Why Rebuilding Liberty Matters Now

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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. We are in the middle, right in the middle, of a brand new series put out by Patriot Academy and wall builders and all of our partners out there. We got David Barton teaching in it, Tim Barton teaching in it, Chris Dunham. We got Lance Wall now. 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 uh and it's just it's all about, and of course, we got sprinkled in with John Amachuku 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. 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 wall builders' 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're 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 us. Let's jump in to Rebuilding Liberty.

Tim Barton On Foundations First

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The purpose of this course is to make sure that they know why that flag is worthy of being waived.

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Wherever you are watching from, we're not rebuilding a structure without giving the right foundation.

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And our burden should be to transform a moment into a movement. The entire globe is moving towards the right. Recommend this edition of the Bible to the inhabitants of the United States. I thought our founding fathers, a bunch of atheists, agnostics, and deists who wanted a secular public square who didn't want the Bible in schools. Fight like it's your last breath. But know this: the truth is over the facts that God's not giving us fear to fear. What a power level is out of mine. What do I want my legacy to be on the way out? That I was safe or that I was dangerous.

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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?

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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 bricklayer 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 with him and going into battle uh quite often. Um I truly believe for such a time as this, Wall Builders 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.

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Yes, man. Well, it's my pleasure to be with you guys tonight. I want to start with a Bible verse.

John Adams On Christianity’s Common Ground

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I have several, I think we'll know some of these. Psalm 121, or excuse me, 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 tells 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. Uh, 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 we debated all the time, collective founding fathers, he's referring to, right? We 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 women'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, every major issue in the Declaration, she points out having preached from 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

Pastors Shaping Revolutionary Ideas

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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 fathers got together was September 6th, 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 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 an 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 ponder and 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 were like, all right, everybody, the next two hours is prayer and Bible study, there would be a like audible groan in the room from Christians, people that know and love Jesus. I know and love Jesus, but two hours is a long time to spend in prayer and Bible study.

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Alright, folks, gotta take a quick break. We'll be right back. You're listening to the Wall Builder Show.

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Hey guys, this is Tim Barton from Wall Builders. I want to let you know about a new resource that should be a tool in your toolbox. This is the reprint of Thomas Jefferson's original draft of the Declaration of Independence. Now, there's lots of reasons it would be cool to own a reprint like this, but one of the things that I want to highlight is not only is this a reprint that is in Thomas Jefferson's own hand and cursive, it shows some of his edits along the way, which is really fun, but it also shows what Thomas Jefferson thought was the most significant grievance in the original draft. It's the longest grievance, it's the last grievance. It was a grievance against the slave trade, arguing actually also against slavery, and arguing for the humanity of all that were enslaved. Thomas Jefferson thought that was the most important. Now, it didn't make it in the final draft, and we will explain why in the resource packet you get when you order one of these copies. But friends, this is something that you want in your collection. Go to wallbuilder.com

Congress Opens With Prayer And Psalm 35

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and look for Thomas Jefferson's original draft of the Declaration of Independence. This is Tim Barton from Wall Builders with another moment from American history. As the American War for Independence began, the president of Yale was the Reverend Natalie Daggett. When New Haven, the home of Yale, came under attack, about a hundred citizens rushed out to meet the British. The Reverend Daggett galloped by them on horseback, his clerical robes flowing behind him in the wind, and he took up a solitary position atop a hill. The 2,500 British soon put the townsfolk to flight, but the Reverend Daggett continued to stand alone, firing down on the advancing troops. A British officer confronted him. What are you doing there, you old fool? If I let you go, will you ever fire again on the troops of his majesty? Nothing more likely, was the preacher's reply. America's early pastors personally confronted danger and courageously led their communities. For more information on Pastor Daggett and other colonial patriots, go to wallbuilders.com.

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Welcome back to the Wall Builder 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 wall builders radio site, wallbuilders.show. Let's jump back in to where we left off.

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These aren't even the spiritual leaders of the nation. These are the political leaders, but they recognize the significance of what they were doing, and they knew they needed a connection in faith in. 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

Prayer Proclamations Challenge Secular Myths

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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 gonna need God's help and 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 it 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 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 the 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, okay, let's just 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 a God, and an atheist says there is no God. Okay, if you're an atheist, agnostic, and deist, you know what you're never gonna do? That. Right? I mean, you wouldn't even do one proclamation, much less 1400 by 1815. And this is something that was very common on 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 is after we've 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 just seen happen. And he goes through and lists what in our mind might be rather insignificant. Uh, that there was a Colonel Green who was able to like repel the British. And then Colonel Smith, that that they defended a fort and things again, we might feel insignificant, but when 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

Providence And “Miracles” In The War

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is a miracle, right? This is amazing. To go further, he told her that we have just destroyed a 20-gun British man of warship and a 60-gun British man 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, D.C., 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 I was eating dinner tonight, and I heard men in another room, and and 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 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 Abigail was the best explanation of what 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 levels 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 acknowledgments. George Washington in 1778, he wrote to General Thomas Nelson Jr., uh, who is 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 the saying 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 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 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 and 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. 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 of Paris uh is actually still on display up in Washington, D.C. 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 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 end 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.

A Peace Treaty Named The Trinity

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It says, In the name of the most holy and undivided Trinity. Do you know America became a nation in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit? 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 that when you see quotes like from John Adams to Jefferson, where he said the general principles on which a father's achieved independence were the principles of Christianity, where they found common ground, where they found unity was Christianity, today we look at that, and a lot of people think, well, you're just 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.

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Another break, folks. We'll be right back. You're listening to the Wall Builder Show.

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Hey guys, this is Tim Barton from Wall Builders. I want to let you know about a special landing page we have on the Wall Builders website. If you go to wallbuilders.com, there is a little box that says Wall Builders are celebrating 250 years of American freedom and independence. Click on that little box and it will take you to the landing page for 250 years of America. And on the landing page, there are several different little boxes you can click on. One of them is for events. It will let you know of some major events that are that are coming up that are going on that you can actually come and participate in. You can come here. My dad or I give speeches, tell them the stories about the birth of the nation, about the founding fathers, the faith connection in America. There's also a tab for resources that you can click on, and it will take you to lots of different speeches and sermons and documents and proclamations from the founding era. And then there's also a little tab that will take you to the wall builder store with lots of resources, all the things that maybe a hat you want to wear, a shirt to wear, or other wall builders products to read. This is a place to go to celebrate 250 years.

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Thanks for staying with us on the Wall Builder 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.

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But even the documents that we do know, George Washington delivered what's

Washington’s Indispensable Supports

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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 about 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 right 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 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 and prosperity. So really we're saying, how can uh 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 of 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. Anyone that opposes religion and morality, 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 immoral 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 have immoral people. Well, how do you have a moral 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're 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 Calwell. 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

Morality, Christianity, And The Founding Story

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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. Now, already, like let's just acknowledge, they said it wasn't about, was the government more important to Christianity? No, that 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 but let me draw your attention to the fact he acknowledged Christianity was the atmosphere. This was not gonna work, right? It's just 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 you need a different engine in this vehicle. And I'm like, I think you just need gas, right? Like, I think that's a problem. Where's 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, okay, that just seems extreme. Well, again, it's probably because we don't know that much history. If you even look at this 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 five. 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 in 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 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 uh 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

Where To Watch And Share Next

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and not have 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.

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All right, everybody, we're out of time. We will get the conclusion tomorrow. All of it will be available at our website, wobblers.show. You've been listening to the Wobbleers Show.