Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the intersection of faith and culture. It's the WallBuilderS Show, taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical historical and constitutional perspective. We are in the middle, right in the middle of a brand-new series put out by Patriot Academy and WallBuilders and all of our partners out there. We got David Barton teaching in it. Tim Barton, teaching in it. Krish Dunham. We got Lance Walnau. I'm Rick Green, America's Constitution Coach. I'm doing some of the teaching in there. There's just a lot of good stuff in there, Jimmy Pruitt, my pastor does a great talk in there. And, it's just, it's all about, of course, we got sprinkled in with John Amanchukwu and Kirk Cameron and all these people that have spoken at the Patriot Academy campus or been part of our biblical citizenship courses in the past. So, we've combined a lot of that into a course called Rebuilding Liberty, and It's all about the 250th. So, it's not enough to have a big 250th celebration, fireworks, hot dogs, all that good. That's great. We need to make sure that people understand what this freedom is all about. So, we, we're in this just real push right now if we can get millions of people to take this new course, Rebuilding Liberty. And so we're sharing it with you, our WallBuilders audience. So, if you missed any of that, go to wallbuilders.show, wallbuilders.show and you can listen to the programs from earlier this week. All right, so we gonna jump right in. This is the third installment. It's the third episode in Rebuilding Liberty. And in this one, Tim Barton is gonna be teaching. Let's jump in to Rebuilding Liberty. 

Rick Green [00:01:25] The purpose of this course is to make sure that they know why that flag is worthy of being waved. 

Tim Barton [00:01:32] Wherever you are watching from, we're not rebuilding a structure without giving the right foundation. 

Lance Wallnau [00:01:38] And our burden should be to transform a moment into a movement. The entire globe is moving towards the right. 

David Barton [00:01:52] Recommend this edition of the Bible to the inhabitants of the United States. I thought our founding fathers were much atheists, agnostics, and deists who wanted a secular public square who didn't want the Bible in schools. 

Brad Stine [00:02:01] Fight like it's your last breath. 

Victor Marx [00:02:04] But know this, the truth is over the facts, that God's not giving you a spirit of fear, but a power loving inside of mine. 

Pastor Jimmy Pruitt [00:02:10] What do I want my legacy to be on the way out? That I was safe or that I was dangerous. 

John Amanchukwu [00:02:15] No, this nation is not perfect. I'll take America for any other country or nation on the face of this planet. How about you? 

Rick Green [00:02:29] Welcome back to week three of Rebuilding Liberty. Anybody enjoy the first two weeks so far? Pretty good? Man, David Barton had so much great stuff for us last week. We're gonna learn all these action steps and things we can do to rebuild Liberty in our country. I hope you're already thinking about people you can invite over to your house to do this course and get as many people as possible to go through Rebuilding Liberty. We got a great master bricklayer tonight. In fact, I would argue he's probably the best bricklayers in the country right now for such a time as this. He is the Elijah to David Barton's Elisha. And now I get the privilege of locking shields him and going into battle quite often. I truly believe for such a time as this, WallBuilders has been raised up and I dare say the Barton family has done a better job of generationally passing that torch in a ministry than I've ever seen from any ministry in our country. So, we are super thrilled to have Tim Barton with us tonight. Y'all welcome, Tim. 

Tim Barton [00:03:29] Thanks man. Well, it was my pleasure to be with you guys tonight. I wanna start with a Bible verse. I have several, I think we'll know some of these. Psalm 127.1 tells us unless the Lord builds a house, they labor in vain that build it. Now this is a very important idea for us to wrap our minds around because in the midst of everything we're talking about of rebuilding and restoring liberty, how do we do it? If God's not a part of the equation, the Bible tells us, it's not gonna go very well. Well, to go even further, the Bible tell us in Psalms 11:3, if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? It asks an important question. If you remove the foundation, that structure, that building is not going to stand. And a lot of Americans do not know what the foundation of America actually is. Fortunately, the Founding Fathers wrote everything down. If you go back to John Adams in 1813, he was writing a letter to Thomas Jefferson. And at this point, they've both been presidents, right? They've gone through the revolution. It's 40 years since they first got together in Independence Hall. And John Adams writes a reflective letter to Jefferson. Remember when we were first together, we were so much younger then, and we had all these conversations, all this energy and this vigor, and debated all the time, collective Founding Fathers he's referring to, right? We had so much we disagreed on, but it's interesting in this letter that he acknowledges and identifies where they found the common ground, and part of the letter he explains; the general principles on which the Fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity. The common ground he acknowledges to Thomas Jefferson 40 years later remembering, he's like, where we found common ground were the principles of Christianity. And the idea that John Adams would suggest that Christianity was somehow unifying for the Founding Fathers seems odd for most Americans today. It didn't used to be an odd thought, even in academia. If you go back to the early 1900s, a lady named Alice Baldwin, she was a professor at Duke University, started the woman's program at Duke University. And she wrote a book in 1928 called The New England Clergy and the American Revolution. And in this book, she identified that when you look at the Declaration, at every major issue in the Declaration she points out having preached for American pulpits prior to 1763, which is over a dozen years before we even get the Declaration of Independence. And what she acknowledged in her book is back then the pastors were so outspoken on the issues when the Founding Fathers got together, they didn't come up with a single new idea. Instead, they repeated all of the ideas they had been learning from their pastors building up to this moment. Now, again, it's kind of a weird thought for most Americans today to think, wait a second, so the Founding Fathers, like Tim, are you suggesting the Founding Fathers were influenced by their pastors? This is not a normal thought for most Americans because we don't know that much American history. But actually, if you go back, the very first time the Founding Father's got together was September 6, 1774. There was a painting done depicting this opening meeting. This is the famous painting from 17, or depicting their meeting from 1774. Now, for those not familiar, when you look at this painting, this is a very specific posture they're taking. If you're not familiar with Christianity, this is prayer time, right? Like this is what's happening right now. In fact, John Adams wrote Abigail a letter just a week or two after this meeting had happened. And he was explaining to her part of what happened and what he said was that when we first got together, Mr. Cushing made the very first motion and the motion was we should open with prayer. And John Adams acknowledged there was some debate because there were some people from different denominations and they're like, well, I don't want that pastor praying. Finally, Sam Adams broke this divide and acknowledged that even though he was this Congregationalist, really coming from a devout Puritan background, he said that he heard there's a Episcopalian bishop in town who, as long as he fears God, believes in the Bible and supports the cause, he had to come lead us in prayer. And what happened is that John Adams acknowledged to Abigail that they spent the next couple of hours in prayer and Bible study. In fact, in the midst of their two hours, and just also pondering process for a second. This is the political leaders of the nation coming together and they spent two hours in prayer and Bible study. If we went to a church service one Sunday morning and we're like, all right, everybody, the next two hours is prayer and Bible study, there would be like audible groan in the room from Christians, people that know and love Jesus. I know and loved Jesus, but two hours is a long time to spend in prayer in Bible study 

Rick Green [00:07:56] Alright folks. Gonna take a quick break we'll be right back you're listening to the WallBuilders Show 

Rick Green [00:10:05] Welcome back to The WallBuilders Show. We're listening to the Rebuilding Liberty course available right now in the PatriotAcademy.com coach dashboard. So, you got to go sign up for free as a host or coach and then inside your dashboard, you'll have the full class, or you can listen at the WallBuilders Radio site wallbuilders.show. Let's jump back in to where we left off. 

Tim Barton [00:10:23] These aren't even the spiritual leaders of the nation! These are the political leaders, but they recognized the significance of what they were doing and they knew they needed a connection in faith and so they take time in prayer and Bible study. John Adams writes Abigail that of the passages they read that morning, he says one of them, it was as if God himself had ordained that passage to be read and here's part of the letter he wrote to her. He said, I must beg you to read that Psalm, read the 35th Psalm to your friends, read it to your father. Well, Psalm 35 is one of the Psalms that King David wrote while Saul was chasing him, trying to kill him. And David writes and essentially says, God, I've done nothing. And he seeks my destruction. Lord, you rise up, be my shield, my buckler, my strong right arm, on it goes. And part of also why that's significant is because they had found out that the night before the British had surrounded Boston and begun to cannonate, bomb Boston Harbor. Which also then makes sense why the next morning they're like, we should pray. We're going to need God's help in what's going on. But then when they're reading, he says they read from the prayer book, the assigned passages for the day. Well, the Anglican prayer book they're reading from was written in the 1600s. So they just get together and pick some chapters to read. They're like in a Bible reading plan. And they say, what are the chapters assigned for the day, and they read it. And Psalm 35 is one of them. And they read and they're like, God is speaking to us right now from this. In fact, one of the things that then happens, John Adams writes Abigail another letter. And he tells her, one of the decisions Congress made, he said, we've appointed a continental fast. He continued that millions will be upon their knees at once before their great creator imploring his forgiveness and blessing, his smile on American council and arms. Not only does Congress open up with prayer and Bible study, one of things they then subsequently do is they call on the nation to a time of prayer and also this idea of having a time calling people to prayer. This was a very normal activity in the Founding era. By the time you get to 1815, there were more than 1,400 official government prayer proclamations done by governors, by presidents, even by the Continental Congress. In fact, virtually any Founding Father that became a governor issued prayer proclamations. And this is important for a couple of reasons. But this is my favorite example to use when someone would argue, well, the Founding Fathers weren't really religious, that they were primarily atheists or agnostics or deists. And I'm like, OK, let's just think for a second. A deist says there's a God, but he doesn't get involved in our world. An agnostic says, well, we're not really sure if there's God. And an atheist says there is no God. OK, if you're an atheist, agnostic, and deist, you know what you're never going to do? That. Right? I mean, you wouldn't even do one proclamation, much less 1,400 by 1815. And this is something that was very common in that era. Well, go back to the American Revolution. Just during the American Revolution, the Continental Congress did this 15 times. And there were two kinds of prayer proclamations. The first was for prayer and fasting, which is not surprising. If you need God's help and intervention, you get serious. You pray, you fast, you seek God's help. But then, one of the things they thought was very logical was after we prayed and asked for God's help, we need to be the ones that go back and say, God, thank You for what You did. They would have a day of prayer and thanksgiving. This tradition continued on for centuries in America, but this very first call that John wrote to Abigail about, it was a call for prayer and fasting. And what's really great about this is at this point, early stages of the unfolding of the Revolution, America is not really having any success. But John Adams writes Abigail and says, Abigail, it's kind of amazing what we've seen happen and he goes through and lists what in our mind might be rather insignificant that there was a Colonel Green who was able to like repel the British and then Colonel Smith that they defended a fort and things again we might feel insignificant but when you don't have a military and you're going up against the number one military power in the world and all of a sudden you held your own twice John's like this is a miracle right this is amazing And to go further, he told her that we have just destroyed a 20 gun British man of warship and a 60 gun British men of warship. Those are British naval vessels. One that had 64 cannons and one that had 20 cannons and the reason that's so impressive If you ever go to Washington DC the Smithsonian Museum of American history up on the third floor Has one of the very first ships of the American Navy. It's called the Gunboat Philadelphia. This is the Gunboat Philadelphia. And John Adams says, Abigail, it's amazing! We just destroyed a 64-cannon ship and a 20-cannon ship. And you look and you're like, how? Right, like how did you pull this off? Right, this is what he was acknowledging. Like this is part of the miracles that we are already seeing. And this is, what's happening. That they're going to God, asking for help. They're seeing things and they're acknowledging where this is coming from. Well, John Adams writes her another letter. And he says, Abigail, I was eating dinner tonight and I heard men in another room and they were eating dinner and they were discussing all kinds of important things. And then one of them, in the midst of their discussing all these things that have been going on and happening. He said something that I think is probably the best explanation of what's actually happening, that I've heard anybody say. Well, here's what he wrote to Abigail, was the best explanation of it was actually going on. It appears to me; the eternal Son of God is operating powerfully against the British nation. Right? When these guys in the room are like, how do you explain this? And someone is like, oh, I know! It's Jesus. Right? Like, that's the only explanation because there's no way this makes sense, that there's no way when you look at what was happening that they would have any level of success and they didn't have a lot of level of success early on, but the fact that any of this was happening, they acknowledged God must be helping us in the midst of this. And God's hand on the Revolution was so obvious and I don't have time to go through the hundreds of examples, but I do want to point to a couple of acknowledgements. George Washington in 1778, He wrote to General Thomas Nelson, Jr., who was another Signer of the Declaration. He was a general in the Revolution. But this is still early stages, 1778. We're not that far into this thing yet. We still have a long way to go before we win. But he told them what we're seeing is so obvious right now that God is moving on our behalf. Here's part of what he wrote in the letter. He said, the hand of Providence has been so conspicuous in all this that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith. And more than wicked that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligations. So for anybody looking and seeing what's actually happening in the Revolution, if they can't acknowledge that God's been a part of this, he says they must be worse than a non-believer or more than a wicked to not acknowledge what God has done. His next line is my favorite. He says, but it will be time enough for me to turn preacher when my present appointment ceases and therefore, I shall add no more on the doctrine of Providence. When George Washington is like, I've seen enough miracles, I could be a pastor. But for now, I'm gonna try to win the war. I mean, this is genuinely remarkable how much he is seeing and recognizing the hand of God. He's getting the reports every day of what's going on. He's hearing the stories; he's seeing it firsthand. It's so obvious to them. And part of why this also is significant is because, this wasn't a surprise to them. They've been praying for this very thing and acknowledging it. And so also, it's not a surprise when you come to the end of the Revolution. When you get to 1783, this is when we signed the Peace Treaty of Paris that ended the American Revolution. The Peace Treaty in Paris is actually still on display up in Washington, DC. It's at the State Department. It's up on the sixth floor, known as the John Quincy Adams State Drawing Room. If you look over on the left side, at the top, you see Article 10. That's the very end of it. And then you see all of the signatures. The top one is David Hartley. Then you have John Adams, then Benjamin Franklin, John Jay. Those were the three American ambassadors that helped in the American Revolution. And this is a document. That ends the American Revolution, brought peace between us and Great Britain, established America as a free nation, look at the title of the document. It says in the Name of the most Holy and undivided Trinity. Do you know America became a nation in the names of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirits? That is the weirdest title I've ever seen on a peace treaty, genuinely. Why would you do that? Now, I don't know. But I think it's possible somebody had read Proverbs 3 recently, which says, in all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He will direct your steps. Because literally, they put it on the top of a document. And I am saying this again to draw attention to the fact that when you see quotes like from John Adams to Jefferson, where he said, the general principles on which the Fathers achieved independence were the principles of Christianity, where they found common ground, where they find unity was Christianity. Today, we look at that, and a lot of people think, well, you're just promoting your Christian nationalist ideas, or whatever the argument might be. The reality is we just have spent so little time actually studying the actual story, reading the actual documents from the Founding Fathers, we don't recognize the significance of the role faith actually did play. 

Rick Green [00:19:05] Another break, folks. We'll be right back. You're listening to The WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:20:15] Thanks for staying with us on The WallBuilders Show. Let's get the last part of today's program for Rebuilding Liberty. You're listening to Rebuilding liberty. Week number three is what we're airing today. Let's jump right back in. 

Tim Barton [00:20:26] But even the documents that we do know. George Washington delivered what's considered the most significant political address ever done, the Farewell Address. And in his Farewell Address, where he gave lots of really great advice that we should have remembered a long time ago, where he talked about things like avoiding foreign entanglements, focus on American problems, let the rest of the world solve their own problems. He talked about avoiding debt. He talked to make sure you love principle more than you love party. And this is something that's important for all of us to remember, because we live in an era that is so polarized that we see both sides more concerned about their side winning at times than what the principle actually is. And we want to make sure we are more driven by a principle than by what party or identification somebody might have in their political system. No, no, it's a principle that drives us. But what's the most significant in my mind about this? He has one point where he says, of all of the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity. Now keep in mind, we're talking about politics and prosperity. So really, we're saying, how can America as a nation politically succeed, do well? What would be the key to America's success? This is what he's writing about. So, he says of all the things we could do that would make America successful, he said religion and morality are indispensable supports. If you read the Farewell Address... There's only once he said something was indispensable, meaning you can't do it without this. Apparently, everything else he was like, ah, give or take. This he said, no, this is indispensable. We will not succeed without religion and morality. In fact, he went further. He said, in vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars. Anybody that opposes religion and reality, George Washington said, they're not a patriot. They don't love America. Because people that love America that are patriots, they would want religion and morality. Now this seems maybe a little extreme for a lot of people today. That's literally in the Farewell Address and that was his last year in office. The following year, John Adams becomes president. John Adams in the next year, writes a letter to the militia of Massachusetts where he says, our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. John Adams acknowledges what they fundamentally knew. In America, just to connect the dots, in America, we believe in freedom. But freedom only works if you have a moral people. If you give freedom to immoral people, it looks like Chicago every weekend, right? Like that's not a good scenario. Freedom only works, if you a moral people. Well, how do you have immoral People? It's only through religion. And also worth noting, when they say religion and morality, they're not ambiguously saying, well, whatever religion you identify, whatever religion, you choose. No, they were very specific. It was the religion of Jesus Christ. It was a religion of Christianity. And the morals were the morals of Jesus from the Bible. What they're saying is Christianity in the Bible, and we can go further with that, but this is something that earlier historians used to identify. Back in the 1800s, there was a author, a historian, his name was Stephen Caldwell. He wrote many things about the Founding Fathers, but in one of the books, he was acknowledging the Christian influence on the Founding Fathers. And here's part of the way he explained it. It was in the spirit of true Christianity that the hospitality and blessings of the United States were offered to all the world. All were invited to enjoy it. Okay, already acknowledging like what was happening in America. This was something bigger than America. But he continued. The Christian men of that day intended the nation should continue to be a Christian nation. They did not place Christianity beneath nor over their political institutions rather it was to be the atmosphere which they breathed to administer them. Now already like let's just acknowledge they said it wasn't about was the government more important to Christianity? No this wasn't a competition. Christianity was the atmosphere in which everything worked. They continued, or he continued, it was a source of their inspiration and they sought to make it the blessing available for human advantage. These institutions and laws were to be the instruments of Christian men for the good of the whole human family. Now, the Founding Fathers were trying to do something big picture, but let me draw your attention to the fact he acknowledged Christianity was the atmosphere. This was not gonna work, right? It's like the oxygen that we breathe. It doesn't work without oxygen. And there's a lot of people that are very divided about how do we resolve some of the problems in the nation and I think we've confused some of the issue right where if we were talking about a vehicle and they're like well you need a different engine in this vehicle and I'm like I think you just need gas, right? Like I I think that's the problem. We're just out of gas, right?  It doesn't matter how souped up you make your vehicle. It doesn't matter what kind of tires or lift, it doesn't matter  if you don't have gas it's not going to run. This was Christianity. It was the atmosphere of which everything was birthed out of this notion. And when we look at this today, most Americans would go, OK, that just seems extreme. Well, again, it's probably because we don't know that much history. If you even look at his painting, this is the very famous painting. It was commissioned, actually, back in the earlier 1900s. It's not that old, relatively speaking, to some of the other paintings that we could highlight along the way. But the guy who did this painting, he, in wanting to do a good job representing the Founding Fathers, he actually did some research and he studied the Founding Fathers.  And one of the things he put in this that a lot of people have never paid attention to, in the bottom right corner, there's a book open on the table. That book is a Bible. It's open to Matthew chapter 5. And part of what we that study history understand, the Bible was the most quoted source by the Founding Fathers, and it wasn't even close. So far above and beyond everything else. In fact, even the Constitution Convention, they quoted the Bible often in their speeches, their conversations, their debates. The Bible was a part of everything going on. Well, this is what the painter discovered in his research. And there's actually no record of what all books were there or weren't there as they're doing the Convention. But what he concluded was that I can't imagine that people that were this influenced by the Bible, that knew the Bible this well, would have done something so significant and not had the Bible with them. Now, again, the reason I want to point this out is because even when we look at things that we think are obvious, it's an obvious painting. We've all seen it before. And yet most people have never noticed there's a Bible literally open on the table in this painting. 

Rick Green [00:26:36] Alright everybody, we're out of time. We will get the conclusion tomorrow. All of it will be available at our website, wallbuilders.show. You've been listening to The WallBuilders Show.