Foundations Of Freedom Thursday Starts

Rick Green 0:07

Welcome to the intersection of faith and culture. It's the WallBuilder show taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. It's Thursday, and every Thursday here at WallBuilders, we call it Foundations of Freedom Thursday. It's your chance to ask questions. You can send those questions into radio at wallbuilders.com, and they can be about the Constitution, the declaration, the elections, application of all those things. Whatever you want to ask, send it into radio at wallbuilders.com. Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. Guys, we got a lot of great questions. Uh, this one's I I'm gonna read you a little bit of a long one here, so get ready, hold on tight.

A Pastor Reacts To Election Results

Rick Green 0:41

This one is from Pastor Jim and it's post-election thoughts, he said, from the upper Midwest. See, God showed me a scripture verse this morning. It describes the heart attitude of the majority of those who voted in Tuesday's election. It aligns with a word fellow pastor used in his post-election text, short-sightedness. The scripture is Hebrews 12, 15 through 16. 15, see to it that there be no immoral or godless person like Esau who sold his own birthright for a single mill. Wow, that is applicable to this guy's. Okay, sorry, back to his letter. Our national Christian heritage and legacy sold out for temporary affordability. For the majority of voters, no consideration of any eternal biblical values or any concerns about abortion, LGBTQ, and transgender lies, open borders, mass illegal immigration, defunding the police, Sharia law, Islamic domination, Marxism, socialism, communism. The warning of the Hebrews 12 verse is this As followers of Christ, we must never compromise our absolute rock, solid, foundational biblical convictions and values for anything, including temporary affordability. But that a majority of voters in this November's election are willing to discard our nation's priceless, hard-won Christian heritage for the sake of their bank accounts. Another thought, godly and now former Iowa Attorney General Brennan Byrd told the forty of us pastors at the Reclaim Iowa rally that what the state of Iowa needs, what the nation needs, is a revival, a return to Christ. She is right. Now, guys, before you uh comment, he sent one other note. He said, Uh, please know I strongly rely on your wall builders' ministry to help me biblically understand current events. Last night, my son lost his race to be governor. So his son was actually running for governor, guys. With that said, can you please help me understand last evening's nationwide election results? Uh, and then uh talked about all those different issues and how people ignored that. He said, Clearly, a majority of our voters do not have the heart and character of our founding fathers or the World War II generation. Last evening's extremely short-sighted election results are a striking example of those who uh much more demand their rights instead of choosing to do what is right. God is our refuge and strength and ever-present help in trouble, Psalms 46.1. Pastor Jem. All right, thanks, Pastor Jim, for sending that in. Uh man, there's a lot there, guys, but in essence, the short-sightedness. I think that is that is a great word because we talked about it here on the program. People kind of, you know, uh didn't get some of the things they want, and so they stayed home. And that certainly would be short-sightedness.

Putting Biblical Issues In Order

Tim Barton 3:07

Thoughts, comments. Yeah, I think it's completely correct that it was short-sightedness. I I think there's a lot of things that you can add into the equation. I I think, frankly, a lot of Christians are very poor at prioritizing uh a biblical hierarchy when it comes to the issues. Uh, first of all, the Bible tells us that we are supposed to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. It's Matthew 6.33. Great verse. Uh, if it's not part of your memory verse already, uh, you should add that to a memory verse, Matthew 6.33. With that being said, the Bible's clear. Righteousness is a is a priority for believers, for Christians. You could add to the fact the Bible in dozens of places talks about God hating sin and God hating evil and God hating wickedness. Uh, it tells us the fear of the Lord is to hate evil. I think a couple of components in this is Christians in the midst of being frustrated, disappointed, discouraged, whatever it might be, we have not done a good job of prioritizing what are the issues of righteousness. Number one, and then number two, we've become, I think culturally, when you look at Christians around the nation, we've become uh unfortunately familiarized and comfortable with what the Bible calls evil. And we have lost the idea that we're supposed to hate what is evil, and even as I say that, I I can already imagine people have been like, well, yeah, but Jesus is love and Jesus didn't hate. I I would challenge you, go back and do a little deeper reading of your Bible. But I say this because I think this would have had a major impact and role in the election. When it looks to Christians being short-sighted, I think that's correct that that they gave up some of what should have been the Christian prioritization of the issues in favor of what their perception of affordability was. Now, I say perception because as we've pointed out before, the idea that you're going to elect Democrats and their policies are going to make things more affordable, that all of a sudden gas and groceries are going to be more affordable is ludicrous and inconsistent with reality. Look at the places where Democrats have been in control, whether it be a California and New York, take the places where they have been in control the longest and then look and see where is gas most expensive, where's the cost of living the highest? Where are groceries the most? It's always in the liberal Democrat controlled areas. So it doesn't even logically make sense that people are gonna say, well, I know the Democrats might not be good on the issue of life, on the issue of marriage, on the issue of gender, et cetera, et cetera. But right now we have an affordability crisis. So I'm gonna vote for Democrats because they're gonna make life more affordable. Well, you're wrong on both fronts. You're wrong on voting for people that openly advocate for max boosting abortion, for ultimately embracing policies like we just saw this week in California, where they're saying, hey, if you want to have a relationship with three and four people, it's no problem. We accept and embrace that. So people that are rejecting the traditional view of human sexuality, the traditional view of relationships in marriage, very much in a Romans one scenario, that they're rejecting the truth of God, believing the lie, they give themselves over to their debased passions. That this is verbatim Romans I and then we can go further again. This they're wrong on the issue of the the prioritization of the moral component, but then they're wrong thinking that I'm gonna vote for a Democrat, even though they're wrong on the moral issues, at least my gas and groceries will be more affordable. That's never happened when you look at where Democrats have been in charge over the last many decades. So, all that to say, I think what the the the point of the the email was is fundamentally correct. But then again, I I would point out that we just we've not done a good job as Christians of identifying what is the correct priority of the issues because the Bible does have different tiers of maybe where what would bring God's judgment the fastest. God created in an ascending order, there's a hierarchy in creation. There are some things that as a Christian we would say, hey, this is fundamentally more important. You have to elevate this in your priority. And certainly, if we said, hey, so here's your two options, you can have cheaper gas and groceries, but they're gonna murder every unborn child, or you can save unborn children, but your gas and groceries might be more expensive. That those are not on the same equity scale, though those are not an even balance 50-50. But unfortunately, we have Christians that are confused on what is the prioritization of the issues. And by the way, that I don't think we live in a world where you can only have one or the other, but this is unfortunately what motivated a lot of the vote. And I think part of why people were willing to make uh that that trade and that compromise is because we have forgotten what the Bible says about hating evil, that God hates evil, that God opposes evil. And so we've kind of just made our peace with some of this. And you know what? That's people sometimes they just sometimes they just need to murder their unborn child. So we're gonna let that happen and have better gas and grocery prices. Uh, so so I I think that's part of of where there's a major failure inside the church. And I don't uh mean to just get on a soapbox here, but I think those are contributing factors to the the analysis takeaway from this last election.

SPEAKER_00 8:47

I think

The Affordability Argument Falls Apart

SPEAKER_00 8:48

that's exactly right, Tim, and it's interesting. You hit some things I was thinking about that I think are real key. Uh, but I've heard you talk about before what you call stage one thinking, and this is kind of stage one or level one thinking, and I think the Democrats have misinterpreted the results. Uh, they think that this was a repudiation of Republicans and Republican policies, and it wasn't. It was we're ticked at the Republicans, so we're gonna give you guys a shot. And what we've seen is since Democrats are are now taking control and there's a shift of power going, and and legislatures are being prepared for change, they're rolling out at in in Texas, they rolled out a thousand bills that they're they're preparing to file in January. So they're telling you what they're gonna do and what's important to them. And so as they're rolling out their agenda, it's like you're doubling down on the very things that caused people to be mad at what was going on. You you've misread this, and and you're gonna you're gonna find out that this is not what they wanted. And so it's really interesting. Going back to what you said, Tim, on those three issues, I was gonna point out that for me, I don't care whether someone is running for tax assessor, collector, if they are running for, I I don't know, if they're running for school board, if they're running for dog catcher, I'm going to ask them, where are you on life, where are you on gender, and where are you on marriage? Because if you don't get those three issues right, your your whole value system is twisted, which means your role of government is out of line. You think that the government will do everything and should do everything and tell me what's right and wrong, you don't have a sense of right and wrong. And so I don't care if someone's a government welder, if it's an elected office, I want to know where you are on those three issues. Because if you don't get the issue of life right, if you don't get the issue of gender right, if you don't get the issue of marriage right, then you've missed the whole fundamental moral basis from which all decisions are made, economic decisions, bureaucratic decisions, everything else. You've just got a wrong worldview.

Tim Barton 10:35

And

Worldview Tests For Every Candidate

Tim Barton 10:36

to that point, for somebody that might be listening and going, wait a second, like why does it matter if a dog catcher uh has this a pro-life or pro-marriage position? Well, part of it is there's a fundamental question for anybody that's in any authority position, and really it's for all of life, it's what is truth and who decides? Right? We're like, where does right and wrong come from? Who gets to determine what is right and wrong? And so either it's subjective, so every individual determines for themselves, or it's collective, we just vote on it, and then whatever we determine, that's what we're gonna do, or there's an objective moral standard. And if you elect people to office that don't believe in an objective moral standard, and specifically, I would point out that the Bible is the greatest objective moral standard there is, Jesus was the greatest moral teacher there was. If you have people that get elected who do not acknowledge that fundamental reality, ultimately, and it's only a matter of time, ultimately they're gonna move to the place where they are going to start upholding or imposing a lesser value structure or a bad moral structure. And they're gonna think, well, it's because I get to decide because truth is subjective, or they're gonna say, well, because we voted on it, and because we voted, you don't get to have these rights. I I think this is part of the reality of the challenge. And I'm saying this again, helping connect dots for people that might go, why does it matter? Like we're we're we're having this person in the county who's not gonna do any of this kind of stuff. No, the worldview matters because anytime you have someone in an elected position representing the people, if they don't believe that there's a God, that our rights come from God, then they're not suited to be there because the primary purpose of government is to protect your God-given rights. So if you don't believe in God or God-given rights, you are not really qualified. And in this perspective, by the way, that's what the founding fathers would have argued and believed as well. If you don't believe in some of those fundamental things, then you're not qualified to serve there because the ultimate basic fundamental questions are is there right and wrong? Is there truth? And then who decides what that is? This is where the founding fathers universally agreed there is a moral foundation, the laws of nature, nature is God. There is a divine creator, and our rights come from him. That didn't used to be thought as a very high standard, but it's certainly something that when you consider where we are today, it's a much higher standard than most of what our elected officials would agree or acknowledge to this point.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

And Tim, going to the comment, you're exactly right. People say, well, why does that matter for a dog catcher? It's because it tells me your view of government. It tells me your view of what you think government should do. If you're wrong on those three issues of dog catcher, you're going to see government as being the answer to everything, and you want more of it. You want it bigger, you want more regulations, you want government to tell me what is right and wrong based on what you think is right and wrong. You no longer respect those standards and those limited government. You'll find the people who reject those three issues believe that government is the solution and we need more of it. We need greater of it, needs to be more intrusive, and we need to pay for it because the more you pay, the better government is. They'll have every single thing wrong. And so even if it's something as simple as dog catcher, why does life and marriage and gender matter? Because that will tell me exactly what you think about the role of government and what you want to do with government and you want it to intrude and grow. So that's that's that, and that was a great question to raise because people probably do say, why does it matter for dog catcher? Because those three questions of life and marriage and gender tell me everything about your view of what government should and shouldn't do, and therefore it tells me what you're going to do when you get control of government.

Rick Green 14:15

Well,

Dog Catcher Humor And Quick Break

Rick Green 14:16

most important question of the day, David, who did you vote for for dog catcher this year? Okay, quick break, everybody. We'll be right back. We've got another question coming up about whether or not the president can audit the election. Stay with us. You're listening to the WallBuilder show.

WallBuilders 250 Years Resources

Tim Barton 14:32

Hey guys, this is Tim Barton from WallBuilders. I want to let you know about a special landing page we have on the WallBuilders website. If you go to wallbuilders.com, there is a little box that says WallBuilders is 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 the place to go to celebrate 250 years.

Rick Green 15:35

Welcome back to the WallBuilder show. Thanks for staying with us. It's Foundations of Freedom Thursday. Send your questions into radio at wallbuilders.com. We're taking a um a survey. You can send in your guesses as to who David Barton voted for for dog catcher. And, I bet Tim voted for the other guy. I don't know.

Tim Barton 15:52

Well, Rick, I would just say to clarify, uh we actually are our own dog catchers. We call in our own coyotes and we shoot them ourselves. So uh we we don't export that work, we solve that problem. Uh, you know, contrary to some of these newly elected Democrats who want to present laws to maybe restrict or ban um AR-15s or suppressors or whatever else, well, uh, we still have some of ours, and we are using them to dispatch all of the bad coyotes that we can. So at this point, we are our own dog catchers.

Rick Green 16:26

We call it self-government around here. Uh okay, got a serious question for

Can A President Audit Elections

Rick Green 16:30

you. Can the president, uh, this one's from uh Beverly, she said, can uh Diamond, Ohio, by the way, can the president call for an audit of the election, even hand-counted paper ballots? So, well, you'd have to have paper ballots to do that. A lot of states don't have that. Uh, but can the president call for an audit? It's kind of a broad question because you've got to also say, what are the president's powers? What could the DOJ do? I guess. What do you guys think?

SPEAKER_00 16:53

Yeah, the Constitution's really clear that the states determine time, places, and manners of elections. Uh, that's why back when Jefferson and Adams ran for president, it took you seven to eight months to know the results of the presidential election, because each state had a different month, a different time, a different date, a different method of doing it, and it took months to know how the results were were going. And so that's that's the founding father's intent. Time, place, and manner belongs to the states. We've kind of standardized that. We've made it a single voting date out of convenience, but it still belongs to the states. And so the states are the ones that are in for that are charged with doing the voter rolls. The president tried to sue this time to to make sure the voter rolls are clean, that only citizens could vote, and the courts didn't didn't uphold his wishes on that because time, place, and matters still belongs to the states. Now, I I don't think the founding fathers ever considered the fact that you would have people illegally voting and that would not be dealt with by the states, but we're at that point where that for one side the the results they get is all they care about, not the process. So uh it's it's something the president can't do. If he were to try to do it, they would quickly strike it down. I don't think he would even try to do it because of the fact that his own attorneys say, hey, sir, the Constitution is really clear on this. Time, place, and manners of elections belong to the states, not to the feds.

Rick Green 18:15

Great. Next question up is from Monica. She said,

A Biblical Case For Church Engagement

Rick Green 18:18

I would like a biblical argument to take to my pastor to convince him that we as a church need to be more involved in the culture and he needs to speak on these issues to encourage involvement. Can you help me? Uh help me, folks. David Tell, I feel like I'm, you know, uh asking you to equip someone to go to their pastor and spark a re you know, a a freedom, you know, revolution, a what does uh Kurt Cameron call it? A breastfire of liberty. Yes, in their church. What would you say to someone that wants to know what to say to their pastor?

Tim Barton 18:49

Well, I I think we've talked about this quite a while over the years. Um, so Dad, if I I know you're probably thinking of your synopsis, I I would say that one of the most effective techniques to me is going and asking the pastor for clarity on specific issues. And and this is becoming increasingly significant because as we talked about already, when you look at some of the the basic moral pillars that as a Christian should be non-negotiables, uh whether it be life, whether it be gender, whether it be marriage, if if there are pastors that are not openly speaking to this, I would want to know, hey, Pastor, I I don't recall having heard you really get into and talk about this issue. And right now, even though if you look at abortions, even though the abortion mills, the planned parenthoods um that used to be very common are decreasing, the abortion pill is at an incredible high right now. It's estimated that there's far more people uh that are having abortions now because the abortion pill than ever before. And hey, Pastor, right, this was a big deal for for ladies, for you know, young uh individuals in our church in their teenage years in their 20s and 30s. You know, what how should we feel about this? Is this a biblical and moral issue? Or what about gender? Right, right now, our kids in school are hearing these things. And I would just I would maybe pick an issue or two and talk through the issue a little bit with a pastor and ask the pastor, could you talk about or teach on this? And this is a very clarifying issue for a couple of reasons, because these are not confusing issues in the Bible. The Bible is very clear on these issues, and if we have an issue in culture that is relevant in culture, that people are landing on the wrong side of the Bible, and I mean people that go to church, if they're landing on the wrong side of the Bible on these issues, and the pastor is not willing to speak on it. This is where we've talked about before. It's probably time for you to find a new church and be very clear to the pastor. I'm leaving because you are flatly refusing to teach the Bible on these cultural issues. Now, the pastor might argue, well, I don't deal with cultural issues, I just want to teach Jesus in the Bible. And I would say, Cool, let me take you to Jesus in the Bible. Let's

Shepherd Or Hireling In John 10

Tim Barton 21:07

go to John chapter 10. Because Jesus said in John 10 that he's the good shepherd, the sheep listen to his voice and they will not turn aside to another. And then Jesus does something interesting. He contrasts the good shepherd with the hireling. He says, The hireling is not so, the hireling sees the wolf coming, the hireling turns and flees, and the wolf comes and scatters the sheep. And you get this idea, right? That the wolf is just destroying the sheep, probably killing and whatever else as it goes on. But what's interesting about this, there's only one thing we know about the hireling. The hireling sees the wolf coming and it will not protect the sheep from the wolf. That's all we know about the hireling. And and I would say, Pastor, do you not think there is a wolf coming for the sheep of this church for our kids? Do you not think that the devil right now is actively targeting our kids? kids that there's literally like there are so many wolves right now coming for our kids. Do you not do you not see that? Or do you think that your job is not to protect the sheep from the wolf? Because if your job is not to protect the sheep from the wolf, Jesus actually defined what that is. That's called the hireling, not a shepherd. And and I know that probably sounds harsh to some people, but like this is this is just the reality of where I am now. I am so tired of pastors pretending like they have the moral high ground for saying they're not going to defend the sheep from the wolf and all they're going to do is talk about Jesus. Jesus talked about these issues. Jesus said in Matthew 19 for this reason a man leaves his father and mother is joined with the wife the two become one flesh. She defined genders and he defined marriage that the Jesus taught on these issues. And so again when pastors don't want to do this it's either because they're a hireling or they're incredibly ignorant to what's actually going on. And I do think that having the conversation saying hey pastor can can you give some clarity like would you be willing to teach on some of these issues to make sure that that the people in our church are equipped to know what truth is. So we're not led astray because a thief comes only to steal to kill and destroy and we see a lot of that happening in culture could you help? And so I would go and ask the pastor some questions. I would ask the pastor to engage uh and if the pastor again pushes back then I would go to John 10 the shepherd and the hireling that is where I would land and how I would encourage engaging the pastor.

SPEAKER_00 23:39

Dad, what would you say?

How To Challenge Pastors With Jesus

SPEAKER_00 23:41

I would probably set them up because I know that pastors are defensive and have their own arguments. I would get outside the arguments they would use. I would say Pastor I really I I hope you can be more like Jesus. I want to hear you teach more of what Jesus taught. Oh I I really want to do that. Great. While we're at it uh Jesus was talking about no fault divorce over here and I haven't heard you do a sermon on that. Would you would you please tell me what Jesus said about that. And while you're at it would you also go over to Matthew go over to Matthew 19 and talk to me about capital gains tax which he talked about about but you don't tax those that make income so I I and I would take a lot of these things that Jesus taught about and we've covered several of those on here I would go through and say I I just want you to talk about what Jesus did. I don't want you to get political just at least do what Jesus did in the Roman Empire. Surely you can do that. And if they're unwilling to and that the other thing I'd point you to is our website there is a a survey that that we did with George Barnett called God's People Want to Know. And it goes through and shows 14 different things that God's people in the pulpit want pastors to talk about and it shows the biblical basis for that and it shows the fact that between well it was between zero and 10% of pastors were willing to address those issues even though they're clearly laid out in the Bible. So that's the other thing. Put that survey in front of the pastor and say how come you won't address the things the Bible does and see what's said.

Tim Barton 25:06

And Dad, there's so many books out there right now also for resources. I I know for a time pastors didn't feel like they were equipped and qualified to speak to the issues but we could point out our our friend Pastor Jim Garlow his book Well Versed and then his newer book Reversed you could go to Wayne Grudom who most people might if they know the name especially pastors they might know it for systematic theology but Wayne Grudham had another book called Politics According to the Bible where he took political issues and showed here's what the Bible says about those issues. And I'm just using those as examples there's lots and lots of books and resources out there that can be helpful for pastors because it's one thing if the pastor doesn't feel equipped it's something entirely different if the pastor says hey my ideology my philosophy my worldview is I don't get involved in politics and then again you have a totally different problem. Hey pastor is marriage political or biblical is is unborn life like Psalm 139 is that political or is that biblical? Because what's happened in a lot of churches is they have allowed culture to take over issues and then they pretend like well I can't talk about them because they're political no they're only political because for the last 40 years the church hasn't been teaching on it but fundamentally and from the beginning those were biblical topics and issues.

Wrap Up And Next Steps

Rick Green 26:24

So that's a bit of the summation I think uh Rick from my Dad and I great answers guys we got more there on our website wallbuilders.com and of course more questions from the audience you can send those into radio at wallbuilders.com out of time for today tomorrow is Good News Friday you don't want to miss that so be sure to tune in tomorrow and thanks so much for listening to the WallBuilders Show