he went to the cross humbly, he became a slave for us. Though he was God, he did not take up equality with God as something to cling to, and he died on the cross for our sins. And this is him in an interview, guys. This is him saying this in an interview, and his team did end up losing again. They're not in the final four, but man, kudos to Chase Johnson. And I felt like this is just a perfect story coming into Easter when you have. Collegiate basketball players, and God blessed him that he got hit a game-winning shot, upset a team, super fun for him. But when you're choosing the number of your jersey to be able to share the gospel and to tell the story of the man leaving the 99 to find the one that gets away and rejoicing, just guys, it's so incredible. So again, kudos to Chase Johnson. Bravo, sir, and also well done or hitting the game winning shot in the NCAA tournament.

SPEAKER_00 22:29

Yeah, I I've got to do a shout out to him, and Rick will understand this because Rick's such a good fan of basketball. He'll know exactly what we're talking about.

SPEAKER_02 22:36

I was I was holding my time. I was gonna have a good comeback on Tim about basketball, but I nope, nope, not now.

Medical Marijuana Claims Put To Test

SPEAKER_00 22:42

You baseball guys don't even know what to do with the ball that size. So Chase, Tim, who you're talking about, he won they won the first game of the tournament. They barely lost the second, which would have sent them to the sweet 16. And what got me about this kid was he he was one of the studs and sharp shooters on that team, that that high point team. And the he he won that game in the NCAA tournament with a layup at the buzzer. And that layup obviously is worth two points if you know basketball scoring. That was the first two-point shot he had hit all year. Every other basket he made was a three-point basket. The kid was an absolute stud from the three-point line, and not even to have a two-point shot for a whole season, that just that's remarkable. But I man, I was really touched with his faith too. That was really good to see him share that that boldness. It was fun. Uh let's see. David, have you got one to close us out today? Yeah, this one I've got, it deals with, and man, it's so unrelated to Easter, I guess, in many ways, but it deals with actually marijuana. And the reason I chose it because we've had several programs on here talking about how that all these states going to medical marijuana, it is kind of the like the gateway drug for everything else. It never stops with medical, it always goes under recreational marijuana, and marijuana is what brings in all the other hard drugs with it. And so we keep hearing how good this is for so many disorders. And here is a study that was done that went through 45 years of marijuana studies, and they randomly selected, I think, 54 different controlled trials that went from 1980 through 2025, and what they found was they could find no significant positive effect outcome with anything that marijuana is supposed to be anything that marijuana is supposed to be dealing with. It did not help with anxiety, it did not help with anorexia, it did not help with psychotic disorders, it did not help with PTSD, it did not help with opiate use disorder, trying to bring people down off opiate drugs to something less. They found absolutely zero benefit to it in all of those 45 years of studies. Now, the reason I think that's really, really significant is that's that's the stuff that's always used to be able to get it into a state, and then when it gets into a state, so much else comes with it. So there's a lot of states that have done this. I think what is it, 23 or 24 that have done this? Maybe this will help slow some of that down because all the states have gone there, even Colorado, acknowledged that their productivity rate went down with workers, construction workers, others. There were so many more accidents, everything else. So hopefully at some point in time that lie will kind of die to death and go away. Um, but uh that was a remarkable study to me, and how that relates to Easter, I'm not quite sure, but that was a piece of Good News Friday for the Friday's kind of closing things out.

SPEAKER_01 25:34

So you don't need to smoke marijuana to be better in life, accept Jesus as your savior, and you're good to go. There you go.

Easter Weekend Encouragement And Links

SPEAKER_02 25:44

That's a good tie-up. Perhaps the most interesting Good Friday, uh, good news Friday on a good Friday that we've ever had in 20 years at the Wall Builders show. Our most interesting way to sign off anyway. Uh, but yeah, what a what a wonderful, uh, wonderful weekend ahead. Everybody really get with family, your church, have a wonderful time celebrating the resurrection, celebrating our Savior, and um and share this program with your friends and family. You know, let them know there's good news every Friday at the Wall Builder Show, but a special good Friday that you you can share with them. Go to WallBuilders.show for that. Easy to share the links there. And then, of course, always go to our wallbuilders.com website for information about all the upcoming uh programs and activities. And we are not far off from the summer, and there is a boatload, uh, there are a boatload of programs there to look at for pastors' briefings, for student programs, for teacher programs, you name it. It's all right there at wallbuilders.com. Thanks so much for listening. You've been listening to the Wall Builder Show.